A long time ago, M. Night Shyamalan was a groundbreaking up-and-coming director. A long time ago Will Smith was the Fresh Prince. A long time ago Jaden Smith was a twinkle in his parent’s eyes. And a long time ago, I was fortunate enough not to have ever heard of a film they worked on together.

Some people are going to have liked After Earth; it’s going to have its fair share of positive reviews around the web. This, however, is not going to be one. I found After Earth to be a chore to watch from the disjointed, several-day encompassing opening scene to the obvious ending.

Father and son Will and Jaden Smith play father and son Cypher and Kitai Raige. Pops is a General of the Ranger Corps, a legendary warrior whose renown casts a mighty large shadow for his son, in training to follow in his footsteps. The burdens placed on being such a hero – and a shared family tragedy – have strained the father/son dynamic between our two leads. When a mission takes a disastrous turn, the pair is required to rely on each other in ways they had never expected.

There was a lot I didn’t like about the flick, but I almost hate to admit what bothered the most because it is actually relatively minor. Everyone in the film has this weird accent; I can’t even place it, but whatever they were aiming for, it was incredibly uneven. Everything starts with a quick voice-over introduction by Kitai, and it’s downhill from there. One of my favorite character actors, Glenn Morshower, follows up immediately, confirming that I would spend the balance of the film wondering why it was bothering so much.

Unfortunately, I had a great deal of time to spend with that thought. After Earth has a linear plot that is easily apparent to anyone watching within the first fifteen minutes of the flick. There are several action-packed set pieces, but the pacing at which they appear leaves the audience with long stretches of watching the younger Smith run across an admittedly beautiful landscape.

That’s the one thing I will give the flick: it is absolutely beautiful. The landscapes of both Earth and Nova Prime are stunning. The practical sets are woven wonderfully into the digital backgrounds. The science fiction technology of 1,000 years in the future is also awesome, though their capabilities are conveniently neutered when it fits the needs of the plot.

Despite the fall that Shyamalan has taken in the eyes of many movie goers, I’m much more willing to forgive flicks like The Last Airbender and The Happening because he’s still the guy that wrote and directed Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense and The Village (Yes, I liked The Village … what of it?). But when the best I can come up with is, “I really liked the bit with the bird,” then maybe it’s time to succumb to the peer pressure.

But seriously … the bit with the bird? Good stuff.

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M. Night Shyamalan is exactly who you’d expect: an incredibly down-to-earth, self-aware director. During his half hour Q & A after the 10th anniversary screening of Signs at the Philly Film Festival, he described his experiences with Mel Gibson, his inability to recgonize an adolescent Abigal Breslin and his love of his craft. Note: Because I can’t keep typing Shyamalan for the next two pages, I’m going to call him what everyone else calls him — Night. Let’s be honest that is such a cool name for a horror/thriller film director/writer.

You know that Night is down to earth, because during the night he entertained the Philly Film audience with his inability to recognize his stars in adulthood. He admitted having dinner with his family one night when an attractive young woman approached him. Thinking she was a fan, he smiled, greeted her and then assumed she’d move on. When she didn’t, they experienced an awkward pause when she asked if he remembered him. He didn’t. That was 15-year-old Abigail Breslin who played Bo, the youngest child in Signs, when she was around five. To be honest, I completely understand. The currently blonde-haired, blue-eyed Breslin looks nothing like the adorable chubby-cheeked girl with glossy brown hair.

Like most directors, he’s a total fan of his actors and described being charmed by Mel during the filming of Signs and experiencing Will Smith’s mega-watt superstar-charisma in After Earth. He stated he didn’t have a crazy Mel experience, but felt the true power of Mel’s uber-charm. As a director, Mel not only knew which shots Night might use, but sometimes his natural charisma seeped into Graham’s character. Night admitted finding himself charmed during filming, but having to remind himself to ask Mel to tone it down. Graham contained a different humor from Mel. He wanted a deliberately stark, emotionless performance to reflect the character’s hollowed out existence. While sometimes he remembered to correct Mel in filming, he admitted cutting down scenes in editing that slipped through his fingers. He underwent a similar experience with Will Smith. In an awestruck tone, he stated that stars are called superstars for a reason, because you can’t stop falling under their spell.

He equally loved Abigail’s performance and didn’t pull any Steven Spielberg-esque tricks to get reactions from her. (Spielberg described opening presents for his first child actor to catch the child’s reaction on film.) Before she filmed the final dinner scene, he explained the scene from Mel’s character’s perspective so she could react appropriately. He joked that after she knocked it out of the ballpark none of the adult male actors wanted to follow her.

He is a total film geek because he gleefully asked if the audience wanted to know who he originally cast in the film, before blurting out Tom Hanks and Mark Ruffalo. I agree. Both would’ve done excellent jobs. But, I would’ve missed watching Phoenix’s excellent abs work under his shirt. Night admitted he initially couldn’t choose between Abigail and another equally capable child actress, but Abigail’s screening felt more authentic to him. He became equally cheerful when explaining they made crop circles around the world while filming Signs, but he was disappointed he couldn’t tell people until after the movie. In a way, the cop in the film stating it’d be difficult to coordinate an international crop circle effort was wrong.

While the critical film audience viewed Signs as beneath his earlier works, he didn’t write Signs for the film viewing audience, but for middle Americans who might not care about the Glassman or ghost-seeing children. He based the script on a woman trapped by a subway in a circumstance similar to Graham’s wife. He admitted as a beginning director he brought his entire bag of tricks to his first two big films, but wanted to do something for the ordinary American while sitting at Denny’s with his family. 

As you’d expect, he loves participating in movies, but doesn’t want to give up control by starring in another person’s project. As an Indian he feels it’s more difficult to find film parts and admits he cast a Caucasian in the lead, he couldn’t believably cast himself as the brother. Plus, as more people recognize him, it’s doubly difficult to pull a Hitchcockian cameo. He’s absolutely right. During the Signs 10th anniversary screening, when his mysteriously foreboding character appeared, the audience cheered happily.

However, Night’s not only a film geek, but a director whose films bring together other geeks. When in Paris, he met a honeymooning couple who revealed Signs catalyzed their relationship. The husband showed the Signs crop circle he tattooed on his back.

I never quite understood Night’s intentions in the late ’90s. I had such large expectations after watching Unbreakable and Sixth Sense, that everything following it didn’t measure it. He candidly admits after throwing his entire director’s bag of tricks at those late 90s films, he didn’t realize the press would build up expectations which they’d hold against his future projects. But, having re-watched Signs, and actually understood it, I now want to go back and watch the other post-Signs movies I panned. Maybe I misunderstood them, as well. Night is as down-to-earth as he seems, but is he as creepy? Yes. Each year his young children watch one of his movies in order, so the kids know what he does. It’s cool, but would you want to watch Sixth Sense in elementary school? And, have you seen his website? Cah-reepy!

For upcoming projects, in addition to the Will Smith project due in June, he’s working with SyFy on a show about the after life.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xya7dnN-w4

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I never saw Signs in the movie theater in 2002. Having watched The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, I didn’t quite understand what M. Night Shyamalan wanted to accomplish with Signs. It seemed small, provincial and leagues away from the awesomeness of a social worker ghost and the Glassman.

But, watching Signs during the 21st Philly Film Festival screening, I realized it’s deliberately small and provincial. It’s about a small town and an eggshell fragile family attempting to heal the ruptures caused by absent faith and an absent mother/wife. However, as the characters dealt with those issues, the film’s overarching narrative made me realize that it was also one of the CREEPIEST movies I’ve ever seen. Signs is definitely Halloween-worthy. Everything about Signs is creepy from the opening credits until the final swing. The film provides a classic cinematic thriller feeling along the lines of Rosemary’s Baby. Shyamalan didn’t use gore, bright lights or angry serial killers. Instead, he relied on barking animals, shadowy faces, loud noises and cut off fingers.

So, why is it one of the creepiest movies for the 21st century? Let me count the ways …

1. The credits set the stage
   Honestly, the credits creeped me out. The perfectly timed dramatic music displaying the credits through a green background with a faint light circle felt inexplicably menacing. Every time a new name flipped up, I jumped. My expecting something when seeing nothing helped set the stage for the rest of the film.
2. The mundane is scarier than the insane
   Signs felt like an old school Hitchcock where minor things such as a tire squeal, an open pizza parlor door, a field at nighttime, a picture in a book, and a rabid dog felt far scarier than contemporary torture porn flicks.
3. Absence is presence
   Let me tell you, the less you see in Signs, the freakier it is. By placing the visitors and the protagonists in shadows, by hiding most of the light, and by delaying the reveal of the antagonists and their plans, M. Night Shyamalan lets the audience’s imagination play. Shyamalan scared me more by showing me less. Scenes where Graham possibly faces a visitor through a closed door or in the middle of a corn field had me watching through open fingers.
4. Humor helps
   Because the film doesn’t scare the audience non-stop, it prevented me from becoming desensitized to the horror. When Merrill discusses his strike out career with the recruiter, Graham listens to the pharmacist’s confessions, and the kids wonder why crop circle geeks can’t get laid, I felt grateful, but I also kept wondering … what happens next?
5. It features creepy, pale-faced children 
   I have no idea why, but cinema loves creepy pale-faced children. From Children of the Corn to Village Of The Damned to The Shining, all I know is if I see a pale tow-headed child on the side of the road I should run in the opposite direction. Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin did a great job as Morgan and Bo. But, in the beginning, I wasn’t certain if they were in danger or they WERE the danger. Their pale emotionless faces when they initially discovered the crop circles and when facing their own pets, made me fear them and fear for them.
6. It cast crazy parental figures
   Come on, let’s be honest. Shyamalan cast two of the craziest men in Hollywood. Maybe they were sane then, but the underlying tension in their characters helped sell the story. Gibson did an excellent job as a man whose internal fractures quietly disrupted his family. Likewise, Joaquin Phoenix rocked as the slightly lost loser brother. My favorite scene in the film includes the two characters standing before the basement door facing the unknown threat. Nothing is hotter than two men protecting their family.
7. The setting is everything
   All of the film’s shots held an eerie tone. By setting the film within the middle of a farm and on the outskirts of a corn field, we see the protagonists isolated from assistance, which is already scary. However, the house itself also maintained that isolated feel from the basement to the kid’s room to Graham’s morning showers. By using silence and just showing the rooms without overtly insane action, had me on the edge of my seat.

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