Do I Still Love 1999's The Sixth Sense?

1999 Buena Vista Pictures
Written and Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, and Haley Joel Osment
MPAA Rating: PG-13;  Running Time: 108 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 10/10

I was on a youth group trip in late July of 1999, weeks before my senior year of high school, when my good friend Jonathan LeBlanc asked me, "Have you seen the trailer for The Sixth Sense?" I hadn't. I had no idea what The Sixth Sense was. "It looks really good," he said. I saw nothing about the film over the next few weeks, but I had a feeling about The Sixth Sense, based solely on Jonathan's enthusiasm, so I bought a couple of tickets, one for me, and one for my cousin Adrian, my movie theater partner in crime, for opening weekend (why did I not invite the close friend who recommended the film in the first place...who knows...). Unfortunately, back in Baton Rouge, at yet another youth group function, just hours before the movie was set to begin, Elizabeth Sleger foiled my plans. "Adrian," she said. "The Sixth Sense looks like a horror movie. What would the youth pastor think? You can't go see that!" Unfortunately, if something was said by Liz Sleger, who we were all in love with (including Jonathan, so maybe that's why I didn't invite him), Adrian listened. Adrian stayed with Liz and the other kids, and I suddenly had an extra movie ticket.
I was not deterred. 
My mom, who was at that time the opposite of my movie theater partner in crime, volunteered to go with me. My mom was famous back then for talking over and throughout movies, asking endless questions about not only what was going on, but what was going to happen (even and for some reason especially if you yourself had never seen the film before). However, though I was but weeks away from my 18th birthday and legal adulthood, I found myself strangely affected by her gesture, and I agreed with her coming along. Thanks to The Sixth Sense's incredible quality, mom would only make one comment throughout the entirety of the film (I'll get to that comment later). Adrian would soon see the movie with me in the theater too...because I almost immediately went back again, telling him there was no way he could let Liz Sleger stop him from witnessing one of the greatest films ever made.

 

Even its font choices are great

The Sixth Sense blew my mind. I've only had one better moviegoing experience--the first Jurassic Park, in a packed 1993 theater when I was 11.The only other theater experience that came close was The Dark Knight at the midnight premiere in 2008, when AMC sold out all 14 of its screens, and half the audience was dressed as Heath Ledger's Joker--what a night that was. To declare that my experience of seeing The Sixth Sense for the first time in the theater topped that Dark Knight night is really saying something. As I said, The Sixth Sense blew my mind. I'd go on to purchase the DVD the next year and watch it again and again. Now that it's been 25 years since its release...and a few years have passed since I've last viewed it, I've gone back to revisit it again. Do I still love The Sixth Sense?

* * *

The Sixth Sense begins modestly, credits blueish white text that expands, then vanishes against a black background, set to James Newton Howard's mysterious, foreboding score. The credits end with the phrase WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN, as the strings slither out amidst the wail of a ghostly chorus of many voices.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Against the darkness, a lightbulb slowly illuminates--fitting for a film full of major revelations. A woman in a nice purple and red dress comes down the stairs of musty, cobwebbed cellar to grab a bottle of wine. As she pulls it from a shelf, she suddenly pauses as if she's heard something, shivers at a sudden brush of cold air, and quickly heads back up the stairs to her husband. He waits in the living room of the couple's old, Gothically styled Philadelphia town house, lights off, candles lit, fire crackling in the old brick fireplace. An old Chet Baker jazz ballad crackles on vinyl. Less than five minutes in, and this already feels like a ghost story.

Is man but a reflection of his achievements?

The couple, a children's psychologist named Malcolm Crowe, played by an understated Bruce Willis, and his wife, Anna, an intentionally angelic Olivia Williams, drink wine as they look at the magnificent plaque the city has bestowed Malcolm. The couple have just arrived home from a ceremony earlier that night, in honor of Malcom's contributions to the city. Anna lauds her husband for his incredible work, telling him he has a "gift," mentioning that he's put everything second, even her, for the children of the city. Despite her comment, it's clear from the affection she shows (and the duo's shared humor at how Malcolm sounds like Dr. Seuss when he is drunk) just how deeply their love has grown, and it's clear that the city isn't just blowing smoke, as the couple's fireplace shelf is adorned with countless thank you letters from the children and families Malcolm has helped. Things become more romantic, and the duo head upstairs, only to find a shocking surprise. 

1/5 of New Kids on the Block!

Their bedroom window is broken, shattered glass on the floor, wind tousling the curtain. Suddenly, a shadow moves across the wall. Anna gasps, the two turn, and a man stands in their bathroom doorway. He's wearing nothing but underwear, covered with scratches and bruises, and he loudly rants about being a freak, and knowing why people are scared when they're alone. After a tense moment, Malcolm realizes the man is Vincent Grey, one of his old patients, now grown up. Malcolm thought Vincent was having severe mental struggles because of his parents' divorce, but Vincent violently insists this diagnosis was very wrong. Without warning, Vincent raises a gun, shoots Malcolm in the stomach, turns the gun on himself, and blows his own brains out, as the camera moves to a terrified, panicked Anna, rushing to Malcolm's side. Fade to black as the strings slither on.

I've come to wonder if there's a spiritual significance to this onscreen text

Images fade back onto the screen, a row of Philadelphia townhouses under a grey, autumnal sky, and briefly, a text that reads THE NEXT FALL. Malcolm sits on a bench looking at notes, seeming markedly different than he did earlier in the film. Gone is the jubilant, joyful man of the opening scene. This Malcolm is more somber, wounded, like a man mentally recovering from being shot. His new client, Cole, a nine-year-old boy played with a prodigy's skill by Haley Joel Osment, emerges from his home, looks around cautiously, then takes off at a full run for a local church. Malcolm finally catches up to Cole, who's hiding between pews, playing with a mix of small statuettes and action figures, repeating a phrase to himself in Latin, and wearing a pair of lensless glasses his abandoning father left behind. Malcolm apologizes for missing Cole's earlier appointment, and the duo make pleasant small talk, before Cole says "I'm going to see you again, right?" Cole then runs off, snatching a saint figurine from a back church shelf. Malcolm returns home to find Anna has eaten alone and gone to bed. He heads down to his basement office and translates Cole's Latin phrase to mean "Out of the depths, I cry to you O Lord."

 

The Sixth Sense is heavy with both spirituality AND history

We're then introduced to Cole's home life, where he lives with his hardworking mother, their puppy (a beautiful little Husky), and a general sense of hauntedness. Theirs appears to be a hardscrabble existence, as the apartment, though clean, is certainly old, and Cole's mother, Lynn, played by an unbelievably great Toni Collette, must work two jobs so they can get by. Lynn clearly loves Cole, but seems to be hardly holding it together. She receives quite a fright when she momentarily leaves the room as Cole is eating Coca Puffs, and comes back to find all the cabinets opened. From here, the film proceeds at a steady rhythm, with Malcolm having sessions with Cole in his home and around town, and making little headway. The seemingly well-behaved and strikingly mature Cole is regarded as a freak by his classmates. His maturity somehow doesn't translate to school conduct either, as Cole has gotten in trouble for drawing violent pictures, and writing violent, profane statements. In a remarkably tense scene, Cole even gets in a confrontation with his teacher Stanley, not liking how the instructor is looking at him. Cole screams "Stuttering Stanley" at the teacher repeatedly, until an angry Stanley screams back (while suddenly stuttering) "Shut up you freak!" and slams his fist on Cole's desk. Cole seems to harbor some hideous secret he can't tell anyone, an awful truth from which this behavior springs. Even Lynn, who has no idea what is actually going on, is at the end of her rope, but things come to a violent head when Cole is attending a classmate's birthday party,

The fact that neither of these actors received an Oscar is further proof of the Academy's incompetence

At the party, Cole sees a red balloon float to the top of a spiral staircase. He climbs up to find a small hideaway closet from which a strange voice emerges. Two of his bullying classmates follow him up the stairs, notice his fright, and toss him in. Cole understandably freaks out, but then things take a turn. Cole's freak out turns histrionic...and it doesn't sound like he's alone behind the door. Lynn rushes up the stairs, tries to get in, and finds the door won't open. Suddenly, Cole's hysterical screaming stops, and the door swings wide. Cole is unconscious and covered in scratches. Malcolm meets Lynn and Cole at the hospital, where the doctor, away from Cole, mentions the injuries, insinuating abuse. Malcolm has suspected someone is abusing Cole, but he's seen Cole and Lynn interact enough to know that it isn't her. He visits Cole in his bed, and the two have a conversation that turns everything far darker than Malcolm ever imagined.

Anybody seen Pennywise?

Malcolm tries an icebreaker bedtime story, making up a rambling, pointless tale about driving a car that Cole quickly dismisses. Cole, who's also been shown to be startlingly empathetic, asks Malcolm why he's always so sad. Malcolm asks how Cole could know that, and Cole says that Malcolm's eyes told him. Malcolm tries deflect, but Cole turns away, not wanting to share his secret with someone who isn't honest with him. Finally, Malcolm tells the truth about his own life, couched in an obvious bedtime story metaphor. Interspersed with Cole's scenes so far in the film, we've seen Malcolm fail to connect with his wife, showing up late for their anniversary and being ignored by Anna, as she writes the check and leaves. He even notices Anna is taking medication for depression, something she hasn't discussed with him. Malcom tells Cole that his marriage with Anna is floundering because of something that happened with one of his former clients, someone who Cole reminds him of, but who Malcolm failed to help. Malcolm thinks that helping Cole might finally make things right, as well as help him put his life and his marriage back together. Cole asks Malcolm how the story ends, but Malcolm admits he doesn't know. Cole finds Malcolm's honesty and investment in helping him comforting...and then he tells his secret. Shyamalan and Newton Howard have incorporated sounds of people (and animals) breathing deep within the soundscape of the film to effect the viewer's subconscious and now those voices and Newton Howard's horrific, near Lovecraftian score grow to a fever pitch, as Cole says:

"I see dead people...walking around like regular people...they don't see each other...they only see what they want to see...they don't know they're dead." 
"How often do you see them?" Malcolm asks, as Newton Howard's terrifying music elevates like a twisted, skeletal branch toward a full, yet empty moon.
"All the time. They're everywhere."

Michael Caine needs to track down Haley Joel Osment and give him his The Cider House Rules Oscar, stat. He can keep the one for Hannah and Her Sisters.

Cole swears Malcolm to secrecy. Malcolm leaves, horrified that his client is in a far worse mental state than he initially assessed. An car screeches by in the distance, as Malcolm walks down the street through the Philadelphia night, speaking into his tape recorder, coming to the horrific conclusion, "I'm not helping him."
From here on out, a carnival of horrors is unleashed, as now, for the most part, we see what Cole sees. Shyamalan, who's patiently, yet economically unfurled the plot of the film to this point, now immediately gets to the horror goods. After bringing a sleeping Cole home, Lynn calls the parents of one of the kids she thinks is physically assaulting Cole, and threatens them. Shyamalan then cuts to time transition shots, as he's done throughout the film. Earlier (and later), Shyamalan uses timelapse video of Philadelphia statues to subtly convey the film's themes (the statues are like ghosts...what or who they represented is gone, yet somehow still here). For this transition of a few hours, he shows witching hour footage, at first outside of and then inside of the Seer family apartment, conveying a foreboding sick and haunted feeling. Cole wakes up and has to pee, hesitates from fear, then finally runs to the bathroom. After the big revelation scene moments before, Shyamalan has already taken his film into memorable classic territory--the Spielberg comparisons begin there, with Cole's revelation a CGI-free colleague to the "Welcome to Jurassic Park" dinosaur reveal from Spielberg's terrible lizard feature...except, the monsters here are ghosts. Now, Shyamalan shoots this first sequence of explicit (i.e., not implied) horror in a way that immediately furthers "the next Spielberg" accolades he received after the film's release. 

Shyamalan films Cole from the bathroom doorway. The shot feels ominous, voyeuristic, then Shyamalan cuts to a closeup of the hallway thermostat as the temperature suddenly plummets. Cut back to the bathroom door view. Suddenly, a figure passes by the doorway to a loud, asynchronous orchestral blast. In my theater on first viewing, I, along with the majority of theater goers jumped out of our seats. Several people yelled "oh shit!" because going to the movie theater was better in the 90s. Cole turns his head to look toward the doorway, shivers, and breathes steam. He walks toward noises suddenly coming from the kitchen, and the camera shifts to his POV as he tentatively moves down the hallway to the kitchen doorway. Shyamalan cuts to a shot of Cole looking into the kitchen, as he asks, "Mama?" Shyamalan then cuts back to Cole's view of the kitchen, as a woman in a bathroom angrily digs through the cabinets. And then she turns around. It isn't mama.

...

"No, dinner is NOT ready!" says this dark, monstrous mother. Fresh bruises cover her swollen face. "What are young gonna do?!" "You can't hurt me anymore!" she bellows at Cole, as she flips over her hands, and the camera cuts to a closeup of her slashed wrists. "Lenny! You're a terrible husband, Lenny!" Cole turns to run, and makes a manic dash for his tent. However, as Cole shuts the tent flap behind him, he looks back for a split second...and she's coming...down the hallway...straight for him. Cole, sobbing hysterically, turns on his flashlight, revealing a shrine of protection within, as he, as directed by Shyamalan, angrily tries to get it together, but can't move past his terrified sobs. Again, this is a nine-year-old boy, being played by a child of similar age. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more effective scene in a movie.

I swear they made Osment look at a real ghost

Maybe she's a nice lady in real life

Nothing like showing a nine-year-old your slashed wrists

Shouldn't have looked back

Nightmare fuel

I'm glad I was nearly 18 when this movie was released, and not 10, because I don't think I would have ever gotten up to pee in the middle of the night again

I wonder if anyone has ever taken inventory of every distinct figure Cole keeps in his tent

SERIOUSLY, GET THIS KID AN AWARD!

This scene is a traumatic experience. The entire film, sans the opening scene, has been remarkably muted and only suggestive of horror. Not anymore. The weight that's pressed down on the audience here by Shyamalan is incredibly heavy. Cole isn't a troubled kid. He's a nine-year-old who, through no fault of his own, has seen dead people, gruesomely injured and disfigured, terrifying dead people, throughout the entirety of his life. Not just seen, though. Confronted and attacked by. I think it may take a youthful mind to realize just how messed up this is. In just this one instance of assumedly thousands, Cole is faced with domestic violence, suicide, and extreme anger and rage...and he goes through this every day of his life. Shyamalan also expertly fuses several deep childhood fears into this scene, from the fear of being faced with some unspeakable terror when you get up to pee at night, to attempting to find motherly comfort only to be rejected by a horrific monster. It's an incredible scene, and feels like the work of a master.
We then get a further breakdown of the film's rules. Malcolm meets Cole at his school play (Lynn, who works two jobs, can't make it to school functions), and afterward, the two walk down the school halls, where Cole stops dead in his tracks. A family in Revolutionary-era garb hang from the ceiling, glaring at Cole. Malcolm can't see them.

 

The makeup work by Stan Winston's team is absolutely fantastic

Often glossed over--there's a kid hanging there!

Come a little closer, Cole

This film has so many iconic moments, it's essentially just one big, long one

In a moment that invokes 1958's Vertigo, Cole says "Be real still. Sometimes you feel it inside, like you're falling down real fast, but really you're really just standing still. You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck? And the tiny hairs on your arm? You know when they stand up? That's them. When they get mad, it gets cold...please make them leave." 

Shyamalan, surely realizing the film is getting extremely heavy, then inserts a moment of levity that's another Spielbergian touch. Lynn and Cole leave a grocery store, with Cole and a large pumpkin sitting in the cart. Lynn suddenly gets a wild hair, and takes off running while pushing the buggy. Cole shuts his eyes, lifts his arms, and pretends he's flying, all captured from a camera mounted at the front of the buggy. It's movie magic.

Presto chango

Shyamalan follows this with yet another light moment (the first half of the film also features some well-timed comedic moments), as Cole watches the jerk actor kid in his class pop up on his TV in a cough syrup commercial. Cole throws a shoe at the kitchen TV, and then Shyamalan returns to the darkness. Lynn, bundled up, complains that despite what the landlord says, the thermostat must be broken because it's freezing. She then sits at the table with Cole, and as they eat, she asks him why he keeps taking his grandmother's pendant from its place in a drawer, and moving it. Cole continuously denies moving it...but he and Lynn live alone. Finally, Lynn loses it, yelling "Go!" and sending him to his room without dinner. The tragedy of this moment is, Lynn has no idea that Cole was just being yelled at by an angry robed woman in this very kitchen.

There are already enough angry women yelling at him in here!

As Cole walks down the hallway toward his room, his terrified puppy runs past him. He turns his head to watch the dog run away, and a figure passes in front of him, down the hallway, right in front of the tent...and into his room. Cole turns his head to see a boy just a few years older than him, who insists Cole come with him to see his dad's gun. The boy then turns his head...and the bloody back of it is blown out. Shyamalan then cuts to a crying Lynn, upset with herself and yet unsettled from the encounter she just had with Cole, as she struggles and fails to get the now hiding and terrified puppy from the closet. Cole approaches and asks if she's not very mad at him (a question he asks her throughout the film with escalating emotion). She answers (again in the same fashion throughout the film, but with escalating emotion) to look at her face--she's not mad. He asks if he can sleep in her bed (because there's a ghost in his room!). She says yes and then hugs him, but finds that he's' trembling and obviously scared out of his mind. At this point she breaks down in even greater tears and pleads with Cole to finally tell her what is going on with him. I need to reiterate that Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment are giving the best mother/son performances in a movie that I've ever seen, and that Haley Joel Osment is ten.

I hate when strangers come over...

Pretty sure this ghost was real, and they just happened to catch it on camera

Stan Winston, everybody...

Can they still give awards to 25-year-old movies?

Things are negatively escalating for Malcolm as well. Not only is Anna not speaking to him, but she appears to be testing the romantic waters with one of her coworkers. Malcolm finally decides that his work should come second to fixing things with his wife, and in an emotionally devastating scene, tells Cole that he can't be his doctor anymore. A sobbing Cole begs Malcolm not to fail him, and says that he's the only one who can help. Cole pleads that Malcolm believe his secret, and Malcolm, tearing up, can't even look at him. "How can you help me," Cole pleads, "If you don't believe me? Some magic's real."

Something fun about Shyamalan working a young Indian couple into the script...

The first time through, I hated this guy, but now I feel sorry for him. How do you compete with a dead guy?!

Bruce Willis, during his peak, never received the accolades he deserved either. He's brilliant in the scene.

And he had to be because he was performing opposite the acting profession's Mozart

Malcolm goes home, but can't abandon his client. He remembers a long ago session with Vincent, where he had to leave the room for a moment, and came back to find Vincent crying. Malcolm revisits the tape recording of the session, somehow filmed in thrilling fashion through closeups by Shyamalan. Malcolm immediately notices a comment he himself made when he returned to the room about it being cold. He rewinds the tape to the moment he left the room and turns the volume up as loud as he can...and hears a voice, buried deep beneath the white noise. "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die," it begs Vincent in Spanish.

Shyamalan's closeups are the best

The aesthetic of this basement...this film...it's perfect. The entire century in an image.

More closeups!

More!!!

That whole "the entire century in an image" caption up above was pretentious. Sorry!

Malcolm finds Cole playing in the church, and tells him he thinks he has a solution to his problem. Malcolm thinks that if Cole doesn't run, but listens to the ghosts, and tries to help them, they'll go away...even the scary ones. Cole asks Malcolm how he knows that the ghosts aren't just angry, evil, and want to hurt someone. Malcolm can only say he thinks they won't hurt Cole, to which Cole replies, "How do you know for sure?" My mom, miraculously, and likely spellbound, hadn't made a peep throughout the entire film up to this point. The moment Haley Joel Osment uttered that line, she gasped, turned to me, and whispered, "This kid is SO good!" I agree with her.

Doesn't matter what he did with the rest of his life. No one can ever take this away from him.

Shyamalan then cuts to Cole, asleep in the tent with the puppy, as they're awakened by a voice in distress. Cole quickly realizes it's his mother, and as we've already been shown how virtuous this child is, he leaps from the tent (puppy following) without , accidentally tearing off the clothespins holding it together, and runs to his mother's side. Cole quickly realizes she's just having a nightmare wherein he is being hurt, and she's trying to protect him. Cole comforts her in her sleep, she relaxes, and he heads back to the tent to put it back together. That's when the next ghost arrives. Coles rushes to finish with the tent, then dives inside, turning on his flashlight. I refer to this next moment as the defilement of the tent. With the dark mother ghost, Cole isn't safe from seeing the ghost, but he's still able to hide in the tent from her. With the dead boy ghost, Cole can't get to the tent, as the ghost is blocking his path to it. With this third visitation, the tent is torn away, as Cole looks up to see the clothespins being ripped off one by one. The camera pans down to the door, and the ghost is already INSIDE THE TENT. And it's vomiting.

The third of this film's great jump scares

Cole runs out of the tent, as the sheet collapses on the ghost. In a moment Shyamalan refers to in the film's DVD extras as "Removing the Myth of a Ghost," Cole gingerly, and after a difficult battle with his fear, creeps up to the ghost who's now covered with the red tent sheet. Human tradition has often portrayed ghosts as someone wearing a sheet, but Cole pulls now pulls it off to reveal a terrified, yet very dead little girl, just a few years older than he is. She's wearing vomit-caked pajamas, and looks up at Cole to say, "I'm feeling much better now." Cole asks if she wants to tell him something.

The use of red throughout the film is masterful

California here we come...

Shyamalan's genius here is that he realizes his poor young protagonist, Cole, is a victim, being terribly traumatized by events that would scar even the hardest adult. The last person to have this gift, Vincent, was an adult, and he killed himself. It makes the most sense, story-wise, thematically, and emotionally that the first ghost Cole helps is a defenseless child who was murdered by a caregiver. The film does one of its many cuts to black, and then we're on a bus with Malcolm and Cole, riding far out from the heart of the city. Cole mentions that the ghost came a long way to visit him, introducing the idea that he may be a sort of lighthouse for lost souls, that he gives off some energy that attracts the ghosts. The bus passes a graveyard, and the film acknowledges just how horrific everyday life is for Cole as he quickly looks away.

I need to mention just how great this film's pacing is. And the hour and 45-minutes fly by!

The duo arrive at the girl's wake. She's apparently recently deceased, and died of some unknown disease, possibly a cancer, that slowly killed her, and which many doctors could not diagnose or cure. Shyamalan weaves his camera through the wake attendees so that we get bits of this information naturally from their conversations, as well as color from the pictures on the wall. One of the attendees mentions that now the girl's younger sister is coming down with the same thing, to which another responds "God help them," just as the camera focuses on and follows Cole and Malcolm as they walk up the stairs...hinting that Cole's gift and mission is divinely appointed. As Cole and Malcolm reach the girl's room, Cole mysteriously tells Malcolm, "Don't go home, okay," to which Malcolm promises he won't. In another Spielbergian touch, the camera focuses on Cole's reflection in the doorknob, as he steels himself, then reaches out to turn it. The dimly lit room is a bit scary, covered with marionette dolls, one of which Cole seems to have come to intentionally take, and pockets. Then a hand shoots out from under the bed and grabs his ankle.

The tone is also perfect. Somber, punctuated with well-timed moments of levity. But never more somber than in this scene.

...

This family portrait grows increasingly sad upon further viewings

"Don't go home, okay?"

What a shot!

Shyamalan even hits on the monster under the bed trope!

She might be a friendly ghost...but she sure doesn't feel safe!

It's the ghost of the girl, who slides a box forward. I particularly enjoy that while she no longer feels like a threat, she's still absolutely terrifying. Cole brings the box downstairs, and finds the girl's father, who's sitting alone in his grief. Cole gives him the box, telling him that his daughter, who we find is named Kyra, wanted to tell him something. The father opens the box to find a VHS tape inside, sits down in his easy chair, and watches, perhaps expecting some sort of comfort in his grief. I should mention that as much as I (and the world) compare Shyamalan to Spielberg for this film, James Newton Howard channels a sort of dark John Williams as Cole approaches the father with this tape...think the kids up in a tree with Grant and the Brachiosauruses...except the Brachiosauruses are all ghosts. 

The father finds that the tape doesn't exactly contain comfort...but it does contain the truth. It begins with Kyra performing a marionette show, then quickly stopping and pushing the camera back so it can't be seen, as someone approaches the room. Kyra gets into bed and feigns sleep as her mother enters with a bowl of soup, checks to make sure Kyra is asleep, then adds a bit of a cleaning product into the bowl. The mother has Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and has been slowly poisoning her daughter to death. Kyra must have suspected something in the days just before her death, and set up the camera to prove it...and now the father knows. Newton Howard's music shifts into a sort of death march, led by a muted, yet severe and demanding choir of voices, as the father, now surrounded by wake-goers who also saw the videotape, makes his way to the mother, dressed, as everything that touches death in this film, in red. Again, Shyamalan shows more brilliance with his scripting here, as this dark mother character echoes Cole's earlier experience--he went to the kitchen, thinking he would receive the comfort of his mother, only to be confronted by a monster in a bathrobe...and Kyra, also trusting in the care of her mother, was subsequently poisoned to death by her. Meanwhile, Cole has gone outside to speak to Kyra's little sister. He gives her the doll he took from Kyra's room, and lets her know everything will be okay, comforting her as Malcolm looks on. It seems Cole has now found his path. Malcolm was wrong. He not only could help Cole, but did. "Is Kyra coming back?" asks the sister. "Not anymore," Cole answers.

Again, the light behind Cole furthers the themes of illumination

There's a near fetishization of analog media formats in this film AND I LOVE IT

Greg Wood doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page, but he sure made the best of his five minutes in this film!

Perhaps the only purely evil character  in the film...and even she may have a sympathetic backstory, though NOTHING excuses her actions

Interestingly enough, this is the only moment in the film to feature grass, and I wonder if it's done to symbolize that Cole is headed for greener pastures. Also, I love this shot.

The fade out here is gentler, as the film moves forward a bit in time, and Cole sits in a dressing room, being attended by a middle-aged woman with which he shares gentle conversation. Stuttering Stanley, the play's director, comes in, and tells Cole it's time, and asking him who he was talking to. The woman walks away, looking back to reveal a charred face. Cole says he was just practicing his lines, then walks out with Stanley, aka, Mr. Cunningham, relationship healed (Mr. Cunningham has cast Cole as King Arthur to patch things up. Mr. Cunningham mentions that there was once a horrible fire in this wing of the building, and Cole answers that he knows. Cole is the lead in the play (Tommy, the bully, plays the village idiot), and the other kids appear to have accepted him. Malcolm watches proudly. After the play, the two share their goodbyes. Cole, having just played King Arthur, swings Excalibur around confidently, then tells Malcolm he has an idea about how Malcolm can talk to Anna. "Wait till she's asleep. Then she'll listen to you, and she won't even know it;" then, "Not going to see you anymore, am I." Malcolm answers, "I think we said everything we needed to say. Maybe it's time to say things to someone closer to you."
Cut to a dolly shot, starting at a police flare, as the camera moves through a traffic jam, finally stopping at Lynn and Cole's car. Lynn thinks Cole is being quiet because he's angry she missed his play...she always misses his school functions because she has to work two jobs. Cole is able to then segue into the conversation he's been avoiding the entire film. He tells his mom that he knows why traffic is stopped. There was an accident and a lady died. Lynn asks how Cole knows this. He answers that the lady is standing next to his window. He then brings up his grandmother and why she is always moving her old pendant. Lynn gets angry, thinking Cole has spoken in bad taste...and then Cole proceeds to tell Lynn things he has no business knowing. A key point is that Cole knows Lynn's mom once attended one of Lynn's dance recitals after an argument between the two, when Lynn thought she wasn't there. Finally, Lynn knows: Cole sees dead people. Cole even refers to the ghosts as "the ones that used to hurt me," meaning that he's now at the point where he can actively help them without fear or injury (the theater woman is further proof). Shyamalan once again shows brilliance here, by bringing in a generational wound that Lynn is now unintentionally perpetuating on Cole (missing his performances), and Cole is effectively defeating. Cole and Lynn break down in tears and embrace, as Cole gives Lynn the answer to an unanswered question from the grandmother that he himself hasn't heard, "Every day," says Cole. Lynn's question was "Do I make you proud?" By this point, only a sociopath or a nihilist has dry eyes. And the film isn't over.

GIVE THESE TWO AN AWARD

Malcolm arrives home. Anna is watching their wedding video, an activity she's partaken in throughout the film. She's fallen asleep, and Malcolm takes the opportunity to follow Cole's advice...and Anna answers him! Unfortunately, her answer is, "Malcolm...why did you leave me?" Malcolm starts to argue, and then Anna drops something that rolls to Malcolm's feet...his wedding ring. Malcolm looks down at his now trembling hand. There's no ring. He stumbles back against the wall. James Newton Howard scores this moment apocalyptically, perfect for this 1999 moment of fin de siècle. Malcolm flashes back to the instant he was shot. In that moment, he falls back on the bed, as Anna rushes to his side. He tries to dismiss the injury, but as Anna rolls Malcolm on his side, it becomes clear the bullet pierced his spleen, and blood has spilled out everywhere. The curtain flutters, and Malcolm's soul leaves his body. He's dead. Malcolm died. He's a ghost.

Haunt You Every Day

The transition from Malcolm against the wall to Malcolm in bed is yet again another moment of visual mastery

I can't stress enough how shocking this moment was to my fellow Baton Rouge theater-goers. Gasps, exclamations of "What?!" "No!" "Wow!" Nothing in a movie has surpassed that singular moment for me. If movie magic ever existed, it fully inhabited the first time 1999 audiences witnessed this twist. On the way out of the theater, one troll starting trying to shout the secret to people walking in, and all of my audience shouted him down until he stopped. Almost no one told their friends this twist. When Adrian came with me to finally see The Sixth Sense for himself, no one had prepared him for that moment or spoiled it for him. It never even crossed my mind to do so. Nearly everyone who saw the movie kept the ending a secret because nearly everyone who saw the movie wanted others to experience that moment for themselves, they way they had. Now, in 2024, the secret would be on Twitter before the movie was even released. 1999 was simply a better time. 
Cole quickly goes through the five steps of grief. Anna breathes big clouds of steam as Cole goes through anger. Finally, he accepts his fate. He's dead, and now that he's nearly accomplished what he's remained here as a ghost to finish, he must prepare to move on. He has one final task, though. He walks back to Anna, and tells her that she was never second. Their affection in the opening scene and Anna's grief proves that this was true. Cole tells her that he's found peace, and that everything will be different for her in the morning. Anna smiles in her sleep, and tells Malcolm goodnight. He says goodnight in return, shuts his eyes, and after the movie has continuously cut or faded to black throughout, Shyamalan fades to white, the last very intentional, brilliant choice in a film full of intentional, brilliant choices. In the white, Shyamalan briefly shows wedding footage of Malcolm and Anna kissing, set to the most resonant and cathartic chord James Newton Howard can compose. Then cut to black, as A FILM BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN fills the screen.

She really does look like an angel throughout the film, though it turns out Cole's the one headed for the afterlife

Man, I love this movie

I don't care if he made 50 After Earths after this, he made The Sixth Sense, and that's enough

I love The Sixth Sense. I think I can easily slot it in behind Vertigo, Winter Light, The Empire Strikes Back, and La Dolce Vita as my fifth favorite film. There will be other contenders I'll cover, but it's doubtful that any amount of them will be able to knock The Sixth Sense down by more than a couple of spots. This movie is staying in my all time top ten, unless the quality of current cinema suddenly takes an unimaginable and highly unlikely uptick. The Sixth Sense has everything. It moves me emotionally throughout, every time that I watch it...and I've watched it a lot. However, I've heard a small handful of people say that the film suffers on rewatch, and on this, I cannot disagree more. The Sixth Sense only grows in scope and impact with increased viewings. It not only grows thematically richer, but stimulates the imagination the more that it's watched. I'll very briefly use what I've already written to illustrate why:

Of course, trying to find a mistake in the staging of the film is a thrill for the first few repeat viewings, until it becomes clear there aren't any. Chairs don't move when Malcolm sits in them. No one acknowledges his presence but Cole. It is after this stage of rewatching has passed that the film's value really begins to expand. 

Watching the opening scene again, it's clear the temperature in the Crowe household has suddenly dropped drastically. After several watches it becomes apparent that this heralds the arrival of Vincent, who has the same gift Cole does...meaning his energy also attracts ghosts...and the ghosts have arrived with him. So logically, as Malcolm is murdered, the house is likely full of ghosts, tormenting Vincent to his final moment. 

When Malcolm eventually comes to, he has notes for Cole likely taken right before Malcolm died, and Cole was only a prospective patient. When Cole walks out of his house, and Malcolm is sitting outside, Cole starts running toward the church...because he is running away from Malcolm, a ghost. Malcolm, who only sees what he wants to see and doesn't know that he is dead, has a gunshot wound and blood all over his back. When Malcolm approaches Cole, Cole tries to ignore him, until Cole realizes Malcolm is a friendly ghost. Once the conversation proves fruitful, Cole tells Malcolm that he'll see him again...as this is the first ghost Cole likely wants to see again, other than the one of his grandmother. 
When Malcolm later tries to break the ice with Cole, Cole mentions an incident at school where he drew a man who got hurt in the neck by another man with a screwdriver. That means that this poor child actually saw a ghost with a screwdriver jammed into his neck, and the resulting carnage. Later, during the "Stuttering Stanley" incident, it becomes clear that at some point, someone who went to school with Stanley and hated him died, then,while little Cole was trying to learn, they're ghost barged into the classroom and started screaming "Stuttering Stanley." Cole is only imitating the ghost he saw do this. Meanwhile, Lynn looks through old family photos and notices a strange specter near Cole in each photo. This means that likely since he was a toddler, Cole has been visited by these ghosts...and considering we know that the ghosts assault him now, they were likely assaulting him then...when he was a toddler. It's tough to imagine how this manifested when he was a very small child, but it's easy to imagine the resulting behavior is why Cole's deadbeat dad hit the road. 
Obviously, when Cole tells Malcolm his secret and gives the rules, he's describing Malcolm himself. The editing in this scene becomes even more masterful upon rewatch. And since the ghosts are now shown to the audience after this scene instead of just implied, the actual trauma that's been visited upon Cole becomes explicit. The cabinets in the house are frequently opened on their own. So when Cole is visited by the terrifying slit wrist ghost, it becomes clear that when he's in the kitchen with his mom, and she leaves, the ghost immediately comes in and starts opening cabinets. By the end of the film, we find that Cole now knows how to help the ghosts--meaning that even this terrifying suicide ghost will find peace through Cole. 

This specific ghost, through her words and her facial bruises, implies that she herself was undergoing extreme, violent trauma at the hands of her husband. It's easy to imagine that Cole eventually has a Good Will Hunting style cry and hug it out "It's not your fault" conversation with her, so that she can finally find peace and move on.

I had to bring this scene up one last time

He'll even have to help the poor ghost kid who accidentally shot himself with his dad's gun. Also, the dog runs away from the aforementioned kid ghost, meaning that at the least, the dog can feel the ghosts, but more likely (and following folklore, as the film generally does throughout its runtime) can see them along with Cole. Is Cole going to find a way to make the dog comfortable with the ghosts? Will the dog start helping Cole sniff out ghosts? It's fun to think about!

Thank you, M. Night!!!

Then, there's the mother who murdered her daughter. If this film has a villain, it's her, the murderess dressed in red. One day, she'll die. Unless she's an unrepentant sociopath (I assume, in the lore of this film, unrepentant sociopaths just go straight to hell), Cole will likely have to help her too. That means he'll likely have to have a moment with her where she comes to the realization and must admit "I killed her. I killed my daughter," before she moves on to whatever's next. Cole will also eventually have to help every ghost in the film. By the final car scene with his mom, he likely has (other than the last couple that he's obviously still working on). Also, now his mom is an ally for the future. She can give him moral support to follow his destiny. 

Finally, considering the major act that turns things around for Cole is essentially him solving a young girl's murder, it's likely Cole will now start to solve many crimes and will likely soon draw the attention of the police. How awesome would a noirish, supernatural mystery film be with a mid-20s Cole helping the police solve a well-written case? That would have been so cool! I'd have paid a lot to see that!
Meanwhile, Malcolm's story turns into a tragedy and a meditation on grief. I found his struggle for redemption compelling during my first viewing of the film. On further watches, Malcolm's story starts to become a fogged reflection of Anna's grief. He's grieving that she won't talk to him...but she's grieving because he's dead. She's not testing the waters of cheating on him. She's trying to move on a year after his murder, but can't find the peace to do it. Now Malcolm is not simply haunted, but haunting! When he realizes at the end of the film that he's had trouble getting into the basement because a table and a bunch of stacked books is blocking the door, those objects are there because someone--Malcolm!--has been rooting around in the basement and scaring Anna. Even more of Cole's dialogue to Malcom takes on different meaning too. When Cole tells Malcom, "Don't go home, okay?" he's not telling him not to go back to his townhouse with Anna, but instead NOT TO GO BACK TO THE PURGATORIAL SPIRIT REALM HE'S UNKNOWABLY BEEN PHASING IN AND OUT OF. This is even further highlighted when Malcolm apologizes to Anna for showing up late to their anniversary. He says he's been having trouble keeping track of time--and of course he has! As a ghost, he lives in this purgatorial spirit realm now, and time doesn't work the same way for him anymore. In fact, it's entirely possible that all of Malcolm's scenes in the film are the ONLY moments he experiences as a ghost! 

But the craziest thing is this: Malcolm failed Vincent. However, Malcolm finds peace by helping Cole, rectifying the previous situation...for everyone but Vincent! That's right, the ghost of Vincent is likely still roaming around the Philadelphia night, shouting and talking to himself. Vincent was a possible future for Cole...and now Cole will have to help Vincent find peace. I'd have paid a lot to see that too!

Kathleen...if you'd just kept your hands off of Star Wars...you would have gone down as a legend...

As you can see, the depth of the world Shyamalan has created here invites much exploration. However, it's more than just this stimulation of my imagination that I love about this film. It's more than the fact that it's a great ghost story, my favorite type of story, especially considering I've actually seen one! It's even more than the film's exploration of healing generational pain and our connections to the past and history! It's the theme of being born with a gift you don't understand, and learning to use that gift that I find particularly resonant. Most people wonder what their purpose in life is, and many more wonder why they've been created to be however they are. Almost everyone has cried out "WHY AM I LIKE THIS?!" at some some point. I certainly have. I'm 42, and I still haven't figured it out. 

I guess I need a Malcolm!