Signs (film)

Signs
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	M. Night Shyamalan
Written by	M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by	M. Night Shyamalan Frank Marshall Kathleen Kennedy Sam Mercer
Starring	Mel Gibson Joaquin Phoenix Rory Culkin Abigail Breslin
Cinematography	Tak Fujimoto
Edited by	Barbara Tulliver
Music by	James Newton Howard
Production companies	Touchstone Pictures Blinding Edge Pictures The Kennedy/Marshall Company
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release date	August 2, 2002 (2002-08-02)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$72 million
Box office	$408,247,917

Signs is a 2002 American science fiction thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Executive producers for the film comprised Shyamalan, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Sam Mercer. On August 2, 2002, the original motion picture soundtrack, which was composed by James Newton Howard, was released by the Hollywood Records label. A joint collective effort to commit to the film's production was made by Touchstone Pictures, Blinding Edge Pictures, and the Kennedy/Marshall Company. It was commercially distributed by Buena Vista Pictures theatrically, and by Touchstone Home Entertainment in home media format.

The story focuses on a former Episcopal priest named Graham Hess who discovers a series of crop circles in his cornfield. Hess slowly becomes convinced that the phenomena are a result of extraterrestrial life. It stars Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin. Signs explores faith, kinship and extraterrestrials.

Following its premiere in theatres nationwide on August 2, 2002, the film grossed $227,966,634 in domestic ticket receipts screening at 3,453 theatres during its widest release. It earned an additional $180,281,283 in business through international release to top out at a combined $408,247,917 in gross revenue. The film was nominated for multiple awards, including those from the Online Film Critics Society and the Empire Awards. The film also won an award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Considering its $72 million budget costs, the film was considered a strong financial success after its theatrical run, and was generally met with mixed to positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas, with critics praising its atmosphere and story but criticising its script and performances. The high-definition Blu-ray Disc edition of the film featuring the director's audio commentary, the making of the film, and deleted scenes was released in the United States on June 3, 2008.

Plot

The Hess family lives on a farm in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a former priest whose wife, Colleen, died in a horrific traffic accident caused by Ray Reddy (Shyamalan). No longer practicing religiously, Graham lives with his asthmatic son, Morgan (Rory Culkin), daughter Bo (Abigail Breslin), who leaves water glasses all over the house claiming that the water tastes funny, and Graham's younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a former minor league baseball star who never made it to the major leagues because he swung too hard and struck out too often. Graham discovers a crop circle in his field, reports of violent animal behavior has spread across town, and one of the Hess' dogs tries to attack Bo and Morgan.

Graham discovers that the farm is being watched, and he and Merrill chase a tall, dark figure from the roof of a barn and into the crops, where it disappears. Meanwhile, crop circles similar to the one in Graham's field appear around the world. Morgan hears a strange noise on a baby monitor, but it stops before he can investigate further. That evening, Graham goes to the crop circle, and hears the sound again. After spotting a green leg sticking out of the cornrows, he flees to the house. A news report reveals that lights have been spotted over Mexico City.

That night, Graham reveals to Merrill that he lost his faith after the death of his wife. A flashback shows Graham approaching the scene of an accident. He sees his wife pinned to a tree by a truck, and the officer tells him that his wife won't live.

The following morning, Graham visits Ray Reddy's house, whom he finds bleeding. Ray apologizes for the accident, and tells Graham that he is fleeing to a nearby lake as he believes "they don't like water". Graham goes into Ray's kitchen, where Ray has an alien locked in his pantry. Graham uses the blade of a kitchen knife to try to see the alien's reflection under the door. When the alien grabs at him, Graham reacts by cutting off some of the alien's fingers. Meanwhile, Merril watches the news, and sees a video taken at a child's birthday party in Brazil. The footage shows an alien crouching behind bushes, then walking across a walkway. Merril is shocked as the footage is shown. He later resorts to joining Morgan and Bo with their foil tin hats. Graham returns home and the family decides between going to the lake or staying at the farm, opting to board up all the doors and windows and remain in the house. While Graham and Merrill do this, Morgan and Bo watch a news report on the growing number of sightings around the world. The baby monitor again starts emitting the alien noises, and the television loses its signal. They finish boarding up the windows, and all move into the living room. One of the dogs, called Isobel, left tied up outside, barks loudly and is silenced, and an alien is heard climbing up the house and onto the roof, where it breaks into the attic. The family moves to the basement and props the door closed with a pick axe. Graham and Merrill ward off an alien that attacks Morgan, who then has an asthma attack. The news channel declares that the aliens have left.

The next morning, Graham decides to leave the basement and find Morgan's medicine. The family follows, and they find an alien in the house. It is revealed that it is the alien that Graham had cut the fingers off of earlier. The unconscious Morgan is again attacked and taken hostage. The alien attempts to poison Morgan, but because he is having an asthma attack (which prevents him from breathing) the poison doesn't get into his lungs. Graham remembers his wife's dying words, "Tell Merrill to swing away". He tells Merrill to "swing away" and Merrill attacks the alien with a baseball bat, and it releases Morgan. They discover that water reacts like acid to the alien's skin, and Merrill smashes all the water glasses Bo had left all over the house at the alien. Finally, Merrill hits the alien into furniture and water splashes on its face, killing it. Graham administers Morgan's medication, and the boy recovers. In the final scene, it is shown that Graham has returned to his clerical duties.

Cast

• Mel Gibson as Reverend Graham Hess, a former Episcopal priest, older brother to Merrill and father of Morgan and Bo.
• Joaquin Phoenix as Merrill Hess, Graham's younger brother and uncle of Morgan and Bo, who lives with them. He is a former minor league baseball player.
• Rory Culkin as Morgan Hess, the son of Graham Hess, older brother to sister Bo, and nephew to Merrill.
• Abigail Breslin as Bo Hess, the daughter of Graham Hess Morgan's younger sister, and niece to Merrill. The youngest of the Hess family.
• Cherry Jones as Police Officer Caroline Paski.
• M. Night Shyamalan as Ray Reddy, the man responsible for Colleen's death, for which he feels deeply remorseful.
• Patricia Kalember as Colleen Hess, the deceased wife of Graham, mother of Morgan and Bo and Merrill's sister-in-law. She is seen only in Graham's flashbacks.

Production

Soundtrack

Main article: Signs (soundtrack)

All music composed by James Newton Howard.

Untitled

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Main Titles"	1:45
2.	"First Crop Circles"	3:15
3.	"Roof Intruder"	2:20
4.	"Brazilian Video"	1:56
5.	"In the Cornfield"	5:40
6.	"Baby Monitor"	1:07
7.	"Recruiting Office"	2:07
8.	"Throwing a Stone"	5:47
9.	"Boarding Up the House"	3:00
10.	"Into the Basement"	5:23
11.	"Asthma Attack"	3:42
12.	"The Hand of Fate (Part 1)"	5:32
13.	"The Hand of Fate (Part 2)"	3:47

Reception

Critical response

Signs has received positive reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 74% gave positive appraisals, based on 225 reviews, ranking it "Certified Fresh". At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film scored a 59, based on 36 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, writing "M. Night Shyamalan's Signs is the work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air. When it is over, we think not how little has been decided, but how much has been experienced ... At the end of the film, I had to smile, recognizing how Shyamalan has essentially ditched a payoff. He knows, as we all sense, that payoffs have grown boring." Nell Minow of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars; she highly praised the casting and Shyamalan's direction, saying his only flaw was not leaving anything to the audience's imagination.

Mike LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film one star out of four, feeling that the film had "few thoughts and no thrills." Variety's Todd McCarthy criticised the film for its lack of originality, writing "After the overwrought Unbreakable and now the meager Signs, it's fair to speculate whether Shyamalan's persistence in replicating the otherworldly formula of The Sixth Sense might not be a futile and self-defeating exercise."

Despite being widely praised some critics pointed out flaws in the film, Doug Walker, known as the Nostalgia Critic stated in his review of the film that it is "overly dramatic, annoyingly slow, has a real ego when it comes to its own style, and of course any sense of logic is totally ignored."

In 2004, the film was listed as #77 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the Brazilian birthday party scene.

Box office

Signs grossed $227,966,634 domestically, $180,281,283 internationally, and $408,247,917 worldwide at the box office, ranking only behind The Sixth Sense in Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more than The Village and Unbreakable.

Home media

On the DVD, there are some deleted scenes:

• Flashbacks 1 and 2: Two scenes with Graham's wife, Colleen. In the first, she sits with a toddler Morgan and baby Bo in a rocking chair while Graham watches. In the second, she dances with him. She hums the same tune in both scenes.
• The dead bird: With no sound, this scene shows Graham going back home from Ray's, and after a short time, a dead bird near the road (after supposedly hitting an invisible forcefield) is shown.
• The attic door and the third story: The longest one, it starts with Merrill finding out about the not-boarded attic door. Despite Graham's efforts to call him back, Merrill goes up the stairs and manages to hold the door by climbing up a chair and putting his hands at the door. Trying to help, Graham looks for a way to hold the door. He gets a tall shelf and places it under the door. Knowing this is only a temporary solution, Graham gets his family and takes them to the kitchen and puts some chairs at the door to hold the aliens out of the room. There, he tells the "third story", about Merrill, in which he dislocated his arm. While Graham is telling the story, the shelf is destroyed from the attic door slamming on top of it repeatedly and the aliens gain access to the house. Everyone goes down to the basement, the only safe room available, as the aliens begin forcing the kitchen door open.

See also

• 2002 in film
• Extraterrestrial life

External links

• Signs at IMDb
• Signs at AllMovie
• Signs at Rotten Tomatoes
• Signs at Metacritic
• Signs at Box Office Mojo