A terrifying scene showed why M. Night Shyamalan was a master at creating fear in the audience.
M. Night Shyamalan breaks down his most iconic films | GQ
When it came to reimagining the horror genre with a modern twist, M. Night Shyamalan achieved great success with his Hollywood breakthrough film, The Sixth Sense. He followed up this Oscar-nominated effort with the equally impressive Unbreakable in 2000 and Signs in 2002, further cementing his place as a filmmaker with a niche approach to horror and supernatural tales.
As the law of averages always dictates, his subsequent efforts in The Village and The Happening did not garner the kind of response he had hoped for. Despite these films crashing at the box office, fans still remember many of his iconic scenes from his early films. A particular scene in Signs still gets viewers' blood pumping even 22 years after its release.
In order for scary jumps in a supernatural or horror film to hit back and forth, the clever collaboration of writing and visualization is necessary to produce the necessary effect. M. Night Shyamalan understood this concept inside and out with his first foray into this genre. While The Sixth Sense gave audiences a glimpse of what the filmmaker could achieve through subtlety, 2002's Signs further drove home this point.
