Signs (2002) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the signs?

Signs is a thrilling alien invasion story that also speaks volumes about faith and family. M. Night Shyamalan proves he’s not just a one, or two, hit wonder with this engrossing film.

First Impressions

The trailer for Signs sets up a spooky film in which a man and his family are terrorized by aliens at their farm. Various “signs” point to something coming, including crop circles, and erratic behavior by the dogs. It’s the next in a line of M. Night Shyamalan films. It’s time to read the Signs.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

At their farm in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), and Graham’s children Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin) find giant crop circles one day. Graham is certain it’s neighbor kids pranking them until they see a news report of similar circles appearing in India. Their dogs begin acting strange and Morgan is forced to kill one of them named Houdini.

Officer Paski (Cherry Jones) takes a report from Graham about someone seen on their property. The family goes to town to calm down, but that doesn’t help. A teen girl working in the pharmacy, believing it’s the end of the world, tries to confess her sins to Graham. Merill is told by an army recruiter that an invasion is coming. And the two kids pick up a book on extraterrestrials that convinces them that aliens have arrived.

The Hess’s remaining dog begins barking so Graham investigates the cornfield with a flashlight that night and sees a glimpse of something non-human. Later, the television reports of strange lights over Mexico City. Merrill asks Graham, who was a priest until recently, for some comfort about what they’re seeing. Graham asks if Merrill is a person that believes in miracles, or just luck. Merrill believes he’s a miracle man. Graham is not, and has become cynical since his wife was killed six months ago.

Graham gets a mysterious call that he believes to be Ray Reddy (M. Night Shyamalan), the local veterinarian who killed Graham’s wife in a car accident. Graham visits Ray’s house and finds the man packed and leaving town. Ray apologizes, but says the accident was meant to be. He then warns Graham of an alien locked in his pantry. Graham goes inside and has a close encounter, cutting three fingers off an alien hand when it reaches under the pantry door. At the same time Merrill sees a news report showing camcorder footage of an alien in Brazil.

Graham returns home ready to take the family away to a safer place, but the kids vote to stay–as this was where their mother lived. Graham becomes agitated and upset at the family at dinner when they want to say a prayer. But they all have a cry and a hug and work it out. The two adults get to boarding up windows, but hear something and realize that something has gotten inside through a coal chute. The family hides in the basement and after a tense evening, hear a report on the radio that the strange lights are leaving.

A flashback shows Colleen Hess (Patricia Kalember) and her last minutes with Graham before she dies, saying “See, swing away.” The family comes upstairs after Morgan has an asthma attack, and encounters an extraterrestrial in their house missing fingers. It grabs Morgan and sprays him with a toxic gas. Graham remembers Colleen’s words and tells Merrill to grab his baseball bat and swing away. He hits glasses of water that cause ulcerations on the creature. Graham realizes that everything in his life recently has all happened for a reason as he and his family get to safety. Later he returns to the priesthood.

“Are you the kind who sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky?” – Graham Hess

History in the Making

Signs is the first science-fiction work from Indian-American writer/producer/director M. Night Shyamalan. That is if you don’t count Unbreakable and its superhero themes as a sci-fi film. This was Shyamalan’s fifth film overall, but his third film since the breakout horror hit with The Sixth Sense. Having been known with that film as a director who introduces twist endings into his work, Signs features what could be considered a twist ending, but one that is much more foreshadowed than his previous works.

This was Shyamalan’s first time working with all the major actors in the film. Mel Gibson was the obvious headliner, having been a major star for the previous two decades with his roles as Mad Max in the George Miller Mad Max trilogy, and Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon films. Joaquin Phoenix had had a few adult roles, most recently with his role as Commodus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, but was also known for his roles as a youth in films like SpaceCamp and Parenthood. Rory Culkin caught Shyamalan’s eye in You Can Count on Me, while Abigail Breslin made her acting debut in this film before launching a career that has spanned more than two decades. Both Phoenix and Cherry Jones would return in Shyamalan’s next film, The Village.

Genre-fication

Signs marks a return to thrilling films about malevolent aliens invading Earth, but told on a very personal level, unlike more recent epic films like Independence Day and Mars Attacks. It borrows a number of elements from films of the 50s and 60s, blending science fiction, horror, and a family element. Primarily, the film works best as a horror film, with sci-fi flourishes. The setting being an out of the way farm and farmhouse, evokes Night of the Living Dead (also set in Pennsylvania). The lingering horror of what may be happening outside the house, along with some tense interpersonal moments, makes Signs chilling and terrifying, but not in a slasher movie sort of way. The alien threat, while global, exists at a more personal level focused on the Hess family. This elicits elements of both The War of the Worlds (which is directly called out by Merrill) and The Day of the Triffids, which deal with worldwide invasions as seen through the eyes of just a few characters in one locality.

These films also inform the “twist” ending of Signs as well. Aliens in those films come to our planet and meet their demise from common Earth elements. The Martians in The War of the Worlds have intelligence and technology, and make a concerted effort to invade the planet seeking to destroy humans. But they didn’t count on the microscopic bacteria and viruses that also exist on the planet doing a better job of defeating them than its primary species. The Triffids, from that film, are not so much an invader as a spore that ends up on Earth. However, they too are stopped by the most plentiful thing on the planet, seawater.

The aliens in Signs appear to be almost a hybrid of these two alien races. They are intelligent enough to be able to travel to this planet, have the ability to cloak and camouflage themselves, and create symbols in the landscape that communicate messages to their fellow travelers, but are unaware that two-thirds of the planet has the ability to kill them. This doesn’t seem to make them any less menacing, just that the humans get lucky that plain old water has such a harming effect on them. Something that the aliens obviously realized too, as news reports began hitting television that the “lights in the sky” were retreating. However, Graham seemed to make a personal enemy of the one alien that he cut the fingers off of, as it’s the one that came for Morgan. But it does raise the question of how it was able to get out of Ray’s pantry?

Societal Commentary

As mentioned above, Signs works best as a horror film, at least in terms of genre. But the film really has a lot more to say about faith, fate, and family. Since the death of his wife six months previous, Graham has lost his faith–not only in God but in himself. He doesn’t want people to remind him of his previous job as a priest. Whether that’s Tracey at the pharmacy (he reminds her that he’s not taking confession any longer), Caroline the police officer (who he continually asks not to call him Father), or even Merrill (asking for comfort in a moment of existential crisis). In fact, Graham gets Merrill to admit that he’s a miracle sort of person, one that is filled with hope in the face of an alien race arriving. Graham then tells him that “there is no one watching out for us, Merrill.” Graham blames God for taking his wife, and curses Him when it looks like he might take Morgan as well. He also wants to deny anyone else that comfort or faith. Shyamalan, who happens to not only play the character that provides Graham so much pain, but as also the writer of the film, creates a world where everything happens for a reason. That reason is either luck or God’s will depending on the audience’s viewpoint. Grahame has consciously turned his back on that faith and denies seeing the connectivity of these signs and miracles. Everything that has happened recently in Graham’s life was destined to protect himself and his family, whether he chooses to see it or not..

When Grahame visits, Ray mentions that his drowsiness, which is what killed Caroline and not intoxication as some might expect, seemed as if it was “meant to be.” It came on at just the worst possible moment when he was driving past her walking on the side of the road. Without this accident starting a chain of events, Graham and his family may not have survived the alien’s invasion. Caroline’s last words to Graham, Bo’s inability to finish a glass of water, Morgan’s asthma, and Merrill’s baseball skills all play a role in creating a series of signs for Graham. Signs that he was unable, or maybe unwilling, to see before the culmination of the film. The film’s point of view is that God definitely exists and He has a plan for each of the characters in the film.

The film also deals with family. Certainly Graham was not expecting to be a single-father to a 12 and 6 year old, but that’s the cards he was handed. He tries to do his best to raise them properly and teach them manners and respect. Fortunately, he has help from his younger brother who is there to assist with things around the farm. Together they are an unlikely family to focus on, especially for a horror film. Films of this nature usually have young women in them to amplify the terror, and often to provide a voyeuristic gaze from the audience. Signs emphasizes the terror with the children, but still manages to give Graham his share of moments to deal with the horror of the situation. No single one of them would have been able to make it out of this situation alive. It’s only together, with all of their skills and faults, that they are able to survive this nightmare.

The Science in The Fiction

Within the world of the film, Morgan appears to be the one that is the most intelligent. This young boy is the first to find the crop circle, not believing it’s just a prank by local boys. He protects his sister by killing their dog Houdini who gets “sick” when the aliens land. He seeks out non-rational explanations in town at the bookstore by buying a book on extraterrestrials. This is after he realizes that the baby monitor he found in the basement is able to pick up communications between the aliens, as he’s the first to identify it as such. It takes the adults a little longer to come around to that point of view

The book Morgan buys in town, We Are Not Alone: Evidence of the Extraterrestrials by Dr. Bimbu, provides him all the details that he needs to believe that the aliens are already here. The book postulates that there are two reasons aliens would visit: the spirit of exploration or for harvesting the planet. After seeing reports of the saucers becoming invisible, and birds killing themselves by flying into the force fields, he decides it’s the latter. The book takes many of the reported theories of aliens visiting Earth and includes them, including drawings by people who have seen non-human creatures. Graham flips to a page that has a farmhouse, which he notes is very much like their own, and is under attack by a flying saucer. Just another sign being presented to him in hopes (or to give him hope) that he can save his family.

The Final Frontier

Signs is a really creepy film. Shyamalan does a great job focusing on the family, while showing very little of the creatures. It’s not until almost an hour into the film that Merrill sees the Brazilian footage of the alien. At this point, even grainy camcorder footage is enough to send shivers up the audience’s spines. Merrill now becomes a believer and puts on his foil hat to sit next to the children.

Some people focus on the lack of logic in the film, such as why would aliens invade a planet where they could so easily be injured. However, all the film is a metaphor for Graham’s life and faith. And since faith is not something that is dictated by logic, it’s hard to defend against it. There are probably two types of people: those that can accept the premise of the film and enjoy it for what it is, and the second type that try to poke holes in the story. Which type of person are you?

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