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This article is about the Signs movie. For other references to signs, see Signs. For other uses of the word sign, see Sign.

Signs
Directed by	M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by	Frank Marshall Sam Mercer M. Night Shyamalan
Written by	M. Night Shyamalan
Starring	Mel Gibson Joaquin Phoenix
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s)	August 2, 2002
Running time	106 min.
Language	English
Budget	$72 million
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Signs is a 2002 science fiction thriller film written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, and Abigail Breslin. Although the plot revolves around aliens and crop circles, producer Frank Marshall said, "It's really about human emotions set in motion by a supernatural event." Shyamalan, who also plays a neighbor in the film, was inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Living Dead and primarily The Birds. ^[1] The film received generally positive critical reception and was one of the highest grossing films of 2002.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Structure 4 Deleted scenes 5 Reception 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

The Hess family lives on a farm in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a former Episcopal priest who lost his faith in God after the death of his wife Colleen, in a horrific traffic accident caused by Ray Reddy (played by M. Night Shyamalan). No longer practicing religiously, Graham lives with his two children, Bo and Morgan, and his devoted brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix).

Things are fairly uneventful in Graham's life until a mysterious crop circle appears in his cornfield. Its origin and purpose is unknown; some townspeople speculate that it may be a prank while a few others think that it may have been created by intelligent alien life-forms.

As the story progresses, it is clear that Graham's farm is under watch; one night, he and Merrill chase a tall, dark figure who was spying on them from the roof of their barn. The mysterious being disappears into the crops, moving faster and disappearing far easier than anyone can explain. Soon Graham and his family are shocked to learn that similar crop circles have suddenly appeared all over the world in ways too quickly to be merely a grand, elaborate hoax.

Later, Merrill sees startling video footage on the news of an alien that was spotted during a boy's birthday party in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Now believing the aliens to be hostile, Graham comes up with two alternatives: going to the lake, in hope that the aliens do not like water, or staying home. After a family vote, the family decides to stay home and they board up all the doors and windows. While Graham and Merrill do this, Morgan and Bo watch the news and find out that the mysterious airborne lights are now visible over approximately 274 cities worldwide, and the number is growing rapidly.

They board up the last doors and windows and go to the living room, waiting for the aliens. Soon after, three aliens climb up onto the roof and get in through the attic. When Merrill realizes that they forgot to board up the attic access door in the ceiling, the family decides to hide in the basement and use a mattock to prop the basement door closed. Graham and Merrill manage to ward off the alien attack.

The next morning, they hear on the radio that the aliens are retreating, even leaving behind their wounded. Graham decides to venture out as Morgan has had a serious asthma attack during the night and needs medicine. Seeing that there is no signal coming in from their walkie-talkie, Graham and the family head upstairs. They are surprised by an alien that Graham previously encountered in Ray Reddy's house.

After a final confrontation with the alien, (in which Merrill uses Bo's half empty water glasses and a baseball bat), Graham's faith has been restored.

• Mel Gibson as Reverend Graham Hess
• Joaquin Phoenix as Merrill Hess
• Rory Culkin as Morgan Hess
• Abigail Breslin as Bo Hess
• Cherry Jones as Bucks County Police Officer Caroline Paski
• M. Night Shyamalan as Ray Reddy
• Patricia Kalember as Colleen Hess
• Ted Sutton as Sergeant First Class Cunningham

The story is presented chronologically except for the scenes detailing the death of Graham's wife. There are several of these flashbacks, sometimes repeating the same footage, but progressively revealing more details. The film's dramatic structure resembles others of its genre (especially Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds) but with some surprises, notably its exploration of the deeper psychological and religious aspects of human-felt terror. One of the first images we see is a cross-shaped "clean spot" on the wall of Graham's bedroom. We infer that the cross was removed when the death of Graham's wife precipitated his crisis of faith, yet its image remains. People can't stop calling him "Father", though he asks them not to, and a girl in town insists he hear her confession. Most poignantly, throughout the building terror, Graham's family looks to him for pastoral reassurance, which he can't (or won't) provide.

The suspense builds slowly at first, though not without foreboding (early on, Houdini, one of the Hess' family dogs, is skewered with a barbecue fork). Graham insists the family go about its business normally, but the children quickly size up the impending alien invasion, finally confirmed by worldwide television coverage. A pivotal dramatic moment is the late-night whispered exchange between Graham and Merrill, in which each stakes out his philosophical position on the impending tragedy.

The twist at the end of Signs is a little different from Shyamalan's other films, like The Sixth Sense. In those films, some important fact is withheld from the audience until the end; in Signs, it is the meaning of the facts that is revealed. As the family battles the now-visible enemy, the disconnected details of the story (Morgan's asthma, Bo's placing of multiple cups of water around the house, Colleen's apparently nonsensical last words) all come to rapid-fire convergence with Graham's understanding of the "signs". Thus the title itself is a double entendre referring to the crop signs made by the aliens, and the revelations Graham had.

On the DVD, there are some deleted scenes:

• Flashbacks 1 and 2: Two scenes with Graham's wife, Colleen. In one she is sitting with a toddler Morgan and baby Bo in a rocking chair while Graham watches, in another, she dances with him. Through both scenes, she hums the same tune.
• 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 shelving unit, and places it under the door. Knowing this is only a temporary solution, Graham gets his family and take them to a small room and put some chairs at the door to hold the aliens out of the room. There, he tells the "third story", about Merril, in which he broke his arm. Then everyone goes down to the basement, the only safe (but with no exit) room available.

Signs garnered mostly positive reviews from movie critics.^[2], most notable of which is Roger Ebert's review:

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. ^[3]

Like all of Shyamalan's work, Signs is not without its detractors, with Variety's Todd McCarthy 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." ^[4]

It grossed nearly $228 million domestically and $408 million worldwide^[5] at the box office, ranking only behind The Sixth Sense in Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more than The Village and Unbreakable combined.

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

• The Roswell Incident
• The Varginha incident

1. ^ Signs DVD
2. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/signs/
3. ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020802/REVIEWS/208020305/1023
4. ^ http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117918322.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
5. ^ IMDB.com, "Box office-business for Signs"

• Signs at the Internet Movie Database
• M. Night Fans - Signs
• Signs at Rotten Tomatoes
• Movieweb: Production Notes

v • d • e Films written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Praying with Anger • Wide Awake • The Sixth Sense • Unbreakable • Signs • The Village • Lady in the Water • The Happening