Signs (film)
Encyclopedia
Signs is a 2002 American science fiction
horror
film directed by M. Night Shyamalan
. It was adapted from a screenplay also written by Shyamalan. Executive producers for the film comprised Shyamalan, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Sam Mercer
. The story focuses on a former preacher named Graham Hess, who discovers a series of crop circle
s in his cornfield. Hess slowly becomes convinced that the phenomena are a result of extraterrestrial life. Mel Gibson
, Joaquin Phoenix
, Rory Culkin
and Abigail Breslin
star in principal roles. Signs explores faith, kinship and extraterrestrial life.
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 Touchstone Pictures theatrically, and by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in home media format. Following its theatrical run, 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. On August 2, 2002, the original motion picture soundtrack was released by the Hollywood Records
label. The film score was composed by musician James Newton Howard
.
Following its premiere in theatres nationwide in the United States 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. Considering its $72 million budget costs, the film was considered a strong financial success after its theatrical run, and was generally met with positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. The high-definition Blu-ray Disc editions 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.
) is a former preacher. His wife Colleen (Patricia Kalember
), was killed in a traffic accident caused by Ray Reddy (M. Night Shyamalan
). The accident left Graham embittered and caused him to lose his faith in God, which in turn caused him to leave his church. Graham's younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix
), a former minor league baseball player, helps run the family farm and care for Graham's kids, Morgan (Rory Culkin
) and Bo (Abigail Breslin
). Bo has a habit of leaving dozens of half-filled glasses of water around the house, stating that "[they] taste funny," etc.
Things are uneventful until a mysterious crop circle
is found in the family cornfield. Graham thinks it's a hoax, while Morgan and Bo think it was made by aliens. One night, Bo wakes Graham up and tells him there's a monster outside her room. Sleepily, Graham tucks her back into bed, but when he looks out Bo's window he sees a black silhouette standing on the roof of the barn. Alarmed, he fetches Merrill and the two try to scare away the figure, believing it's Lionel Pritchard (Michael Showalter
), a local prankster. The brothers run screaming around the house to frighten off the intruder; it then jumps from the roof directly into the farm's cornfield (stated by Marrill to be height of over 10 feet, not counting distance to the field). Both see the shadow of the running figure, but never get a good view of it.
The next day, Sheriff Caroline Paski (Cherry Jones
) stops by to investigate the incident. She admits that unless Graham has a clear description of the perpetrator, she can't help him in finding the culprit. That evening, Graham goes outside to feed the dog, who is barking incessantly towards the cornfield. Taking a flashlight, Graham walks into the cornfield and calls out to the intruders that "they are wasting [their] time." While walking back, Graham hears a noise close by and spots a thin green leg sticking out among the cornrows; he runs back to the house, terrified. The family later watches television coverage of crop circles appearing all around the world.
During a talk with Merrill, Graham dismisses his brother's belief in signs and miracles, all evidence of some higher power, and says that they will have to face whatever is threatening them alone. The following morning, Graham receives a phone call from Ray Reddy, the man who accidentally killed his wife, saying only "Father?" before hanging up, as he is used to doing before Graham stopped being a preacher, and goes over to his office to meet with him. Meanwhile, Merrill watches the television which shows amateur footage depicting an alien walking by a child's birthday party in Brazil
. Graham finds Ray outside his office, sitting in his car with blood stains on his shirt. He tells Graham he's heading for the lake, as he rationalizes that none of the alien activity has gone on near water. Before driving off, Ray pauses and apologizes for the accident that killed Graham's wife, and says he panicked, and was unsure what to do or who else to call, and tells him that he has trapped one of the aliens in his home. Investigating, Graham uses a kitchen knife to see reflection of the alien under a pantry door. A clawed hand reaches out, and Graham cuts off two of its fingers in self defense.
Back at his home, Graham gives his family the option to either stay at the house or follow Ray's advice and head towards the nearest body of water. They vote to stay home, not wanting to leave the place where they lived with their mother. Merrill and Graham board up the windows and doors in preparation for the attack they know is coming. When the time comes, they stand listening as the aliens move about their home, trying to get in. It is during this time that Merrill notices their fatal mistake - they have forgotten to board up the attic. They act quickly, moving the family into the basement to hide, and barricade themselves in. The aliens enter and are heard moving around upstairs and even trying to get into the basement. One of the aliens comes in through a coal shaft and grabs Morgan, causing him to have an asthma attack. Although the creature is repelled, Graham realizes that he has left Morgan's inhaler upstairs, and watches helplessly as the boy slowly passes out. The next morning, they hear on the radio that the aliens are retreating. Graham and his family head back upstairs but are ambushed by an alien, who takes the comatose Morgan hostage. Graham notices two of its fingers are missing, making it the alien from Reddy's pantry.
Graham flashes to the memory of the night that his wife died. She was pinned between the car and a tree, and the Sheriff informed Graham that as soon as they move the car, she will die since she was alive unnaturally already. He talks with his wife, and she tells him to tell Morgan to have fun and to be silly, for Bo to always listen to her brother because he will take care of her. She tells Graham to "see" and tells Merrill to "swing away."
Graham realizes that there are no coincidences, that everything happens for a reason, and he finds new meaning in his wife's final words. Looking around the living room, he notices Merrill's home run bat mounted on the wall, just a few feet from where Merrill is standing. He turns back to the alien, and tells Merrill to "swing away." Merrill realizes what he is implying, and grabs the baseball bat off of the wall. Seeing this, the alien sprays toxic gas into Morgan's face. Merrill swings his bat at the alien, knocking it down, causing it to drop Morgan, and causing one of Bo's water glasses to spill onto it. The water acts like acid on the alien's skin; Merrill starts smashing all of the glasses, before finally knocking the alien into a table, where water glasses spilled directly onto its face, killing it.
Morgan soon recovers, having been protected from the alien's gas when his throat closed during another asthma attack. A grateful Graham comes to believe that many of the seemingly random and tragic events of the past few years were designed to save Morgan and his family in this moment. His faith restored, Graham is later seen getting dressed in his clerical garb and going back to church.
reported that 74% gave positive appraisals, based on 221 reviews. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film scored a 59, based on 36 reviews.
Roger Ebert
wrote: "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." 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."
In 2004, the film was listed as #77 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the Brazil
ian birthday party scene.
, ranking only behind The Sixth Sense
in Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more than The Village
and Unbreakable.
, there are some deleted scene
s:
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
horror
Horror
Horror may refer to:*Horror fiction*Horror film*Horror and terror, two techniques in Gothic literature and film*Survival horror, a video game genre*Horror , 2003*Horror , 2008...
film directed by M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
. It was adapted from a screenplay also written by Shyamalan. Executive producers for the film comprised Shyamalan, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Sam Mercer
Sam Mercer
Sam Mercer is a producer of many Hollywood films, including several projects directed by M. Night Shyamalan such as Signs and The Sixth Sense, as well as other films like Van Helsing and Things We Lost in the Fire. His career started during the early 1980s as a location manager and later advanced...
. The story focuses on a former preacher named Graham Hess, who discovers a series of crop circle
Crop circle
A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...
s in his cornfield. Hess slowly becomes convinced that the phenomena are a result of extraterrestrial life. Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
, Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
, Rory Culkin
Rory Culkin
Rory Hugh Culkin is an American actor and is the younger brother of actors Macaulay Culkin and Kieran Culkin.-Personal life:...
and Abigail Breslin
Abigail Breslin
Abigail Kathleen Breslin is an American teen actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award....
star in principal roles. Signs explores faith, kinship and extraterrestrial life.
A joint collective effort to commit to the film's production was made by Touchstone Pictures
Touchstone Pictures
Touchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, Blinding Edge Pictures
Blinding Edge Pictures
Blinding Edge Pictures is a film production company founded by writer, director and producer M. Night Shyamalan. The company is based in Berwyn, PA on the Main Line. It has produced The Happening, Lady in the Water, The Village, Signs, Unbreakable and The Last Airbender. It is run by Night and Jose...
, and the Kennedy/Marshall Company. It was commercially distributed by Touchstone Pictures theatrically, and by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in home media format. Following its theatrical run, the film was nominated for multiple awards, including those from the Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
and the Empire Awards
Empire Awards
An Empire Award is an accolade bestowed by Empire, Britain's biggest selling film magazine, to recognize excellence of professionals in the locale and global film industry. The awards are voted for by readers of the magazine and in an annual ceremony, the Empire Awards, the winners are presented...
. The film also won an award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. On August 2, 2002, the original motion picture soundtrack was released by the Hollywood Records
Hollywood Records
Hollywood Records is an American record label owned by Disney Music Group, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company.-History:Hollywood Records was founded in 1989 by then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner with the idea of expanding the music operations of the company and to develop and promote...
label. The film score was composed by musician James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
.
Following its premiere in theatres nationwide in the United States 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. Considering its $72 million budget costs, the film was considered a strong financial success after its theatrical run, and was generally met with positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. The high-definition Blu-ray Disc editions 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
Graham Hess (Mel GibsonMel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
) is a former preacher. His wife Colleen (Patricia Kalember
Patricia Kalember
Patricia Kathryn Kalember is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Georgiana "Georgie" Reed Whitsig on the NBC drama Sisters , Susannah Hart Shepherd on the popular 1980s television show Thirtysomething and as Judge Karen Taten on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit .- Life and...
), was killed in a traffic accident caused by Ray Reddy (M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
). The accident left Graham embittered and caused him to lose his faith in God, which in turn caused him to leave his church. Graham's younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
), a former minor league baseball player, helps run the family farm and care for Graham's kids, Morgan (Rory Culkin
Rory Culkin
Rory Hugh Culkin is an American actor and is the younger brother of actors Macaulay Culkin and Kieran Culkin.-Personal life:...
) and Bo (Abigail Breslin
Abigail Breslin
Abigail Kathleen Breslin is an American teen actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award....
). Bo has a habit of leaving dozens of half-filled glasses of water around the house, stating that "[they] taste funny," etc.
Things are uneventful until a mysterious crop circle
Crop circle
A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...
is found in the family cornfield. Graham thinks it's a hoax, while Morgan and Bo think it was made by aliens. One night, Bo wakes Graham up and tells him there's a monster outside her room. Sleepily, Graham tucks her back into bed, but when he looks out Bo's window he sees a black silhouette standing on the roof of the barn. Alarmed, he fetches Merrill and the two try to scare away the figure, believing it's Lionel Pritchard (Michael Showalter
Michael Showalter
Michael English Showalter is an American comedian, actor, writer, and director. He is a member of the sketch comedy trio Stella. Showalter first came to recognition as a cast member on MTV's The State, which aired from 1993 to 1995...
), a local prankster. The brothers run screaming around the house to frighten off the intruder; it then jumps from the roof directly into the farm's cornfield (stated by Marrill to be height of over 10 feet, not counting distance to the field). Both see the shadow of the running figure, but never get a good view of it.
The next day, Sheriff Caroline Paski (Cherry Jones
Cherry Jones
Cherry Jones is an American actress and recipient of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play.-Career:...
) stops by to investigate the incident. She admits that unless Graham has a clear description of the perpetrator, she can't help him in finding the culprit. That evening, Graham goes outside to feed the dog, who is barking incessantly towards the cornfield. Taking a flashlight, Graham walks into the cornfield and calls out to the intruders that "they are wasting [their] time." While walking back, Graham hears a noise close by and spots a thin green leg sticking out among the cornrows; he runs back to the house, terrified. The family later watches television coverage of crop circles appearing all around the world.
During a talk with Merrill, Graham dismisses his brother's belief in signs and miracles, all evidence of some higher power, and says that they will have to face whatever is threatening them alone. The following morning, Graham receives a phone call from Ray Reddy, the man who accidentally killed his wife, saying only "Father?" before hanging up, as he is used to doing before Graham stopped being a preacher, and goes over to his office to meet with him. Meanwhile, Merrill watches the television which shows amateur footage depicting an alien walking by a child's birthday party in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Graham finds Ray outside his office, sitting in his car with blood stains on his shirt. He tells Graham he's heading for the lake, as he rationalizes that none of the alien activity has gone on near water. Before driving off, Ray pauses and apologizes for the accident that killed Graham's wife, and says he panicked, and was unsure what to do or who else to call, and tells him that he has trapped one of the aliens in his home. Investigating, Graham uses a kitchen knife to see reflection of the alien under a pantry door. A clawed hand reaches out, and Graham cuts off two of its fingers in self defense.
Back at his home, Graham gives his family the option to either stay at the house or follow Ray's advice and head towards the nearest body of water. They vote to stay home, not wanting to leave the place where they lived with their mother. Merrill and Graham board up the windows and doors in preparation for the attack they know is coming. When the time comes, they stand listening as the aliens move about their home, trying to get in. It is during this time that Merrill notices their fatal mistake - they have forgotten to board up the attic. They act quickly, moving the family into the basement to hide, and barricade themselves in. The aliens enter and are heard moving around upstairs and even trying to get into the basement. One of the aliens comes in through a coal shaft and grabs Morgan, causing him to have an asthma attack. Although the creature is repelled, Graham realizes that he has left Morgan's inhaler upstairs, and watches helplessly as the boy slowly passes out. The next morning, they hear on the radio that the aliens are retreating. Graham and his family head back upstairs but are ambushed by an alien, who takes the comatose Morgan hostage. Graham notices two of its fingers are missing, making it the alien from Reddy's pantry.
Graham flashes to the memory of the night that his wife died. She was pinned between the car and a tree, and the Sheriff informed Graham that as soon as they move the car, she will die since she was alive unnaturally already. He talks with his wife, and she tells him to tell Morgan to have fun and to be silly, for Bo to always listen to her brother because he will take care of her. She tells Graham to "see" and tells Merrill to "swing away."
Graham realizes that there are no coincidences, that everything happens for a reason, and he finds new meaning in his wife's final words. Looking around the living room, he notices Merrill's home run bat mounted on the wall, just a few feet from where Merrill is standing. He turns back to the alien, and tells Merrill to "swing away." Merrill realizes what he is implying, and grabs the baseball bat off of the wall. Seeing this, the alien sprays toxic gas into Morgan's face. Merrill swings his bat at the alien, knocking it down, causing it to drop Morgan, and causing one of Bo's water glasses to spill onto it. The water acts like acid on the alien's skin; Merrill starts smashing all of the glasses, before finally knocking the alien into a table, where water glasses spilled directly onto its face, killing it.
Morgan soon recovers, having been protected from the alien's gas when his throat closed during another asthma attack. A grateful Graham comes to believe that many of the seemingly random and tragic events of the past few years were designed to save Morgan and his family in this moment. His faith restored, Graham is later seen getting dressed in his clerical garb and going back to church.
Cast
- Mel GibsonMel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
as Reverend Graham Hess, a former EpiscopalEpiscopal Church (United States)The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
priest, father to Morgan and Bo Hess and brother to Merrill. His wife, Colleen, died in a tragic automobile accident, causing him to lose his faith. - Joaquin PhoenixJoaquin PhoenixJoaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
as Merrill Hess, Graham's brother, who lives with them. He is a former minor league baseball player. - Rory CulkinRory CulkinRory Hugh Culkin is an American actor and is the younger brother of actors Macaulay Culkin and Kieran Culkin.-Personal life:...
as Morgan Hess, the son of Graham Hess, older brother to sister Bo, and nephew to Merrill. - Abigail BreslinAbigail BreslinAbigail Kathleen Breslin is an American teen actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award....
as Bo Hess, the youngest of the Hess family. - Cherry JonesCherry JonesCherry Jones is an American actress and recipient of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play.-Career:...
as Police Officer Caroline Paski. - Patricia KalemberPatricia KalemberPatricia Kathryn Kalember is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Georgiana "Georgie" Reed Whitsig on the NBC drama Sisters , Susannah Hart Shepherd on the popular 1980s television show Thirtysomething and as Judge Karen Taten on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit .- Life and...
as Colleen Hess, the deceased wife of Graham. She is only seen in Graham's flashbacksFlashback (narrative)Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. - Michael ShowalterMichael ShowalterMichael English Showalter is an American comedian, actor, writer, and director. He is a member of the sketch comedy trio Stella. Showalter first came to recognition as a cast member on MTV's The State, which aired from 1993 to 1995...
as Lionel Prichard. - M. Night ShyamalanM. Night ShyamalanManoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
as Ray Reddy, the man responsible for Colleen's death, for which he feels deeply remorseful.
Soundtrack
All music composed by James Newton Howard.Critical response
Signs garnered generally positive reviews from movie critics. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 74% gave positive appraisals, based on 221 reviews. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film scored a 59, based on 36 reviews.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote: "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." Like all of Shyamalan's work, Signs is not without its detractors, with Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
'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
The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear , a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist who tries to help him...
might not be a futile and self-defeating exercise."
In 2004, the film was listed as #77 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian birthday party scene.
Box office
Signs grossed $227,966,634 domestically, $180,281,283 internationally, and $408,247,917 worldwide at the box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
, ranking only behind The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear , a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist who tries to help him...
in Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more than The Village
The Village (2004 film)
The Village is a 2004 American fantasy-thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan about a end-of-the-19th-century village whose inhabitants live in fear of the creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it. The movie was shot in a recreation of a 19th-century village outside Philadelphia,...
and Unbreakable.
Home media
On the DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, there are some deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s:
- 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.