Product Description

From M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/director of THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE, comes the story of the Hess family in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who wake up one morning to find a 500-foot crop circle in their backyard. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) and his family are told extraterrestrials are responsible for the sign in their field. They watch, with growing dread, the news of crop circles being found all over the world. SIGNS is the emotional story of one family on one farm as they encounter the terrifying last moments of life as the world is being invaded. "It's easy for a filmmaker to blow up the world -- but what Shyamalan does is much riskier. He tries to blow our minds. I was engaged by every inch of SIGNS." - Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4334 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2003-01-07
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
This B movie with noble aspirations is the work of a gifted filmmaker whose storytelling falls short of his considerable stylistic flair. While addressing crises of faith in the framework of an alien-invasion thriller, M. Night Shyamalan (in his follow-up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) favors atmospheric tension over explanatory plotting. He injects subtle humor into expertly spooky scenes, but the story suffers from too many lapses in logic. The film's faults are greatly compensated by the performance of Mel Gibson as a widower whose own crisis of faith coincides with the appearance of mysterious crop circles in his Pennsylvania cornfield... and hundreds of UFOs around the globe. With his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and two young children (Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin), the lapsed minister perceives this phenomenal occurrence as a series of signs and portents, while Shyamalan pursues a spookfest with War of the Worlds overtones. It's effective to a point, but vaguely hollow at its core. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
The key component of this Vista Series DVD is a six-part documentary about the making of the film from idea to theatrical release. M. Night Shyamalan talks at length about the film and his filmmaking technique in this exclusive one-hour feature. The approach is straightforward but at times is as self-congratulatory as a marketing puff piece. Because Shyamalan works so leanly, the five deleted scenes are excellent, including a chilling scene from the film's final act. Also included are storyboard comparisons and another glimpse of one of Shyamalan's early home movies. Signs is the first of the Vista Series to be a single disc and the extras seem light, but there are only a couple of quibbles: the director again does not provide a commentary track and there is no DTS soundtrack. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker
A third attempt, on the part of M. Night Shyamalan, to disturb our sleep. This time we are in rural Pennsylvania, home to Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), who used to be a minister and is now a farmer; the story is designed to make him wonder if that was such a smart move. First come the crop circles, then glimpses of green men-none too little, by the look of them-vanishing into the corn. Hess is skeptical, but his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and children (Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin) are more seriously spooked, and with good cause; soon enough, it becomes clear that aliens have landed all over the world in search of human beings and other comforting snacks. Shyamalan takes it easy on the special effects; much of the movie, which skirts dangerously close to the uneventful in its need to draw out the suspense, consists merely of the family sitting around watching TV or waiting for a claw under the door. The ending is far too freighted with spiritual intent, yet, as with "The Sixth Sense," you can neither ignore nor forget the mist of sickly unease, streaked with black humor, that rises out of the plot. If Shyamalan is aiming to earn his professional doom-monger's license, he's going about it the right way. With Cherry Jones as a cop. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Movie Totally Surprised Me
War of the Worlds had great special effects but drove me crazy with bad character development and irritating, disrespectful kids. I can understand why they were like that, but it grated on me throughout the movie.

Signs, on the otherhand, went the opposite way. Very little special effects, but far better character development. You cared about the people so that when they were under threat, you wanted to jump into the movie and protect them. The overall theme of the movie is that there is a reason for everything--even disabilities and tragedy. This is a very difficult concept to portray and I have to hand it to writer/director Shyamalan for giving us something different than the average "scary UFO" action flick. This movie had true substance and ventured into topics and subjects that the typical Hollywood movie lacks.

Don't read these reviews if you haven't seen the movie
I'm glad I saw this movie at the theatre without anybody revealing the plot and resolution to me beforehand, which is what many inconsiderate reviewers here have chosen to do. Do yourself a favor. See the movie without reading about it or asking other's opinions. Form your own opinion after having seen it and, if you enjoy it, simply recommend it to others without explanation. Obviously, many of the people who panned the movie expected something else. They criticized what they saw as shortcomings when the movie wasn't about the shortcomings, but about something more. Yes, I enjoyed The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, but my favorite movie of the three is perhaps Signs. There is a character depth that had not been plumbed as deeply as in the previous two. I'll admit, the story was a only a slightly bit contrived (hence the 4.5 stars instead of 5), but suspend your disbelief and the entire story falls into place. And who says it could not have been any other way?

THEY DO NOT COME IN PEACE...
This is a superlative movie on many levels, and the director, M. Night Shyamalan, proves that he is a force with which to be reckoned. After his blockbuster hit, "The Sixth Sense', the viewing audience expected great things from him. When his next film, "Unbreakable", did not draw the raves that "The Sixth Sense" did, the viewing public anxiously awaited his next film to see if Shyamalan could, once again, hit it out of the ballpark. With "Signs", he confirms that he is, indeed, one of the directorial greats.

This film is about many things. It is about loss of a loved one. It is about family. It is about relationships. It is about things that we cannot control. It is about the inexplicable. It is about destiny. Yes, it is most certainly about alien invasion. It is also ultimately about one man's crisis of faith.

The film is a wonderful, scary, and amazing film. It centers around the Hess family, who has recently sustained the loss of Colleen Hess (Patricia Kalember) in a terrible accident one night. Wife to Graham (Mel Gibson), mother to Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), and sister-in-law to Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), her death was felt on many levels. Graham, a minister in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was so distraught over the senseless (or so he thinks) death of his wife, that he left his ministry and is now living a purely secular life with their children and his brother, Merrill. Graham simply cannot understand why God has seemingly forsaken him. The death of his wife has divested him of his faith, and he finds himself struggling in the world without it.

One morning, Graham discovers crop circles in the cornfield in front of his house. Other strange things begin to happen, all while he is trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in a world that has suddenly changed in a way that he could never have envisioned. Worldwide, crop circles are mysteriously appearing, seemingly strategically, and, before one knows it, alien invaders are here. They are creepy. They are scary. They do not come in peace. The focus of the film is not so much on the alien invaders, however, but on how the family responds and interacts in this time of crisis.

There are some very frightening scenes in this film. They are all the more frightening for what one does not see rather than what one does see. There are some aspects of "The Blair Witch Project" at work here. Shyamalan certainly understands the concept that less is sometimes more and uses it to great effect. The effective use of tension by the director is one of the great strengths of this film. Sly, subtle humor is also used to great advantage. The other important component of the film is the acting.

There is not one bad performance in this film. Shyamalan, who normally gives himself a brief cameo in his own films, gave himself the part of Ray Reddy, the man who was the catalyst for the tragedy that enveloped the Hess household. He gives a more than credible performance. Abigail Breslin is simply delightful as little Bo, a child too young to fully comprehend what is going on around her, but who, nonetheless, reacts to its shifting permutations. Rory Culkin (yes, Macauley's younger brother in real life) gives a wonderfully intense performance as Bo's big brother. A somewhat singleminded child, he immediately becomes a believer in extraterrestrials and tries to gain an understanding on his own of what is to come.

It is Mel Gibson, however, along with Joaquin Phoenix, who ratchets up the ante. Mel Gibson gives a beautifully nuanced and sensitive performance, playing it totally straight with occasional flashes of humor. It is a performance of a conflicted man who cannot bear what has happened to him and does not reach an understanding until it is almost too late. In the end, he is able to see how some of what has happened to his family has had a semblance of a greater design. Even his wife's last words to him, so seemingly meaningless before, grow rich with meaning at the end.

Joaquin Phoenix is one of the younger generation's most talented actors. He infuses the role of Merrill with a vulnerability that is, at times, heartbreaking. Yet, somehow the viewer knows that the Hess family can count on him to be there for them one hundred percent. While he is not so conflicted as his brother Graham, however, he seems to need validation.

As the film barrels towards its climactic ending, scenes leading up to Colleen's last moments are woven throughout the film. This serves to show the viewer that the events of the present have meaning when grounded in the context of the past. It will come full circle in the end. This is a wonderful, beautiful, suspenseful, and scary film that is well worth seeing, and I eagerly await release of the DVD.