Signs(film)

Signsis a 2002 Americanscience fictionhorror thriller filmwritten and directed byM. Night Shyamalanand produced by Shyamalan,Frank Marshall,Kathleen KennedyandSam Mercer.The film was produced byBlinding Edge PicturesandThe Kennedy/Marshall Company.It was distributed byBuena Vista Picturesthrough theTouchstone Pictureslabel theatrically, and byTouchstone Home Entertainmentin home media format. StarringMel GibsonandJoaquin Phoenix,the story focuses on a formerEpiscopal priestnamed Graham Hess who discovers a series ofcrop circlesin his cornfield and that the phenomenon is a result ofextraterrestrial life.Signsexplores the themes of faith, kinship and extraterrestrials.

Signs
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	M. Night Shyamalan
Written by	M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by	Kathleen Kennedy Frank Marshall M. Night Shyamalan Sam Mercer
Starring	Mel Gibson Joaquin Phoenix
Cinematography	Tak Fujimoto
Edited by	Barbara Tulliver
Music by	James Newton Howard
Production companies	Touchstone Pictures Blinding Edge Pictures The Kennedy/Marshall Company
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date	August 2, 2002(2002-08-02)(United States)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$72 million
Box office	$408.2 million

Signspremiered in theaters on August 2, 2002. The film was a financial success, grossing $408 million on a $72 million budget, becomingthe seventh-highest-grossing film of 2002,and was met with positive reviews from critics, with many praising its atmosphere, cinematography, score and story, but others criticizing aspects of the script. The film was nominated for multiple awards, including those from theOnline Film Critics Societyand theEmpire Awards.The film also won an award from theAmerican Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.The high definitionBlu-rayDisc edition 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. The original motion picture soundtrack, which was composed byJames Newton Howard,was released on the opening day by theHollywood Recordslabel.

Plot

FormerEpiscopalpriest Graham Hess lives on aruralfarm inDoylestown, Pennsylvania,with hisasthmaticpreteen son, Morgan, and young daughter, Bo. Graham's younger brother Merrill, a failed minor league baseball player, has been helping the family since Graham's wife Colleen died in a traffic collision six months earlier. Graham abandoned the church in the aftermath of the incident.

When largecrop circlesappear in the Hess' cornfield, they are initially attributed to vandals. However, other crop circles, and lights from invisible objects hovering over many of Earth's cities, begin appearing globally. One night, Graham and Merrill chase a figure into the field. Over the next several days, Graham glimpses another among the corn stalks, followed by strange clicking noises broadcast through Bo's oldbaby monitor.To the family's continued terror, news footage emerges out of Brazil showing, undeniably at that point, an alien that can blend into its surroundings.

After receiving a phone call from Ray Reddy, the man responsible for his wife's death, Graham travels to Reddy’s home, finding him sitting in his car outside. Expressing remorse for Colleen's death, he warns Graham that one of the aliens is locked inside his pantry. Believing the aliens avoid water, he leaves for a lakeside. Graham enters the house and uses a kitchen knife to peer under the pantry door. A clawed hand emerges and swipes at Graham; he cuts off the fingers in a panic.

As the aliens’ worldwide invasion begins, the family barricades themselves inside their house, taking shelter in the basement when the aliens break in. Morgan has an asthma attack but survives the night. The family emerges the next morning after the radio reports the aliens have abruptly abandoned Earth as if something scared them off.

The alien previously trapped inside Reddy's pantry enters the house and takes Morgan hostage. Recalling Colleen's dying words, Graham tells Merrill to "swing away" using hisbaseball bat.The alien sprays Morgan with toxic gas from its wrist. Graham recovers his stricken son as Merrill engages the creature, discovering during the fight that water is toxic to the aliens. Merrill gradually weakens the alien by smashing several glasses of water, left by Bo throughout the house, at the creature, eventually killing it with a strike to the head that spills water from a glass on the creature’s face. Outside, Graham administers Morgan's medication, realizing that his son's constricted lungs prevented him from inhaling the toxins; an act that Graham attributes to theinterventionfrom ahigher power.

Months later, the Hess family has recovered from the ordeal and Graham returns to the church.

Cast

Mel Gibson(left) andJoaquin Phoenix,who play the lead roles in the film

• Mel Gibsonas Father Graham Hess, a farmer and formerEpiscopalpriest. His wife Colleen died six months prior. He is Merrill's older brother and father to son Morgan and daughter Bo.
• Joaquin Phoenixas Merrill Hess, Graham's younger brother; Colleen's brother-in-law; and the uncle of Morgan and Bo. He has been living with the family since Colleen's death; he is a former minor league baseball player.
• Rory Culkinas Morgan Hess, the son of Graham and Colleen Hess; older brother to sister Bo; and nephew to Merrill.
• Abigail Breslinas Bo Hess, the daughter of Graham and Colleen Hess; Morgan's younger sister; and niece to Merrill; she is the youngest of the Hess family.
• Cherry Jonesas Caroline Paski, a local police officer and friend of the Hess family.
• M. Night Shyamalan,the film's producer, writer and director as Ray Reddy, a veterinarian; he is responsible for Colleen's accidental death, for which he feels deeply remorseful.
• Patricia Kalemberas Colleen Hess, Graham's deceased wife; mother of Morgan and Bo; and Merrill's sister-in-law; she is seen only in Graham'sflashbacks.
• Ted Suttonas SFC Cunningham, an Army recruiter Merrill speaks to.
• Merritt Weveras Tracey Abernathy, a pharmacist who makes confession to a discomforted Graham.
• Lanny Flahertyas Carl Nathan, the crotchety owner of the bookstore in town.
• Marion McCorryas Mrs. Nathan, Carl Nathan’s wife.
• Michael Showalteras Lionel Prichard, a local troublemaker.
• Clifford Davidas a Columbia University professor viewed on television.

Production

M. Night Shyamalan was a fan of the filmYou Can Count on Meand cast Rory Culkin andMark Ruffalo.Ruffalo required surgery for a tumor behind his ear and was unable to work on the film, so a week before filming the role was recast with Joaquin Phoenix.The role of Graham was originally written to be an older man. Shyamalan approachedPaul Newmanfor the role, but he declined due to lack of interest, and he also approachedClint Eastwood,who declined due to scheduling conflicts.

Shyamalan has said that the film's concept is the combination of two ideas – a family finding a crop circle on their property, and an "end of the world" premise.

Signswas filmed in 2001.All scenes shot on location were filmed inBucks County, Pennsylvania.The scenes of the house and cornfield were shot inside the campus ofDelaware Valley University,an agricultural college, where they had 40 acres (16 ha) of land to use. The scenes in the bookstore and the pizza shop were filmed inNewtown, Pennsylvania,and the pharmacy scene was shot inMorrisville, Pennsylvania.

Soundtrack

All music was composed by James Newton Howard.The score was conducted by Pete Anthony and performed by theHollywood Studio Symphony.

Signs
Film scoreby James Newton Howard
Released	July 30, 2002(2002-07-30)
Recorded	Todd Scoring Stage(Studio City, Los Angeles) JHN Studios(Santa Monica, California)
Genre	Orchestral
Length	45:34
Label	Hollywood
Producer	James Newton Howard,Thomas Drescher, Tom Drescher

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Filmtracks
SoundtrackNet

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Main Titles"	1:45
2.	"First Crop Circles"	3:15
3.	"Roof Intruder"	2:20
4.	"Brazilian Video"	1:56
5.	"In the Cornfield"	5:40
6.	"Baby Monitor"	1:07
7.	"Recruiting Office"	2:07
8.	"Throwing a Stone"	5:47
9.	"Boarding Up the House"	3:00
10.	"Into the Basement"	5:23
11.	"Asthma Attack"	3:42
12.	"The Hand of Fate (Part 1)"	5:32
13.	"The Hand of Fate (Part 2)"	3:47
Total length:		45:34

Critical reception for soundtrack

The soundtrack generally received positive reviews. William Ruhlmann ofAllmusicstated in his review that:

WithSigns,composer James Newton Howard again joins director M. Night Shyamalan for their third collaboration followingThe Sixth SenseandUnbreakable,and clearly the film presents another thrilling encounter with the supernatural. From his opening "Main Theme," Howard ratchets up the tension, and his music thereafter alternates only between the ominous and the suspenseful. He overloads his lower tones, employing eight basses, five percussionists, and even a tuba, but also uses a large string section for short, fast, repetitive figures meant to keep viewers on the edges of their seats. This is not particularly imaginative music, just good old Saturday afternoon scary movie fare, the only distinguishing characteristic about it – consistent with Shyamalan's style – that it is so relentless. There's just no let up; dread pervades every moment of the director's films, to the point of emotional exhaustion for some, and the score has to have the same uncompromising approach, which can make it a little hard to take when listened to all the way through.

Reception

Critical response

OnRotten Tomatoesthe film has an approval rating of 75% based on reviews from 237 critics, with an average rating of 6.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "WithSigns,Shyamalan proves once again an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills. "OnMetacritic,the film scored 59 out of 100 based on 36 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".Audiences polled byCinemaScoregave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebertgave the film four out of four stars, writing: "M. Night Shyamalan'sSignsis 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. "Geoff PevereofThe Toronto Stargave the film a scoring of three out of five stars, saying "Ultimately,Signs-- as original, interesting and ambitious as it is -- is a post-9/11movie of possibly the most dubious sort. "Nell MinowofCommon Sense Mediagave the film four out of five stars; she praised the casting and Shyamalan's direction, saying his "only flaw was not leaving anything to the audience's imagination".

Mick LaSalle of theSan Francisco Chroniclegave the film one star out of four, thinking that the film had "few thoughts and no thrills."Variety'sTodd McCarthycriticized the film for its lack of originality, writing: "After the overwroughtUnbreakableand now the meagerSigns,it's fair to speculate whether Shyamalan's persistence in replicating the otherworldly formula ofThe Sixth Sensemight not be a futile and self-defeating exercise. "A.O. Scott ofThe New York Timeswrote that "Mr. Shyamalan is undone by his pretensions" and that the theme of paternal grief "is articulated here with a heavy-handed, incoherent sentimentality that smothers real emotion." On the theme of faith, he concludes: "Mr. Shyamalan never gives us anything to believe in, other than his own power to solve problems of his own posing, and his command of a narrative logic is as circular – and as empty – as those bare patches out in the cornfield."

In 2004, the Brazilian birthday party scene was ranked at No. 77 onBravo'sThe 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

In a 2007 interview,Bong Joon-hocited the film as an inspiration for his 2006 monster filmThe Host.He added: "Even though it deals with the alien invasion rather than creatures, I liked the fact that the film focused on the Mel Gibson‘s family not on the aliens."

Box office

Signsgrossed $60,117,080 from 3,264 theaters in its opening weekend.At the time of its release, the film had the second-highest August opening weekend, behindRush Hour 2.It was the biggest opening weekend of Mel Gibson's career, surpassingRansom,and earned more than Disney's previous best for a live-action non-sequel, not based on existing popular source material, held byPearl Harbor.The film went on to gross $227,966,634 domestically and $180,281,283 internationally, for a total of $408,247,917 worldwide.It ranked only behindThe Sixth Sensein Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more thanThe VillageandSplit.

Home media

Signswas released onVHSandDVDon January 7, 2003.

The DVD release includes somedeleted scenes:

• 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 deleted scene, 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.

In addition to being aTHXcertified release, the DVD also featured a documentary and storyboards.It was the second top DVDvideo rentalin the United States during the first quarter of 2003, earning$34,700,000(equivalent to $57,000,000 in 2023) in US DVD rental revenue by March 2003.

See also

• List of films featuring extra-terrestrials

External links

• SignsatIMDb
• Signsat theTCM Movie Database
• Signsat theAFI Catalog of Feature Films