It\u2019s not like there had never been a twist ending before The Sixth Sense<\/i><\/strong>, you know? Thirty-nine years earlier, audiences lost their collective minds when the killer in Psycho<\/i> turned out to be Norman Bates in a dress; 40 years before that<\/i>, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari<\/i> shocked viewers with the revelation that the main character had actually been a patient at a psychiatric institution the entire time (or had he?)<\/span><\/p>\n But for some reason, The Sixth Sense<\/i>, released 20 years ago this summer and directed by a brash young filmmaker by the name of M. Night Shyamalan, made an undeniable impression. That the film\u2019s secret was maintained long enough for weeks\u2019 and even months\u2019 worth of new audiences to experience the twist for themselves is a testament to what a different world existed in 1999. It\u2019s difficult to imagine that a horde of Twitter trolls wouldn\u2019t ruin the surprise on a global scale within a week if it came out today. But it also demonstrates a concerted effort and a rare expression of goodwill on behalf of filmgoers to preserve a fairly unique cinematic viewing experience.<\/span><\/p>\n M. Night Shyamalan himself has spent a large portion of his career desperately chasing the next Sixth Sense<\/i> high. Of his other films, Unbreakable<\/i> (2000) and Signs<\/i> (2002) probably come the closest to constructing the sort of well-rounded narrative that isn\u2019t entirely reliant on a reveal in the last 10 minutes, but none quite match the creative ambition of his first major success. His name has become synonymous with the twist, and it would hardly be unfair to suggest that part of the reason why he\u2019s never had as big a hit as The Sixth Sense<\/i> is because audiences walk into his films knowing that whatever happens, there\u2019s going to be a surprise at the end. People like to be surprised \u2013 only, anticipating the surprise means that there\u2019s really no surprise at all, just an expectation, which is decidedly less fun.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s part of the reason why so few of The Sixth Sense<\/i>\u2019s successors have gone on to great acclaim. But it also has to do with the fact that, with the high demand from studios for movies with a twist, stories were being green-lighted on that element alone, with little thought given to the rest of the narrative. As difficult as it is to imagine The Sixth Sense<\/i> without its trademark twist, it likely would have still made for a decent film if it had ended in some other way. Likewise, the best of The Sixth Sense <\/i>imitators have had something else going for them beyond their twist.<\/span><\/p>\n There were other twist endings from this period that we could examine: Shyamalan\u2019s own disappointing The Village<\/i> (2004), where it turns out that they\u2019ve been living on a weird, old-timey wildlife reserve in the modern era the whole time; or The Gift<\/i> (2000), where a character who plays a key role in the third act is discovered to have actually killed himself earlier in the film. Thankfully, now that 20 years have gone by, the trendy status of the twist ending has dissipated slightly, creating a cinematic environment where big reveals are used when the storyline justifies it and not because major studios see them as an opportunity to print money. Then again, these things come in cycles; the baffling Serenity<\/i> recently released may not be the success that kickstarts the twist industry into action, but it\u2019s inevitable that one day we\u2019ll again be subjected to marketing campaigns revolving around the \u201ctwist ending that\u2019ll keep you on the EDGE OF YOUR SEAT<\/i>\u201d that made the early 2000s such a panic-inducing time to go to the movies. Contains spoilers for The Sixth Sense (1999), Psycho (1960), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Others (2001), Identity (2003), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":566,"featured_media":11653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/The-Sixth-Sense-1-300x218.jpg\")
And the novelty factor of The Sixth Sense<\/i> cannot be overestimated, something that led it to earn over $670 million at the box office and turn both its pint-sized lead actor Haley Joel Osment and its director into stars overnight. But the thing about novelty in filmmaking that studios never seem to understand is that when you try to repeat it, it isn\u2019t novel anymore. A cinematic phenomenon is like lightning in a bottle: You can\u2019t just reproduce it whenever you\u2019d like. For the next few years after The Sixth Sense<\/i>, studios were tripping over themselves trying to reproduce the magic of this film by flooding the market with new twist endings, each more absurd than the last.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/562103-miramax-300x269.jpg\")
The Others<\/strong><\/i> (2001) feels the most like an obvious Sixth Sense<\/i> cash-in: off-putting children, spooky ghosts, and a seemingly derivative \u201cthey were dead the whole time\u201d reveal. One can argue whether or not its entirely successful in the end, but it does manage to establish an identity distinct from its illustrious predecessor with the help of a strong lead performance from Nicole Kidman and an appealingly unsettling gothic atmosphere. If anything, the film is strong enough on its own and the laboriously constructed twist overcomplicates matters. In this way, the twist can be its own worst enemy, almost impossible to calibrate correctly. Either it\u2019s been signposted too clearly and audiences see it coming from a mile away, or there are no bread crumbs along the way, leaving viewers disoriented and disappointed.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/identity-300x248.jpg\")
The key to the twist is misdirection. It\u2019s a magic trick \u2013 the director has to make you observe one thing while really something else is happening. And the successful execution of this requires that the magician time his reveal perfectly. In Identity<\/i><\/strong>, James Mangold\u2019s 2003 psychological thriller, the biggest issue is that not only does he place too much confidence in the impressiveness of his twist, he gives it away too early. The film plays out like a traditional murder mystery set in an atmospheric motel, only we discover much earlier than we should that the characters are all actually just facets of a serial killer\u2019s fractured mental state, multiple personalities that exist only in his mind. With this revelation, the tension in the film is immediately released, like air being deflated from a balloon. None of these people we\u2019ve come to care about exist, so any stakes that had been developed over the course of the film are immediately removed and the climax falls disappointingly flat.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/basic2003-300x169.jpg\")
But maybe we\u2019ve been overthinking this whole twist thing all along. Maybe the problem is that there aren\u2019t enough<\/i> twists. John McTiernan\u2019s Basic<\/i><\/strong> (2003) attempts to circumvent the issue by creating a film that includes all<\/i> the plot twists. There\u2019s almost no point in trying to explain what actually happens in Basic<\/i>, except that it\u2019s a never-ending series of false identities, faked deaths, and covert operations that result in the plot stopping in its tracks no less than seven times to hit the reset button. In an attempt to shock and awe the audience, Basic succeeds only in creating an incomprehensible mess where the viewer can extract almost nothing of value.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/crookedc.png\")
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