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M. Night Shyamalan
FILMOGRAPHY (ONLY REVIEWED ENTRIES)
After breaking through with the remarkable The Sixth Sense in 1999, now recognized as the quintessential modern horror-thriller with a twist, M. Night Shyamalan became something as rare as a new superstar director overnight. It not only gave him a big name in Hollywood at a time when movies were at the height of big-business in the pre-streaming era, but it also raised the bar and created a certain expectation for the Indian-born filmmaker; an expectation which to a certain degree was crystallized with Shyamalan's three subsequent movies, Unbreakable from 2000, Signs from 2002, and The Village from 2004 – all of which were wildly successful at the box-office. The impressive cast list of The Village proved that Shyamalan had now become a director who attracted Hollywood's finest actors to work with him. But he was also about to lose his unequivocal standing with the critics, some of whom were noting that Shyamalan's films only worked until they were "exposed to outside logic" [Slate's Michael Agger]. Stylistically, Shyamalan is known to borrow elements from Hitchcock, especially in his ability to create an eerie atmosphere in his build-ups using stylized elements such as colour contrasts, and sometimes overaccentuating emotions. More than a horror director, however, Shyamalan is a suspense and mystery writer. His main interest has always been the psychological and spiritual aspect of the human mind. When his mysteries work, it's because they explore this aspect in mesmerising detail and with a probing empathy. When they don't work, it's because he sometimes tends to hyperbolize and oversell his usually clever ideas.
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