The Sixth Sense, the 1999 horror breakout by director M. Night Shyamalan has landed a new streaming home. As part of their October update, in which they renew their catalog with numerous horror films, Hulu has added the film starring Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, and Toni Collette. Other horror films added to Hulu this October includes 2018’s Halloween, the first three Scream movies, Sinister, and Barbarian.
Written and directed by Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense follows Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist trying to help nine-year-old Cole Sear. Cole is socially awkward, and his mother is worried. But the boy tells the doctor that his real problem is that he’s able to see “dead people” and doesn’t understand some of their intentions. Crowe decides to help the boy, but instead discovers something that transcends his bonding with the clever child.
Upon release, The Sixth Sense became a global hit, grossing $672 million and becoming one of the most successful horror films ever made. Not only that, but the film was a hit with critics as well. Today, it sits at 86% on the critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, and holds a Certified Fresh label. The audience score registers a slightly higher rating of 90%.
During the award season, The Sixth Sense was also included in many of the ballots. It managed to earn six Academy Award nominations, including three in major categories like Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. It did not win any of its nominations.
A Masterful Modern Storyteller At His Best
What marked The Sixth Sense apart from other horror movies released at the turn of the century is that it didn’t feel gimmicky and didn’t try anything new. Shyamalan’s official Hollywood debut was basic in terms of genre tropes, and only used its effective plot twist to set the movie apart from other supernatural horror movies of its time. Aside from that, it was the typical ghost story with plenty of scares.
However, at its core, it was so much more than that. The Sixth Sense was a deeply human tale about loss and grief. As seen through the eyes of a man so captivated by the existence of a sixth sense that he can’t possibly observe a much more defining truth. The other perspective is of pure innocence–a boy shaken, but not by the undead who walk in his world, but by the possibility that there’s someone who might know what he’s going through.
Shyamalan’s breakout is a modern masterpiece in the art of the scare. A movie perfectly balanced between its eerie setting and the story of human fragility that it prioritizes over effective jump scares. This was a creative filmmaker teasing his artistic reach, a modern storyteller paving the road he would stay on for decades, and which has led him to become a very polarizing director. Nevertheless, with his first movies, Shyamalan gained the credit to always make us trust him one more time. It may not be the same as the early 2000s, but Shyamalan is a director who will probably always convince you to try out his movies.
- Release Date
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August 6, 1999
- Runtime
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107 minutes
- Producers
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Barry Mendel, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy