Okay, first, do not read this if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know the ending…
This is a stupid thing that’s been bugging me. My husband and I saw the “Sixth Sense” back when it came out and the ending can=me as a total shock. This has been the case with just about everyone we’ve talked to. However, my aunt figured it out after hearing a description of the plot (Bruce Willis is a psychologist that survived a shooting, and a year later, he gets this kid as a patient…) and she says “Oh, I get it, Bruce Willis is dead!”
Again, I said this was a stupid topic…So did anyone else figure it out right away? How about the ending to the “Usual Suspects,” because I’ve heard people claim that they saw that coming a mile away.
I saw the “Sixth Sense,” but I first read part of a review. The review didn’t give the ending away, but it said something like, “Brace yourself for the surprise ending.” Having read that, I watched the whole movie trying to figure out what it would be and managed to do so pretty quickly. When I then recounted the movie to my neighbor (leaving out the end), she asked, “So is Bruce Willis dead after all?” Much like your aunt. Maybe something in the way I told the story tipped my hand, even without meaning to.
On the other hand, I first saw “Usual Suspects” on video. I had therefore missed all the buzz on the movie and all reviews, and the ending came out of nowhere. I liked being surprised a lot better.
The ending to the Sixth Sense also caught me by surprise, but then again, I saw it the first week-end it came out, so wasn’t prepared for a “surprise ending.” Of course, those that know me might also say I was surprised because I’m not the sharpest tack in the drawer, but that’s neither here nor there.
I did guess to the ending of “The Usual Suspects”, but then I had heard a lot about the movie at first so was trying to guess about the surprise. But then, when I thought back, I realized it’s useless trying to look for “logic” in the plot of the movie, since the whole story is fabricated from whole cloth by the narrator.
I agree with D Marie that it’s better to avoid hearing too much about the movie beforehan.
Actually, these two movies intertwined for me. I was caught completely by surprise with Usual Suspects.
Before seeing Sixth Sense, I read a review of it that said something like, “…with an ending Kyser Soze himself would be proud of.”
Thus armed, I figured out about halfway through the movie what the deal was… and of course, being the know-it-all that I am, I had to whisper it to my date right then.
- Rick
Well, I saw Sixth Sense in the theater and had been aware that there was supposed to be a “surprise twist” ending. After he got shot, I immediately dismissed the “Bruce is dead” idea as too obvious for anyone to think it would be an unexpected ending, but by the restaurant scene, I was almost positive that was it, positive enough to comment to my sister that I knew what the “surprise” was. She didn’t figure it out until the end.
The Sixth Sense ending came as a surprise to me. I saw the movie a few days after it opened and wasn’t expecting Bruce Willis’ character to be dead.
However, I did figure out the ending to The Usual Suspects which I rented on video. I don’t know where I was when that movie had it’s run but I had never even heard of it.
“Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.”
My friend, in his school newspaper, someone anonymously put in an advert saying “In Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis is dead for the entire movie.” People were so pissed.
I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.
I knew there was a twist (because it was in all the reviews and stuff) but didn’t figure it out at all, so it really hit me for six. What the director intended to do, i.e. misdirect us with illusions that seemed to show Brucey being still alive, totally fooled me.
However, I didn’t like Usual Suspects. i watched the first half hour and thought ‘what a boring piece of crap’ and turned it off.
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I was totally kicking myself when I finally caught on. How could I have forgotten that all my therapy/counseling experiences have taken place in an office?
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
Okay, I too was caught off guard by the ending of Sixth Sense. My point however is that suprise, yes, leaves big holes in the plot in order to fit in the surprise ending? Yes to that too.
For one thing, how did BW go a whole year without his wife talking to him and he didn’t really notice? Or what about the scene where he is sitting in the kid’s apartment with the mother? It appears as though BW has been there awhile, did he not notice that the mother wasn’t speaking to him? And if the ghosts weren’t supposed to be harmful to the kid, why did that one in the attic scratch the hell out of 'im? (okay that has nothing to do with the ending) And if the kid was so freaked out by ghosts, why the heck did he even talk to BW in the first place, or worry about telling his secret to him??
IMHO, in order to accomodate the suprise ending, the director or script writer or whoever left plot holes big enough to drive a truck through.
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” --Whitman
The kid didn’t trust BW at first, either, but since he didn’t have a gross disfigurement, and his specialty was dealing with disturbed kids, BW was able to wear down his defenses, like with the one-step-forward-one-back game. And remember, the kid said, “They don’t know they’re dead.” Probably, consciousness, as such, is selective for people in BW’s situations, and there were many times when he wasn’t “there” and didn’t clearly remember what had happened recently.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
I figured it out after seeing the movie obvisiously. See it twice and it helps.
One movie I heard had a surprise ending was Arlington Road. I actually just rented it today and watched it. Even though I knew the ending was going to be shocking, I was still amazed when it happened. Wow that was a great movie.
“The idea of a walk-in closet sounds frightening. If I’m ever sittin’ at home and a closet walks in, I’m gettin’ outta there.” ~George Carlin
SINsApple,
They did handle your objection - not only did the kid say, “They don’t know they’re dead,” as was pointed out above… the key line was, “They see what they want to see.” Dead people simply don’t notice what doesn’t conform to their perception. The classic example was the table placed in front of the door to the basement. He kept trying the door, rattling it… in we kept assuming he didn’t have his key. But just at the final denouement, the camera moves back slight, and we see, along with Willis’ character, for the first time the table.
This makes sense – if, in general, the dead people don’t know they’re dead, they are clearly missing something, because people aren’t talking to them any more.
- Rick
The endings to both The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspect were complete surprises to me. Same with The Crying Game secret.
I really like the mythology of The Sixth Sense. I really like the way it extends the our feeling about our personal failures to the afterlife. Willis’ character is so hung up on his failure with his previous client, that it clouds his perception of the entire world, including the fact that he’d been shot to death months earlier. It’s sort of the supernatural version of ordinary life struggles - you might be so into your job that you ignore your family, etc.
Any similarity in the above text to an English word or phrase is purely coincidental.
Actually, I did figure both of the endings for Sixth Sense and Usual Suspects, although I have to confess it was near the end of both films… kind of like it “dawned” on me after I put a few things together. I just had to see most of the movie first.
I can think of a few films that did surprise me at the end:
Clue - Maybe it was told (reviews, stars plugging film) that there were 3 endings, but how could you figure out all 3 correctly?
Executive Decision - I think thats the title of that Kurt Russel flick, not sure. What surprised me was not the ending, see it also had Steven Segal in the movie and one would think “Oh Steven Segal… he is going to kill all the bad guys, typical action flick” but he gets killed very early in the movie, I thought it was strange and did not see that coming.
“Wow! Spider-Man! Are you really friends with the X-men?”
"Not since Cyclops tried to use my viewmaster."
(Marvel Team Up #1)
Primal Fear, Usual Suspects both got me, I too figure out The Sixth Sense but very late in the movie so I don’t think it counts.
I had it figured by the restaurant scene too. His wife didn’t know he was even there, AND HE WAS ALWAYS WEARING THE SAME CLOTHES!!
Sweet Basil
You guys have nailed one of my biggest pet peeves: movie reviewers who say things like ‘I won’t spoil anything here, but there is a mind-blowing ending which is completely unexpected!!’ That’s a HUGE spoiler, in my opinion!! Just knowing that there is a ‘twist’ ending is enough to give it away most of the time when you see the movie.
I do feel sorry for you guys who figured out the Sixth Sense twist ahead of time. I saw the movie early in its run, with no knowledge of the ending, and it was a fantastic experience. If you don’t know the movie has a twist, you definitely don’t see it coming. Almost the entire theater audibly gasped at the end, when the truth is finally revealed…
I didn’t get Sixth Sense or Usual Suspects but I knew the Crying Game “secret” the minute you first see the guy/girl. I mean his arms were huge and veiny, it was so obvious to me. (A roommate saw it a few weeks later and I asked what she thought and she was confused because she thought there was supposed to be a twist but she must have missed it. I told her “Well, you’re not supposed to know “she” is a man.” and she said “What? Who wouldn’t know that?!”) There was a Harrison Ford movie a while back (10 years or so?) called I think “Presumed Innocent” (from the book) that I guessed the killer from like the first line of the movie. (I guess it’s safe to give it away after all this time.) I just thought it was so obvious that if he had an affair and the wife knew about it, she was the one that killed the woman. (I was pretty surprised to find out I was right, and loved it, lol.)
The real reason he was out of the movie so early was that the Production team couldn’t stand him. They hated him so much, they fired him, wrote him out of the movie, and stuck with Kurt Russell instead.
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