I still think he was a one-hit wonder; he was fabulous with one brilliant idea he had complete control of. Unfortunately, that was his wad and all he can do is keep chasing the lightning bug with an expensive mason jar.
Maybe - with someone else’s material and a strong, experienced producer holding his leash - he’s got a better future.
He’s got a new movie with James McAvoy coming out in 2017, called Split. The leading character has 23 different personalities.
sigh Or he’ll just keep wailing on that thar dead horse.
Let me guess: The personality you think is the “real” one- IS NOT!! DUN - DUN - DUNNNNNN!!!
He says that he likes mystical themes, so maybe it will be more like the personalities are each different souls from previous lives or something to that effect, and the bad one is the one which he’s trying to make up for with all his other lives.
It happens so often on TV and movies it it probably isn’t even seen as a problem. I thought I was the only one bothered by it. NYPD Detective Brock Steeljaw finally figures out who the killer is and realizes that he is about to kill Katie Ingénue! So Brock goes to the elevator, waits till he gets to the ground floor, gets to wherever he parked the car which might not be close even for official business. Drives across Manhattan during the busiest time of day which is not going to be fast even with lights and sirens, parks, waits for the elevator, finds the apartment, stops the evildoer in the nick of time. Or he could have called it in and a bunch of the 34,000 NYPD who were much closer could have reached Katie much quicker.
They did explain it. The problems they had were real, she really did suffer from sun-downing and she really did go crazy and eat things she shouldn’t. I mostly enjoyed the movie, but making the little kid a rapper just annoyed the fuck outta me.
We really don’t need to look for the twist. Shyamalan may be famous for twist endings, but he’s only really made one or two movies with twist endings.
Sixth Sense was a twist ending. No question.
Unbreakable was not a twist ending. It was a cliche ending, but not a twist ending. How many movies have had the bad guy turn out to be a main character who was the hero’s friend? All of them? Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but the point stands.
Signs was not a twist ending any more than Independence Day was a twist ending. The aliens have a weakness, we found it, attack!
The Village had a twist, but that wasn’t the point of the movie. It’s not like Sixth Sense, where the movie’s entire reason for being was wrapped up in the twist. The twist in The Village was more of an afterthought. But still, it’s enough to qualify.
I don’t recall any twist in Lady in the Water; just a straightforward fairy tale. I don’t remember the movie all that well because it pretty much sucked, though.
The Happening had no twist at all. No more than, say, The Day After had a twist. (That awful global warming / the planet freezes movie with Dennis Quaid.)
The Visit wasn’t a twist, it was just a regular horror movie: Weird stuff happens in acts 1 and 2, we found out why in act 3.
EDIT: Full disclosure, I’m a big fan. Loved Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, and The Visit. Lady in the Water and The Happening were stinkers, though.
I guess that we need to clarify what a “twist” is. I don’t think that a plot twist stops being one just because it’s cliched.
The twist in Lady in the Water was that the characters thought to be the archetypes were not, and were other characters instead.
And I don’t see why The Visit’s plot twist doesn’t count. The audience thought (Well, those who didn’t guess the twist before it happened) a plot element was true in the two first acts, but it turns out not to be in act three. That’s a twist.
Was Tomb Raider a twist ending? Or Melissa McCarthy’s recent (and hysterical) movie Spy a twist? How about Wesley Snipes’ Blade? Or any other of the myriad of movies where the bad guy turns out to be either a main character or a minor character who is a friend of the hero.
If you think those are twist movies, then fair enough, you’re justified to classify Unbreakable as a twist movie. But I don’t consider any of those movies to be twists, and I don’t think most people do either.
For me, just having the bad guy turn out to be a known character isn’t a twist. I consider it a twist when the whole premise of the movie transforms into a different light once the twist is revealed. Sixth Sense has this in spades. The Village technically has this, but it isn’t really all that relevant to the film.
Consider also movies like Snowpiercer. If M. Night Shyamalan had made that exact movie, frame for frame, people would roll their eyes and mock the twist ending. But since it wasn’t him, nobody feels the need to throw up their arms in exasperation that they had to shoe-horn a twist in there. (I found the movie bad due to the entire premise; the twist didn’t add to the stupidity. But I do appreciate that babies taste best.) But more importantly, nobody classifies it as a twist movie right now, but they would if it were made by Shyamalan. I contend that this same effect applies to most of Shyamalan’s movies.
But that’s also true in most horror movies. It’s practically a defining feature of the genre. And if The Visit were made by anyone else, nobody would consider it a twist movie.
An example of a twist in a horror movie for me would be something like The Others, where you want to see it a second time so you can properly appreciate it in context. By contrast, The Visit was just straightforward “weird stuff happens, then we find out why.” Just like countless other movies in the genre.
No, but it was a plot twist.
Yes. of course.
Wait, who turns heel in Blade? I don’t remember it well, but, what his girlfriend turns a vampire or something? Because then, no.
We need to start setting apart plot twists and twist movies, then.
Snowpiercer’s ending has been widely criticised, Shamalayan or not.
Again, we have to find where the line for “twist movie” lies. Plenty of horror movies have twist endings (Gasp! The masked killer was my long lost twin sister all along!) So? What’s wrong with calling a twist a twist?
how so? If you hadn’t guessed the twist by the moment it happened, every scene with the grandparents up until that moment can be revisited with the new context. How is there any difference here?
A twist ending changes the entire movie retroactively. Fight Club, Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, The Others. The second time you watch them you are getting an entirely different experience than the first time. The Visit is just an ending, ditto Unbreakable, etc.
Wait, I must be going crazy here. How does the ending of The Visit and Unbreakable doesn’t change the entire movie retroactively as much or even more, than your other instances?
I mean, The Usual Suspects and Unbreakable have got the same exact plot twist.
But plot twists are common. Almost required in some genres. Just because it doesn’t change your perception of the reality of the movie doesn’t mean it’s not a twist.
“Every story ever told can be divided into three distinctive parts: the beginning, the middle, and the twist.” If it was in the Goosebumps movie it must be true.
FWIW, the part of my post you quoted was agreeing with you on this point. When I said “we have to look for”, I meant “people analyze Shyamalan movies as though a twist were a necessary part of his work”.
Whether or not there are actually twists in all his work, he really does like the dramatic 3rd act reveal.
In The Visit, there’s just the resolution of the mystery.
And it’s a fairly well-foreshadowed one, too.
The first night, Pop Pop tells them there’s mold in the basement. Ok, so there’s something hidden in the basement. Then the guy comes to the house, who works at the mental hospital and mentions that the grandparents didn’t show up for a scheduled visit, and I’m thinking “oh, the grandparents were murdered (or maybe kidnapped) by crazy people who have taken their place. Real grandparents are in the basement”. Then when Nana uses oven cleaner on the laptop camera, the alarm bells are ringing: “100% confirmed, these are not really their grandparents, and now Mom can’t notice it during Skype calls”.
I remember the sundowning explanation. Did they actually explain or show her eating things she shouldn’t?
I now want to go watch Lady in the Water again, because I remember thinking it was good, but everyone else (even other self-avowed Shyamalan fans!) is saying it’s terrible.
I don’t follow. I mean, yes, there are some vague similarities, but any number of movies have characters who turn out to be something else.
Sure. So why would one be a twist and not the other? Both turn out to have a supporting character who turns out to have been the villain behind it all, and both can be revisited just the same.
Okay. It’s just not unique to these two films, and by “not unique” I mean that I wouldn’t even consider it a significant comparative point. There’s probably a TV Tropes page of “Mr. Nice Guy turns out to be the Big Bad.”
ETA: Listing mostly Robin Cook novels and the films made from them. 
God, I hated reading a third Cook novel to find it was the same plot yet again.
Yeah, the morning after the puking incident the girl sat down with the grandfather and he explained it.
Because the twist in the Usual Suspects changes the entire movie and the one in Unbreakable is just an explanation.