The 6th sense
Year of release : 1999
Run time : 1h47m
Genre : Supernatural Horror / Psychological Thriller
Cast : Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg
Director : M. Night Shyamalan
The movie was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Malcom and his wife Anna, celebrate him receiving an award from the city of Philadelphia, for the work he’s done in the field of child psychology. Anna is proud of him for being recognized for the work and the sacrifices he’s done, putting his work first, and her second.
When they enter the bedroom, Anna sees a broken window, and broken things on the floor. She screams as she sees a shadow in the bathroom, and a man who’s only in his underwear, who seems very disturbed, is asking them if they know what you’re afraid of when you’re alone in the dark, telling Malcom he failed him, as he diagnosed him wrong, he had no idea what was happening to him. Malcom is trying to remember who he is, and realizes he is a former child patient, Vincent, but as he does, Vincent sho0ts him, then himself.
The next fall, Malcom is taking a new case, of the 9 year old boy, Cole, who lives with his single mother, Lynn. Malcom feels he needs to help Cole because he failed Vincent. At the same time, he has problems in his marriage, as it seems him and his wife are like strangers in their home, as Anna seems to be interested in another man.
Cole’s mother sees weird things happening in their home, as all the cabinets doors open at random, and once when she cleans the house, she notices a weird light always around Cole in all of his old pictures, and finds his drawings and writings with cuss words.
Cole sees dead people, and is terrified by them, as they haunt him all the time, his home being like their playground. He is afraid to tell his mother or Malcom, as he doesn’t want them to look at him the way his schoolmates do.
Cole gets invited to one of his schoolmates’ birthday party, and the birthday boy with another, who thinks himself an actor for he played in an add, lock him in the attic, where Cole saw a ghost.
His mother hears the screaming, and tries to get him out, but the door won’t unlock, and when she does, she has to take him to the hospital as he’s unconscious.
At the hospital the doctors think she hurts Cole, as he has bruises and scratches on him. Lynn thinks it’s the boys who locked him in the attic, and calls their mothers to give them a piece of her mind.
Malcom thinks Cole is schizophrenic until he listens to one of Vincent’s old tapes, and raising the volume to the maximum, he hears a man talking in Spanish.
I personally enjoyed the movie. It used to be one of my favorites 20 years ago.
The movie has this beautiful autumn atmosphere, which is really soothing somehow.
I liked that the characters have growth, they each learn from each other, and help each other (Malcom is there to help Cole understand what to do with his gift, while Cole tells him how to talk to his wife, when he finally tells her she was never second in his life).
I liked that Cole’s mother loved him, and never wanted him to feel bad for anything, always trying to express how much she loved him, even through just saying “look at my face, I don’t think bad things of you”.
I loved the twist at the end.
The actors were great, Toni Collette was my favorite, she deserved the Oscar for this role.
Donnie Wahlberg makes a cameo appearance at the beginning, as Malcom’s former patient, who sho0ts him, and he was amazing.
M. Night Shyamalan makes a cameo appearance as the doctor at the hospital Lynn takes Cole, after being locked in the attic.
The soundtrack was good.
The visual effects were good.
The movie received critical acclaim, and was nominated for 6 Oscars ( including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Haley Joel Osment (who was also nominated for a Golden Globe), and Best Supporting Actress for Toni Collette ) and 4 Baftas.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A-.
The movie was the 2nd highest grossing movie of 1999, grossing 672.8 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 40 million!
Movie trivia : Actress Marisa Tomei was considered to play Lynn Sear.
The 6th sense is intuition, or the gift of perceiving beyond the sense of sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. The 6th sense is the extrasensory perception which Cole has.
You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link :
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9h60wk
Rating : Worth a watch !