2019 is a big year for horror movie anniversaries and as we look ahead to Glass it’s important to celebrate M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 masterpiece The Sixth Sense.
Once upon a time, just over 20 years ago to be exact, the phrase “I see dead people” didn’t exist. At least, it didn’t exist in the sense that we know it today. It’s all thanks to The Sixth Sense, which debuted in 1999.
When The Sixth Sense came out no one knew what to expect. It was M. Night Shyamalan’s big chance to do something special. This was a time when there was no Twitter or Instagram there to spoil the big twist at the end, namely that Bruce Willis was a ghost. Gasp! (And no, no spoiler alert for that because it has been 20 years and if you haven’t seen it yet, well…)
The Sixth Sense changed everything for moviegoers. When Bruce Willis was revealed to be yet another one of the many ghosts Haley Joel Osment was talking to it was a big moment because the reliable narrator became unreliable in the blink of an eye. The audience had arrived at the end of the movie only to find that everything they thought they knew was actually false. Bruce Willis died at the beginning of the film and we had no idea he was dead the whole time!
Since that moment there have been so many twists and turns in movie and television plots that there are too many to count, but modern audiences who cut their horror teeth on The Sixth Sense learned a very important lesson: Never get comfortable in a horror movie. Until the film stops rolling there could be more yet to come, so don’t relax. The credits aren’t even safe anymore. You never know what’s coming next!
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