That Which Haunts Us
Abounds in The Sixth Sense

In The Sixth Sense, the new horror movie from Hollywood Pictures, young Haley Joel Osment sums up the entire premise in one chilling, heart-wrenching sentence as he confesses, "I see dead people." That scene alone is worth the price of admission, but it only scratches the surface of what makes this movie great.

Bruce Willis plays Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who -- after the loss of a former patient -- begins to look for redemption. He finds an opportunity in Cole Sear, a bright but awkward boy who has difficulty fitting in. Slowly Crowe gains the boy's trust until he discovers his secret. Young Cole claims that he sees the dead everywhere, walking around like normal people.

Like Crowe, the audience too would be skeptical, but we see what only Cole can see. His world is haunted by strange visions and visitors who pass through the hallways of his school and the small apartment he shares with his mother. These otherworldly encounters are so well-conceived that they suck in the viewer, building suspense slowly and dreadfully.

Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan must have studied Hitchcock carefully, for he understands the importance of suspense. Yet, Shyamalan doesn't cheat the audience with false scares or tension-relieving gags. The horror here is genuine and frightening. Visual cues build suspense until the situations climax in a scary moment that makes audiences shiver.

Interwoven is a love story between Crowe and his wife, Anna (Olivia Williams). Obsessed with helping the young boy, Crowe has neglected his wife. He begins to notice changes in her, including a relationship with a co-worker that he suspects may be more than just business. Although important to the story, it pulls us away from the real action, which is Cole and his ghosts. The story slows during these scenes, but ultimately everything ties together.

The Sixth Sense is a wonderfully original story. The dialogue, however, is uninspired at times. For example, the first five minutes of the movie are nothing but exposition about Crowe's profession. Everything said in the opening is summed up later in the film when Cole asks Crowe if he's a good doctor and he replies, "I guess so. The mayor gave me an award once." This is indicative of the whole movie, where some story elements are over explained and others go forward with leaps in logic.

The beginning of The Sixth Sense is a bit slow. I expected to see ghosts from scene one. Instead, the story took time to unfold, becoming something more than just a ghost story. Had it followed the path I expected, I would have given it a rating two points lower. But Shyamalan had a vision of his own that took the story in a unique direction.

MY RATING: 9 out of 10.

RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 107 min.