The same scene occurred twice in moviehouses in the summer of '99: a particularly troubled character senses danger of the paranormal kind when the room temperature inexplicably plummets to below-freezing. The difference is that when it happens to Lili Taylor's Nell in The Haunting, we don't panic. The hero of The Sixth Sense, a young boy named Cole, is a richer creation, and we wish nothing more than for the ghosts that haunt him to take the proverbial hike.

In The Sixth Sense's prologue, an ex-patient (Donnie Wahlberg, remarkable) shoots jaded child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) there in the comfort of Malcolm's bedroom. Desperate to get his career back on track, even at the expense of his crumbling marriage (Olivia Williams of Rushmore plays his sullen wife), Malcolm councils the deeply troubled Cole (Haley Joel Osment), a preteen who displays the symptoms of Malcolm's would-be killer: scars on his body; antisocial behaviour; and the reluctance to reveal a Big Secret. Only after Cole is locked in a "dungeon" by a pair of bullies (and subsequently hospitalized) does he divulge to Malcolm, in a moment that still sends chills up the spine even though it was prostituted by the media and plundered by pop-culture, that he sees dead people. Walking among us. All the time. He's a magnet for ectoplasm.

Malcolm, touched deep inside by Cole's sincerity, forgoes psychiatric protocol. He will instead pursue the supernatural angle, becoming a kind of ghostbuster and surrogate father to Cole by default. (Cole lives with his brave-faced single mother, Lynn (Toni Collette).) The Sixth Sense is soothing more often than it's frightening and would be none the worse for wear without its few pulp shocks, reminding us far more of Ghost than Poltergeist in that regard. (Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan does, however, crib the self-rearranging kitchen business from the latter, somewhat unforgiveably.)

Though we appreciate Malcolm's domestic dilemma, we're wearing Cole's shoes, sense-remembering our fears of the bogeyman or the Farrah poster on the wall that grew fangs when caught in a beam of moonlight. Willis, persuasive in doctors' poses (the film becomes a kind of redemption for his Raspberry-worthy turn as a hobbyist shrink in Color of Night), gives up the spotlight to his costar; Osment has since developed the nasty habit of being the best actor in the room. Both deliver measured, likable performances, and their dynamic is manifest. Atmospherically lit by The Silence of the Lambs cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, The Sixth Sense unspools like a slow page-turner, its unexpected finish definitely worth the wait. The big twist ending is simply not bulletproof, yet I continue to admire its audacity.

The Sixth Sense has been upgraded on DVD to a 2-platter set in the VISTA Series line that, while it recycles the bonus material from the previous Collector's Edition disc, contains a fresh, THX-approved anamorphic transfer and additional supplements. In a taste test between the two versions, the THX release came out slightly ahead in the picture department for the fact of its stronger luminance and absence of obvious compression artifacts. If you really want to get nitpicky, the 1.85:1 THX image masks off a hair more info at the top--we're talking micrometers. The crafty soundmix is better represented by the VISTA Series as it contains Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 options. There remains not much activity in the surrounds but the dialogue is louder and clearer and the bass jolts are nerve-jangling, especially in DTS.

Aside from a trailer for Pearl Harbor that fires up automatically upon inserting the DVD, Disc 1 is barren of extras. Disc 2 is most definitely not. "Reflections from the Set" (39 mins.) is the first of three excellent documentaries by Charles Kiselyak, the man behind those wonderful featurettes on select titles from last year's "Oliver Stone Collection." Interspersing behind-the-scenes footage with recent, shot-on-film interviews, "Reflections..." makes The Sixth Sense's success seem not so inexplicable, given the dedication (Donnie Wahlberg lost 25 pounds for a five-minute scene) and creative harmony of all involved and serendipitous aspects of the production. In the cool, eerie "Between Two Worlds" (37 mins.), Shyamalan, Exorcist author William Peter Blatty, Ghost writer Bruce Joel Rubin, and others discuss the cinema of the afterlife as well as their own brushes with death. "Moving Pictures: The Storyboard Process" sits down with Shyamalan and storyboard artist Brick Mason as they hash out shots for the former's upcoming thriller Signs, starring Mel Gibson. Interestingly, Shyamalan defends many of his observations by pointing to editor Walter Murch's published theories--from my conversations with Mr. Murch, I gather that he admires The Sixth Sense a great deal in return.

"Music and Sound Design" (7 mins.) is a neat featurette in which we learn that human breaths provided the "room tone" (the often-imperceptible background hum) for the duration of The Sixth Sense; composer James Newton Howard also lets a few cats out of the bag. "Reaching the Audience" (3 mins.) sees the producers gloating about the film's opening weekend and eventual grosses (it cracked the top ten moneymakers of all time by the end of its run). "Rules and Clues" (6 mins.) covers the measures that were taken to ensure that The Sixth Sense held up to multiple-viewing scrutiny. Three deleted scenes, one of them an extended ending that would've left the film in disrepair, are preceded by Shyamalan introductions, each; a trailer, 15- and 30-second TV spots, detailed filmmaker and cast bios, and DVD-ROM weblinks round out the VISTA Series edition of The Sixth Sense, not counting the outstanding menu designs and enclosed collectible storyboard lithograph. If you can afford to do so, I recommend replacing the Collector's Edition copy with this revamp, if only for Kiselyak's contributions; in any case, it's a better value than any of Universal's so-called Ultimate Editions.-Bill Chambers

Buy at Amazon USA
Buy at Amazon Canada
or Compare Prices

DVD VITALS:
Running Time
107 minutes
MPAA
PG-13
Aspect Ratio(s)
1.85:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DTS 5.1
English DD 5.1,
French DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
Spanish
2 DVD-9s
Region One
Hollywood

the critic

Buy the SIXTH SENSE Poster at Moviegoods (click on image)

What's coming out on DVD? Check the release calendar

Published: January 15, 2002