SIGNS

Touchstone Home Video has released M. Night Shyamalan’s third studio feature on DVD in a spotless THX transfer. Here, Shyamalan again takes a genre icon – the alien invasion movie – and gives it a fresh approach, making this one of the best science fiction films of this young century.

Mel Gibson stars as Graham Hess, a Pennsylvania farmer and reverend who abandons his church when his wife is killed in an accident. Privately, or at least subconsciously, he’s looking for a sign from above of a power greater than man. Instead he gets an unexpected sign from above, finding a crop circle pattern carved into his cornfield. That night, he and his brother (Jaoquin Phoenix) attempt to catch a shadowy prowler on the farm, but the trespasser easily eludes them. As events of the next few days and nights unfold, it becomes apparent to Hess and his family that not only is the Hess farm being visited by space aliens, but the entire world is on the brink of a full scale invasion.

Inspired by The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, Signs does a marvelous job of relating a horrifying historic event entirely from the intimate perspective of one family. The connection to George Romero’s zombie picture is especially apparent in the sequence in which the farmhouse is under attack, with the family retreating to the questionable safety of the cellar. But by that time you’re so wrapped up in the characters and story that you’re not concerned by the unveiled tribute. The film has a definite spiritual viewpoint, but it’s presented in such a way that you’re not required to share that viewpoint – what’s important is the characters’ journey to that place. Signs works exceedingly well as both a rich family drama and a cracking good, edge of the seat tale of horror and suspense. Gibson, Phoenix and the child actors all give fantastic performances, Tak Fujimoto’s photography lives up to his reputation, and the CGI f/x are completely invisible, increasing audience involvement in the story.

One possible misstep is Shyamalan’s decision to play a key role himself – he plays it well, but it’s distracting for those in the know to see the writer/director pop up in the film. Another questionable factor is the cliché sci-fi idea of giving the menace a weakness to a common element. I buy it because we’re all constantly surrounded by deadly poisons like mercury, and it’s only in concentrated form that it becomes dangerous.

As a classy but unnecessary bonus, an insert pamphlet is provided with extra photos, a chapter menu, and explanation of the disc’s extras. Rather than one long Making-of documentary, the behind-the-scenes material is broken up into featurettes – in all, about an hour long - that explore the writing of the story and script, storyboards and set building, principle photography, special effects, James Newton Howard’s music soundtrack (which reminds me of Bernard Hermann), and the marketing of the film. Like the DVDs of Shyamalan’s previous films, this one has several deleted scenes, but this time without the director’s explanation of their excision. The reasons aren’t really needed – four are a bit too cute, and the fourth comes off silly, and would’ve totally broken the tension and pace of the attack sequence.

Another Shyamalan DVD tradition is the inclusion of a clip from one of his childhood camcorder films, and here he presents his first creature feature Pictures. There’s also a feature with which you can compare storyboards of select sequences with the finished film and different audio tracks.

The menu design and presentation of this package is fine, except the audio level of the extras is much lower than that of the menus.