Film Theory: The Aliens In Signs Aren't What They Seem...

6. Hell Is A Place On Earth

We then hear his son Morgan state upon seeing the crop circle that starts it all: “I think God did it.” We’re instantly introduced to the duplicitous tone of the film, whether what we’re seeing is a warning from the heavens, or if rationality and science are the only truth out in the cold reaches of the unknown.

Yes, it shoe-horns in that we’re dealing with a religious family, but it also is the best example of the famous ‘God working in mysterious ways,’ namely dropping a strange symbol into the middle of their food supply that functions as ‘the mark of the beast’, drawing the hellish forces right to their doorstep. It’s even shaped remotely like a pitch fork, in reference to the typical stylised weapon of old school demons.

There’s more than one reference to suffering in hell at the hands of these ‘aliens’, also, with the barbeque of the early moments of the film bringing about connotations of burning and death - especially when the fork is used to kill their dog Houdini. Transformed from the placid family pet into a viscous, hungry beast, it can be argued that the dog becomes a hellhound - a minion of the devil - in the presence of demonic influences taking root in the farmyard home.

Later in the film, we’re also very directly lead to look at the image of a typical spaceship burning down a farm house almost identical to the Hess family home. It’s the most obvious offering of a link between these so called ‘aliens’ (cough, demons) and hell, coming from a book of information that Morgan informs us was written by “scientists who had been persecuted for their beliefs.”

Sound familiar? Perhaps it rings some bells when we take a look at the bible, a similar tome of collective authors who have been killed, shunned, or laughed at in their passionate dedication to Christianity.