9. Signs
M. Night Shyamalan gets an unfair bad rap sometimes. It's not his fault his movies are horrible, he just doesn't know how to write a good story or direct a film. Is that such a crime? In 2002's Signs, "Night" (which isn't even really his middle name) starts off uncharacteristically strong, creating a sense of tension and claustrophobia as extraterrestrials gradually threaten the earth. There's even a great scene in which, on a newscast, the briefest glimpse of one of the little green men is seen. It's surprisingly effective, and sets a great tone for the rest of the film. Unfortunately, Shyamalan makes the sin that far too many directors make. He shows the alien too much. They're just not that scary looking. At all. The only other thing less scary than seeing too much of the aliens would be if the villain was just the wind blowing through the fields. Oh, right, he made that movie too. The whole last act of this movie completely fails as anything other than camp nonsense. And when the twist at the end is that the alien's weakness is water, pretty much anyone who saw Unbreakable realized how lazy a writer Shyamalan is. This flick was probably one re-write away from Joaquin Phoenix having been dead the entire time.