Well, it had to be here somewhere, didn't it? Nowadays, the "big twist" inherent to M. Night Shyamalan's best film feels like the stuff of parody, but back in the day this thing was so shocking and so downright unexpected that it pretty much changed cinema. The big reveal, of course, came at the end of the picture, when young Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) realises that his therapist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), has been dead all along. So what made this particular twist controversial, then? Pretty much, the sensation factor alone was enough to mark it out as something to be debated and poured over. There are many out there who believe that the film only works once as a result of this revelation, whereas others claim that a second or third of four viewing of The Sixth Sense only enhances the experience. And then there's the fact that the plot was ripped off from an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
