A lot of people may not realise that M. Night Shyamalan actually got his idea for The Sixth Sense and its big twist from a 1994 episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? The episode, called 'The Tale of the Dream Girl', features a boy named Johnny who keeps experiencing strange encounters with a beautiful girl, and is ignored by everyone but his sister. The strange girl constantly asks Johnny for her ring back, which appears to be stuck on Liam's finger. In the end, it's revealed that the girl is Johnny's girlfriend Donna, and the pair died in a car accident. Johnny didn't remember, attempting to live his life anyway. His sister, for whatever reason, could still see him - until eventually she helped him to realise that he was dead, so that he could move into the afterlife with Donna. If elements of that sound familiar, they should be. The dead person who doesn't know they're dead, the person who can see them and helps them, additional ghosts, the presence of a ring that ends up solving the mystery... Turns out M. Night Shyamalan is a huge Nickelodeon fan.
Cinephile since 1993, aged 4, when he saw his very first film in the cinema - Jurassic Park - which is also evidence of damn fine parenting. World champion at Six Degrees of Separation. Lender of DVDs to cheap mates. Connoisseur of Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe.
