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‘Signs’ Was Released 14 Years Ago Today

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Signs 14th Anniversary

At the turn of the century, there was no director who was more popular than M. Night Shyamalan. After directing the Rosie O’Donnell film Wide Awake in 1998, he unleashed The Sixth Sense upon the world in 1999. That film is regarded as one of the greatest horror movies of all time, and that is mostly thanks to the twist ending. This isn’t to say that the film doesn’t stand up on its own apart from the twist. It absolutely does, but the consensus is that the twist is the most memorable thing about the movie. The success of that film would be both a blessing and a curse for Shyamalan, who set incredibly high expectations for all of his subsequent films.

After the enormous success of The Sixth Sense, Shymalan wrote and directed the Bruce Willis/Samuel L. Jackson superhero movie Unbreakable. While critical reaction was mostly positive, audience reception was lukewarm at best. The film has since gained a rather sizable cult following, but in 2000 it was considered a creative disappointment despite earning back over three times its budget.

Two years later, Shyamalan returned with Signs, starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and a very young Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin. Released 14 years ago today, Signs had a lot of buzz leading up to it’s premiere. It wouldn’t be until after Lady in the Water when Shyamalan truly started to become the butt of every joke in Hollywood. Signs received critical acclaim (it’s his second best-reviewed film), with many praising it for it’s buildup and level of suspense while criticizing its payoff.

The payoff, of course, is the half-assed attempt at a twist during the film’s climax. As many of you probably already know, the aliens who are attempting to take over the world have a severe allergy to water, an element that makes up 71% of the earth’s surface. It certainly makes them seem a lot less intelligent than you would think they would be. As misguided as that twist was, the rest of the film does hold up. It is also home to one of the greatest jump scares in cinema history. If there is one thing to be said for Signs, it’s that it shows the “less is more” approach can work wonders for a film. There are hardly any jump scares in the film, which is why the alien’s reveal is so effective.

The film also boasts strong performances from the entire cast. Mel Gibson is good, but the film belongs to Phoenix. Early career performances from Culkin and Breslin are also impressive. One thing that Shymalan has always excelled at is injecting a brooding atmosphere into his films. Even trash like The Happening does a pretty decent job at creating an atmosphere for its killer plant world.

Made on a budget of $72 million ($3 million less than that of Unbreakable), Signs was a huge success. It grossed $227.9 million domestically and $180.2 million internationally for a worldwide total of $408.2 million. While the opinion on the film has cooled in the 14 years since its release, it is still notable for being Shyamalan’s second highest grossing film after The Sixth Sense.

I remember seeing Signs with my uncle when on one of my annual summer trips to visit my grandparents (I was 13). I thought it was fine at the time but it’s one of those movies where I like it a little bit more each time I watch it. What are your thoughts on Signs? Do you think it’s Shyamalan’s last good film (I was a huge fan of The Visit, which proved to be equally as divisive)? Or are you not a fan? Share your thoughts and memories on the film in the comments below!

A journalist for Bloody Disgusting since 2015, Trace writes film reviews and editorials, as well as co-hosts Bloody Disgusting's Horror Queers podcast, which looks at horror films through a queer lens. He has since become dedicated to amplifying queer voices in the horror community, while also injecting his own personal flair into film discourse. Trace lives in Austin, TX with his husband and their two dogs. Find him on Twitter @TracedThurman

Editorials

‘The Company of Wolves’ at 40: One of the Most Underrated Werewolf Movies Ever Made

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There’s a compelling idea in anthropology that many ancient werewolf legends are derived from our species’ need to rationalize the more animalistic side of humanity – which is why lycanthropy has historically been used to explain everything from medieval serial killers to cannibalism. While I personally think there’s a lot more to unpack when it comes to tales of wolfmen and women, this is still a great example of why so many of our most enduring fairy tales involve big bad wolves.

And in the world of film, I think there’s only one feature that really nails the folkloric origins of werewolf stories, namely Neil Jordan’s 1984 fairy-tale horror classic, The Company of Wolves. Even four decades later, there’s no other genre flick that comes close to capturing the dreamlike ambience behind this strange anthology, and that’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to look back on one of the most underrated werewolf flicks ever made.

The Company of Wolves was originally a short story contained in the 1979 anthology The Bloody Chamber, a collection of deconstructed fairy-tales intended for mature readers penned by English author Angela Carter. With the book quickly becoming a hit as readers became fascinated with its subversion of classic folk stories and (then) controversial feminist undertones, it was soon transformed into a duology of BBC radio-dramas which adapted both The Company of Wolves and Carter’s reimagining of Puss-in-Boots.

These radio-dramas soon attracted the attention of then up-and-coming Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan, who decided to meet with Carter to discuss expanding on her stories and bringing them to life on the big screen. The duo soon realized that a single short story wasn’t enough material for a feature-length film, so they decided to adapt all of Carter’s werewolf tales into a single anthology.

With a completed script and a $2.3 million budget, Jordan decided to tackle the project like a hybrid between a theatrical period drama and a schlocky monster movie. Effects-heavy creature features were a hot commodity back in the ’80s, with films like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London proving that there was an audience for horrific lycanthrope transformations, so the director soon recruited a team that could turn this odd collection of feminist folk stories into something commercially viable.

Not exactly a great pick for family movie night.

Shooting would eventually take place almost entirely within the England-based Shepperton Studios, with notable production designer Anton Furst (who would later be known for his work on Tim Burton’s Batman films) helping to bring Jordan’s vision of a darkly romantic fairy-tale world to life. Appropriately enough, production would also involve a real pack of trained wolves (as well as a collection of dyed dogs), though extensive puppetry and animatronics were also used to flesh out the more gruesome parts of the flick.

After a grueling nine-week shoot where budgetary constraints led to corners being cut on props and costumes, The Company of Wolves was finally released in September of 1984 – just in time for spooky season. In the finished film, we follow the strange dreams of a sulky teenage girl named Rosaleen (first-time actress Sarah Patterson) as the film unravels an Arabian-Nights-inspired tapestry of both familiar and not-so-familiar stories about big bad wolves.

From sexually charged cautionary tales to parables about female empowerment, this surreal collection of deranged bedtime stories is much more than the creature feature that the marketing initially suggested. Like a more horror-oriented version of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Company of Wolves exudes that same kind of hormonal teenage energy that transports us back to a time when the world was both scary and exciting in equal measure.

That’s not to say that this is an entirely pleasant experience, however, and I’m not just talking about the film’s horror elements. A big portion of the flick’s overtly sexual moments involve the then 13-year-old Patterson coming to grips with her blossoming womanhood and the dangers of predatory men (usually marked with a humorous unibrow), something that naturally makes for some intentionally uncomfortable viewing – especially in the year of our lord 2024.

Obviously, I don’t think it’s my place to dissect (or even judge) the effectiveness of the film’s commentaries on being a young woman, but even as a man I can still appreciate the thought and care that went into crafting this Jungian cocktail of serious themes in a genre-movie package that almost certainly went on to inspire future werewolf movies like Ginger Snaps.

Not the worst wedding I’ve been to.

That being said, what really keeps me coming back to the film is the absurd amount of memorable imagery. From a wedding party being taken over by canines to lonely treks through snowy groves, this is exactly the gloomy world I imagined as a child when reading Grimms’ Fairy Tales – and the dreamy atmosphere is only enhanced by the movie’s overall theatricality.

This also extends to the effects, as it’s easy to forgive decapitated dummy heads and ripped rubber skin when everything is happening in a magical hyper-reality, with a great example of this is being the scene where Grandma’s head unexpectedly explodes like a porcelain doll when it’s knocked off by a wolfman. That’s not to say that the effects are bad, as several of these transformations are downright grisly and likely influenced future lycanthrope effects like those in Underworld and even Trick ‘r Treat (even if the wolf-dogs here often look more cute than scary).

Of course, these aren’t the only things that The Company of Wolves has going for it, as the main trio of Patterson, Micha Bergese and the late, great Angela Lansbury exceptionally bring these exaggerated caricatures to life and the orchestral score is an absolute delight. I also really get a kick out of that bizarre ending implying that the dangers of adult life have literally come crashing into Rosaleen’s bedroom.

The Company of Wolves may not be a perfect film, suffering from some wonky pacing and the classic anthology problem where some stories are clearly much more enjoyable than others, but I’d argue that the flick’s iconic visuals and powerful thematic throughline more than make up for any minor flaws. And while we’ve seen bigger and better werewolf films since then, when it comes to adult-oriented fairy-tales, this is one psycho-sexual journey that is still worth revisiting 40 years down the line.

The Company of Wolves

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