Signs

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Shyamalan is fashioning a career out of things that go bump in the er, sorry, night. The Philadelphia writer-director's first two flicks, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, were successful psycho-thrillers; so too is Signs, in which he ponders the possibility of extra-terrestrial life on Earth.

Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), the priest in a small country town in Pennsylvania, lost his wife six months ago. As he struggles to bring up his two children,

Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), Hess realises he has lost his faith, too, and quits the ministry to work on his farm with his younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix).

Both wake one morning to find elaborate crop circles in their cornfields. A little later a tall, dark, very fast and athletic stranger crops up nearby, which leads the lads to what strange forces are afoot.

This is only the first sign. Other strange and unexplained happenings occur around the world, and Morgan begins to suspect extra-terrestrials have landed. As the space oddities increase, the others are forced to agree.

As in his earlier movies, Shyamalan builds the atmosphere and suspense layer upon layer. Perhaps that's where this movie just misses: with the cute kids and the protective dad you could be watching The Sixth Sense III, except that the payoff doesn't quite deliver.

* DVD features: movie (106min); Making Signs documentary, including interviews with director, crew and cast; 5 deleted scenes; multi-angle storyboards.