Summary
- The Sixth Sense is a powerful supernatural thriller with a twist ending that remains one of M. Night Shyamalan's best.
- The movie effectively combines horror elements with a moving story of redemption and overcoming fears.
- The chilling scares, from ghostly encounters to eerie revelations, make The Sixth Sense a must-watch, especially around Halloween.
M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense is full of supernatural scares. The Sixth Sense first arrived in theaters on August 6, 1999 as Shyamalan's second movie as director, and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Both Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment also received widespread praise for their performances as child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe and Cole Sear, with Dr. Crowe doing his best to help Cole after his young patient tells him "I see dead people."
Over two decades after its record-breaking release, The Sixth Sense remains a powerful supernatural thriller, while its shocking reveal at the end also stands as the best twist ending of M. Night Shyamalan's career. While The Sixth Sense is a moving story of Dr. Crowe seeking redemption and Cole trying to overcome his fears, its effectiveness as a horror movie makes it great to revisit, especially around the Halloween season. Here are the 10 best scares in Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense.
10 The Cabinets All Being Opened
As Lynn Sear (Toni Collette) prepares to head to work one morning, she briefly leaves Cole alone in their kitchen, only to be startled upon her return to find every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen has been opened. Cole sheepishly tells his mother that he was looking for Pop-Tarts, but the sweaty imprint of his palms on the table says otherwise. With such a minimalist approach, The Sixth Sense masterfully delivers its first ghost haunting.
9 The Hanging Ghosts At Cole's School
As Cole continues to confide his supernatural abilities in Dr. Crowe, he experiences another ghostly run-in when the two depart a school play. Halfway down the hall, Cole freezes in terror as he sees a group of ghosts hanging from nooses (as Cole himself reveals, "they used to hang people" at his school in the early days of Philadelphia). The horrific imagery is made literally more chilling by Cole's revelation that "it gets cold" when ghosts get mad. Dr. Crowe himself can only stand by Cole's side and try to comfort him, not being able to see the ghosts himself - though The Sixth Sense reveals why later in the film.
8 Vincent Grey's Surprise Arrival
The Sixth Sense opens with a former patient of Dr. Crowe's, Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg), breaking into his home and angrily proclaiming "You Failed Me!!!" to his former therapist. Dr. Crowe doesn't know it at the time, by Vincent possesses the same ability to see ghosts as Cole, with their hauntings terrifying Vincent into vengefully shooting Dr. Crowe before turning the gun on himself. With Vincent tearfully describing himself as "cursed" by his supernatural gift, the opening of The Sixth Sense is both chilling and heartbreaking.
7 Malcolm's Recording Of A Ghost
Dr. Crowe spends most of The Sixth Sense believing that the hauntings Cole describes are visual delusions, but comes to realize their reality when he plays the tape of one of his sessions with Vincent Grey. With a mysterious, shivering voice approaching Vincent and saying in Spanish "I don't want to die", Dr. Crowe realizes the shocking truth of both Vincent and Cole's metaphysical gifts. The fact that the entire ghostly presence is captured in audio form also makes it another effectively creepy moment in the M. Night Shyamalan film.
6 Cole Locked Up With A Ghost
When Cole attends the birthday party of his two-faced classmate Tommy Tammisimo (Trevor Morgan), Cole is cruelly locked inside a cupboard by his bullies from school. What they don't know is they've trapped Cole with an unstable ghost. Cole's terrified screams inside the cupboard make vivid just how frightening a predicament he is in, and though he is pulled from the cupboard by his mother, it is another of The Sixth Sense's effective less-is-more scares.
5 The Ghost In Cole's Tent
Cole experiences another harrowing ghost encounter when an adolescent ghost named Kyra (Misha Barton) appears in his tent, vomit erupting from her mouth and causing Cole to flee his room in terror. It is the most up-close meeting with a ghost Cole experiences in The Sixth Sense, and a true jolt of horror on its own . It is also even more effective with Cole, ing Dr. Crowe's advice that ghosts are seeking help from the living, to work up his courage and ask Kyra "Do you want to tell me something?"
4 Cole Enters Kyra's Bedroom
After Cole learns from Kyra that she was deliberately poisoned by her mother, he and Dr. Crowe arrive at her funeral reception on her instruction. While Cole has a better handle on his abilities, he still experiences a very startling scare when Kyra grabs his leg from under her bed. Though Kyra is simply ing the videotape recording her mother's misdeeds to Cole, it's still a chilling reminder of how frightening Cole's abilities still are.
3 The Battered Wife In The Kitchen
The Sixth Sense holds off on showing any actual ghosts (save for one retroactively revealed exception) until Cole awakens late one night to go to the bathroom, only to encounter the ghost of a battered wife in the kitchen. Cole flees back to his room in terror as the wife shows bares her slashed wrists and screams "Look what you made me do!" to her "terrible husband." The scare is even more effective as the first full-fledged haunting Cole is shown to experience, with Cole crying under his tent adorned with holy figurines and showing just how much of a toll his gift is taking on him.
2 The Ghost Looking For His Father's Gun
After being sent to his room by Lynn, Cole experiences another horrifying supernatural encounter when the ghost of a teenage boy appears in his bedroom. The boy tells Cole "I'll show you where my Dad keeps his gun," turning around and showing the back of his skull blown off. With a perfectly timed musical cue, it's another effective jump scare by The Sixth Sense, and one which Cole himself can only stand silently and watch.
1 Malcolm Finally Learns The Truth
The ending of The Sixth Sense is ed as one of the most shocking and effective twists in movie history. While speaking to his sleeping wife Anna (Olivia Williams), Dr. Crowe sees he is no longer wearing his wedding band. In this moment, Dr. Crowe finally realizes that he did not survive the gunshot to the torso Vincent Grey inflicted upon him, and he has been a ghost the entire time he has been helping Cole.
While this is a terrifying revelation for Dr. Crowe (and, indeed, an infuriating one, with the temperature sharply dropping in the house), it eventually changes to a feeling of fulfillment for him. By helping Cole overcome his fear of seeing ghosts and reminding Anna that "You were never second, ever," Dr. Crowe has finally settled the unfinished business of his death in the final moments of The Sixth Sense. In accomplishing what he set out to do, Dr. Crowe can finally on to the afterlife while Anna can move on with her own life at last.
