Signs

'You're gonna feel pretty silly when [it turns out] this is all make-believe,' Gibson comforts his seriously spooked dog. You can be sure one of them's barking up the wrong tree, and it's not the mutt. Writer/director Shyamalan reads 'make-believe' as an injunction, not an escape clause. He wants us to believe in something so badly, anything will do. Gibson plays a Pennsylvania farmer, an ex-priest who lost his faith when his wife died in an auto accident. He lives with his two kids and his brother (Phoenix) in a wooden house surrounded by corn as far as the eye can see. When crop circles appear in his field and all over the world, he clings to denial for dear life. Is this a prank, a conspiracy, a miracle - or could it be The End? Shyamalan is technically a superb film-maker, for all that he's picked up most of his tricks from Spielberg and Hitchcock. The teasing first hour or so tingles with eerie suggestion and ominous disquiet. The film gets darker as the weight of what's transpiring hits home. The climax is pure horror - basement black. Of course, they blow it, big time. The denouement's an embarrassment and you hate yourself for being sucked in. But Mel did warn us.