# 127 The Sixth Sense (1999)

When The Sixth Sense came out back in 1999, I was thirteen years old. Being a fan of Bruce Willis, I decided to save up some lunch money and buy the movie on VHS. You can imagine my disappointment when I found out that it was counterfeit, and when I say it, I mean it was of a very bad quality, taped in a movie theater. Russia was, and still is a hotbed of piracy. Besides, I wasn't used to watching scary movies, and I was probably too young to understand what the movie was about.

This time, more than ten years later, I watched the movie again, and I watched it from a totally different perspective. The movie tells us a story about a frightened little boy, Cole Sear, and a child psychologist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe, who is helping the boy overcome his problems while trying to recover from a violent encounter with a former patient.

I probably won't be wrong if I say that the most memorable thing about the film was the twist at the end. The ending is surprising, yet very logical. Unfortunately, it took me only about half an hour to figure it out, but I blame it on having seen the movie before, even though I don't remember seeing the end of it. The best thing about the plot is that it draws all of your attention to the boy and his fears, and it makes you see Dr. Crowe only as a supporting character, so you don't notice all the weird things that happen to him. There are no fallacies in the plot, however it is achieved by setting some artificial rules, like "ghosts don't see each other", "ghosts only see what they want to see", and it seems a little made-up to me, but this might be the only flaw in the whole movie.

What makes this film so scary? For the most part it is very calm. Then all of a sudden you see a little boy, he turns around, and there is a huge hole in the back of his head. The scary moments in this movie come when you least expect them, and that is what makes them so creepy. The music also plays a big role in building the atmosphere. However, the movie is not only trying to scare the audience, it touches upon very important issues, such as love between parent and child, death and letting go of your loved ones.

It is important to note the performance of Haley Joel Osment who did a remarkable job portraying Cole Sear. For this role he was nominated for the Academy Award, which made him the second-youngest actor ever to receive an Academy nomination for a supporting role (after Justin Henry who was nominated at the age of eight for Kramer vs. Kramer). I believe that Bruce Willis delivered his best performance too. In this film he took a break from all these action movies, and showed that he can also be a good dramatic actor.

Favorite quote: "I see dead people" =)
Interesting fact: While circling a passage in the notes, Bruce Willis does so with his right hand. Willis is actually left-handed; he learned how to write right-handed so that viewers wouldn't notice that his wedding band was no longer on his hand.