[TheWickerFan]

Sorry Sistinas; couldn't resist the temptation.

Poor M. Night Shyamalan. I think it's safe to say his name has become box office poison. What went wrong? I personally think (and I know I'm not alone in this) that his overinflated ego is getting in the way of him admitting to himself that his talent is in directing and not in writing. He definitely has a talent for ratcheting up the tension in a horror film. However, this talent is wasted when the story doesn't live up to the tension created.

Now, confession time. I do enjoy most of M. Night Shyamalan's films. The Sixth Sense was good (though not the masterpiece a lot of people seem to think it is); there were some genuine scares and Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment generated a lot of sympathy for their characters. Really liked Unbreakable. LOVED Signs. Liked Lady In The Water; I guess it was pretty corny, but I still felt people were way too hard on this film. I enjoyed The Happening up until the second half (or whenever it was they reached Mrs. Jones' farmhouse) then it just ground to a halt (and of course had one of the biggest "WTF?!" endings in movie history). The Village was the only one I really couldn't stand. It had one of the most obvious "twists" I've ever seen, and after all was said and done you realized pretty much nothing happened.

I still hold out hope that M. Night has another great movie, like Signs, left in him. I haven't seen Devil, but it looks truly awful so I guess I'll wait until it comes on TV.

How many M. Night haters and how many defenders?