Intermission: 'Signs' doesn't live up to director's previous standard

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It's nearly a genre unto itself. The "last man on earth/apocalyptic cannibal zombie" film has been around for decades. A lot of classic B-movies dealing with the subject came out in the 1950s, at the height of the cold war and when the knowledge of what atomic energy could do was still fresh in our minds. Most of the movies can be directly linked to science-fiction writer Richard Matheson and his story "I Am Legend."|ret||ret||tab|

Vincent Price starred in "The Last Man on Earth" in 1954, and that film remains an effective piece of scary movie making to this day. I can't hear the word "Morgan " without thinking about Price fending off blood-craving undead from inside his lab.|ret||ret||tab|

A virtual remake of this film came out in 1971. This time Charleton Heston was "The Omega Man." It was pretty good, but the king of this type of film is George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." |ret||ret||tab|

"Night of the Living Dead" was shot in black-and-white on an extremely small budget in 1968 and was a drive-in theater mainstay when I was a teen-ager. It scared us out of our wits. |ret||ret||tab|

It was groundbreaking, too, in the fact that it dealt with a number of subjects that were usually skirted in films of the time. The scene with the kid hacking her dad with a garden trowel, while common nowadays, was somewhat risqu in '68.|ret||ret||tab|

As a fan and student of this kind of movie, I had high hopes for M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs."|ret||ret||tab|

Shyamalan directed the genuinely creepy "Sixth Sense," which captured a few Oscars, as well as "Unbreakable," one of the most unique plots to come out of Hollywood in quite some time. |ret||ret||tab|

"Signs" is a definite low point in Shyamalan's career. At one point I actually decided it might be the worst, most laborious, pretentious, ham-fisted, melodramatic major motion picture I've ever seen, but that might be a bit harsh. |ret||ret||tab|

I will tell you this: My wife (whom I've cited in this column before as a foremost movie expert) liked it a lot and actually changed seats to get away from me and my disparaging comments. I laughed, moaned and writhed in pain. I hated everything about "Signs," except for the opening credits where the music sounds like a classic Bernard Herrman score. The music, too, got completely tedious after a while.|ret||ret||tab|

Mel Gibson is Graham Hess, a single father and a guy who used to be a priest. This is a fact we are bludgeoned with many times. |ret||ret||tab|

Hess lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with his two young kids and a brother (played by Joaquin Phoenix). Living with Joaquin Phoenix would be scary enough, but the filmmakers decided to go the extra mile and try to introduce some things even more creepy.|ret||ret||tab|

One day when Hess and family awaken, they notice some new yard work: crop circles!|ret||ret||tab|

If there had been a loch, there would, no doubt, have been a monster in it.|ret||ret||tab|

According to the cable news shows, there's a lot of this going on at the moment. |ret||ret||tab|

What usually happens in apocalyptic, flesh-eating zombie films is that someone discovers there are flesh-eating zombies about and this means the apocalypse is at hand. It usually helps to have someone totally defenseless on hand a child or an elderly person in a wheelchair. |ret||ret||tab|

"Signs" gives us Hess's kid Morgan, played by yet another Culkin kid. How many children do these people have? And can I never see them again? The thought of another generation of Culkins is a lot more frightening than anything else on-screen here.|ret||ret||tab|

As the end of the world approaches, we are treated to Hess's emotional dealings with all of the screw-ups he's managed in his life. |ret||ret||tab|

The flashbacks with scenes of his wife and the troubles that surrounded the family are nearly unbearable. I couldn't wait to see aliens eat these people. So sad to say it didn't happen.|ret||ret||tab|

By the time Act 3 rolls around, you're thinking, "Oh, this can't be a clich everyone is doing it."|ret||ret||tab|

The big point is the fact that Hess has to come to terms with what it means to be a human being. Gibson does as good a job as anyone could be expected to do with such clumsy, heavy-handed material, but eventually he gets weighed down by it.|ret||ret||tab|

Read Matheson's "I Am Legend." Rent "Night of the Living Dead." Or just watch an hour of news on CNN or MSNBC. That's the scary stuff.|ret||ret||tab|

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