The Sixth
Sense
INSIDE THE CREATION OF A
CLASSIC SCENE
→ Throughout The Sixth Sense,
Cole (a then-11-year-old Haley
Joel Osment) is haunted by
ghosts. But unlike in many
horror tales, these specters
aren’t trying to terrorize him.
They just want him to listen.
In this pivotal sequence from
the 1999 film, Cole has gone
to the home of a deceased girl
named Kyra (Mischa Barton).
She emerges from under the
bed—chillingly gaunt, her hand
outstretched—to give Cole a
videotape of her mother
poisoning her. Kyra’s cause
of death? Munchausen syn-
drome by proxy.
Several elements converged
to create this terrifying shot,
which was taken at a different
angle from what appeared in
the film. “There’s the use of
shadows playing over the pup-
pets,” says director M. Night
Shyamalan. “Tropes that are
all loaded from other horror
movies, but I’m using them as
a red herring.”
Shyamalan directed Osment
to move toward the puppets;
the boy jumps back, shocked
by Barton’s appearance.
“He’s feeling that his life
has become a horror movie,”
says Shyamalan. “When she
comes out from under the
bed, the movie is saying, Hey,
we don’t belong to those
tropes. That scene is about it
changing to the experiences
of humans.” —Christian Holub
SH TONE PERFECT
BUENA VISTA/PHOTOFEST
