The '6th Sense' Sucks

Mike S. | 1999

The movie "The Sixth Sense" is being hailed as a "brilliant" film and a "masterpiece" that scares the audiences by its Hitchockesque subtlety and a surprise ending which no one wants to talk about because they think you might not have seen it yet. This gets in the way of a proper review of the film, so we are going to assume you have seen the film so we can go on with this review.

Main plot #1. The boy who sees "dead people" — Message is poison
First off, I love humans, I love people, I hate seeing them abused and this movie does this by manipulating their emotions and feeding them a poisoned lie about life. That lie is that dead people do not leave their bodies but wander amongst us as ghosts invisible to us. Almost everyone alive today has loved ones who have been lost to death, and our earth is covered with the locations where these deaths have occurred. Without a Judaeo-Christian understanding, its easy to speculate and wish for the concept of ghosts. There are evil spirits able and willing to provide the illusion we seek and this angers those who know the truth because it's a deadly deception. Our world is a fallen world with death in it, and has enemies out to seek our demise who will deceive us. Its naive and emotional weakness to let our kinder natures play into the hands of supernatural evil and believe in ghosts when they really are demons masquerading as lost loved ones. If you think about it, a supernatural being with nothing to do for centuries with perfect recall and mental powers would have no problem at all masquerading the voice, speech, look and details of the relatively short lives of humans on the earth. The good news is that God himself has come to earth, died in our place, and given us a pardon and our loved ones and ourselves will reunite in heaven in the next life. Isn't this a hell of a lot better than ghosts? Make films about this! Not films that feed our macabre desire to see the traffic accident of the dead. In the "Sixth Sense" God is dead or disinterested in the plight of our boy, is powerless to help these scores of dead people all around and does nothing to answer the pleas of his mom (not going to happen).

The little boy in the story has a "6th Sense" and can see these so-called dead folks. His psychiatrist, played by Bruce Willis, after a long period of winning the boy's trust that takes half the movie, teaches him to help these ghosts instead of being afraid of them, so he helps first the ghost of a bed-ridden girl who has died but wants him to find a videotape and give it to her father. The best scene in the movie ironically is the videotape a dead girl plays of her mother feeding her poisoned food. This is a perfect analogy of what the film itself is doing to the audience. The film--like the mother---is outwardly all "lovey-dovey" and so concerned about loved ones and the "bigger issues of life"---but the actual intent is to kill. In this case, the target is a belief in a caring God. Clearly this film is a dangerous poison.

Sub-plot #2. Bruce Willis and his wife growing apart
The surprise ending is that Bruce Willis is dead all throughout the movie after being shot by an unhappy patient in the first scene. You then play back in your mind all the scenes with Bruce and his wife asking yourself if this separation was portrayed accurately and why you didn't see it. The answer is no, you were deceived by the convention that Bruce was just busy and distant, portrayed as if he was still alive. If Bruce was dead, the previous scenes between him and his wife would not have taken place even with the flimsy explanation from the boy "they don't know they are dead, they see what they want to see." This will not wash. Surely the wife had a funeral for Willis. What was Willis the ghost doing that day? Fishing? Surely he would have been there and asked who it was for and seen it was for him. For the surprise ending to work, the film makers had to jump around and skip over details to manipulate our heart strings.

We all live busy lives and it's easy to see how we could be ALMOST dead and a ghost and not notice or be noticed. That's what the movie says happens to Willis and his wife which while appealing to our sentiments is actually ludicrous since there would be tell-tale signs that would make it apparent if one were a ghost.

Sub-plot #3. The boy and his mother
Another touching sub-plot is the single mom trying to raise the young boy without a father, working two jobs, short on money. We welcome the addition of Bruce Willis as a father figure and protector, though we later on see that he is a ghost and thus was never introduced to the mom. We will let the film makers off the hook on this one, focusing again on an element of truth. The truth is that the MAN is the spiritual defender of the home. Femi-nazis and the ERA crowd can say what they want, but the truth is that MEN by design of God have the logical, defend others/fight the world, hard-nosed outlook to deal with supernatural demonic attack, women do not. A woman in such a single state would be vulnerable to demonic attack; a man, even a friend in the home, without a Bible or Judaeo-Christian outlook would have worked wonders. For example, the boy could have said, "I see dead people." The logical man would say, "Do you see them NOW?" The boy would say, "Yes." The man would say, "Where?" The boy would point and the man would walk over to that spot. If the ghosts were transparent he would walk through them or if he was Bruce Willis and a ghost himself, he would have not only seen them but inter-acted with them. While Bruce Willis was with the boy at the school, the boy saw 3 people hanging but Willis did not! Bruce Willis was a ghost, so why did he not see these ghosts? This key scene reinforced in our mind's eye that Willis was struggling to understand LIVING psychologists, and excuses like "they see what they want to see" will not wash here. Willis at this point certainly wanted to see the dead people and as one should have seen the 3 people hanging.

Sub-plot #4. The sensitive boy and the insensitive world around him
A less central theme is the idea that those who are gifted with the "6th Sense" (into the New Age) will be rejected and persecuted by the ordinary world. As martyrs they will continue on nobly helping ghosts seek the "closure" they need to atone for their violent deaths because certainly there isn't any God around to insure justice takes place. How often have we seen this stereotypical lie presented in film? It's necessary since the ghost phenomena can't be universal--there would simply too many ghosts and Satan doesn't have enough fallen angels to replicate all of the human dead, and if he could would expose his hand behind it because that much ghosting would be preposterous, drawing attention of EVERYONE on the earth to the supernatural, the very last thing he wants! People would turn to God as an alternative, find him true and reject such lies like occultism and ghosts. In other words, the deception would backfire.

Benefit of a doubt: even accepted as is, film's plot/scenes are contradictatory
Some will say, we are taking ourselves and this movie "too seriously" as it's pure entertainment. We like to be manipulated and entertained, we realize to do so the film makers must have some dramatic license (be allowed to cheat with details/consistency). However, many people ARE taking this film seriously because it tells them what they want to believe--that New Age occult practices can reach loved ones. All we need is a "6th Sense" of higher consciousness and we can do this. Hey, no one wants Bruce Willis and his wife to be apart, the boy and his mom struggling or to see unhappy dead people. You walk away from the movie with a sad countenance, not the get-up and do something to make people in the world better that you should. Fortunately, the world we live in happens to be influenced by Angels from God who fight for us, yet this film makes it look like God and goodness is dead. Remember, every time the boy ran away to the Catholic Church or his Catholic Church-tent in his room the ghosts (demons) waltzed in there and his prayers were unanswered and unprotected. The Catholic Church certainly isn't working for God, yet many people think it is, so God gets a bad rap here as powerless, or worse non-existent. If the boy had turned to a Bible-based Church with Bible-believing evangelical Christians the outcome would have been favorable. Most real-life accounts of out of body experiences show an IMMEDIATE realization of separation from the body, sure to be known by the victim. This myth that people who die suddenly and violently are turned into ghosts who are clueless because they don't have "closure" is a popular one because without it, EVERYONE that dies would haunt the spots of their demise. Think about it. BILLIONS of people have lived/died on the earth. If we did not limit the amount of ghosting, there would be millions of ghosts haunting places all over the world and there simply are not that many fallen angels of Satan (demons) available to masquerade this. The earth would be covered with ghosts and EVERYONE would see them/be spooked by them. Clearly this is not happening. The reason is of course one of supernatural logistics for the forces of evil and the truth that for most people they are best deceived by life appearing very UN-supernatural. Satan is best served by people thinking life is ordinary and mundane with our time here on earth "all there is."

Bruce Willis would have known he was dead immediately after the shooting and during the 2 years prior to meeting the boy.

Ambulance imagery?
Surely Willis would have known he was taken to a hospital, and something would have taken place. For him to not understand that he was dead would require days of recovery in the hospital. If he was dead these images would not have taken place. When a sheet was placed over Willis, where was Willis the ghost? Gone fishing?

His funeral?
The bed-ridden girl who was poisoned (violent death) had a funeral--Willis even attends this...where was he for his own funeral?

His lack of physical contact with immediate environment
When Willis gets into bed with his wife each night, does the sheets move to conform to his body shape or not? If not, then Willis would surely have known something was wrong, investigated and realized he was a ghost. He was a smart, observant psychiatrist it's doubtful he would have not realized he was dead for 2 years at the time of helping the boy.

What did Willis do for the 2 years prior to meeting the boy?
Clearly the "2 years later" subtitle was designed to deceive the audience into thinking Willis had recovered from his gunshot wound.

His lack of touch/verbal response from wife
Even the most estranged couple talks to each other even if its to yell at each other. Surely, direct attempts to talk to her that were unanswered would have led Willis to relive he was a ghost.

Walking into the living (other movies realize this)
If Willis was a ghost, he would have surely walked into people as he incorrectly acted like he was still a living person. On the bus, Willis rode with the boy in the next seat, his transparentness surely would have shown up when the two seated themselves.

The coin trick scene
In one scene, Willis shows the boy a cheesy slight of hand trick with a penny. If Willis were a ghost, the penny would have been suspended in the air as it were being manipulated. If a non-6th sense possessing person had walked by they would have seen this strange event, said something and alerted Willis by his reaction which would have been to confront the boy.

The dead people hanging at the school
This is the scene that deceives most. Willis would have wanted to see the "dead people" to help the boy but can't, and he should have since he was a dead person. The boy would have said, "You are a dead person. Why can't YOU see them?" The boy had to know Willis was a ghost because he told him to talk to his wife in her sleep in order to bridge the metaphysical gap. Also, in the very beginning, the boy said Willis was "nice." This implies that others were not nice, and these were ghosts that were troubling him, since its likely his mother did not have money to send the boy to a therapist. The mother did not discuss the boy's therapists' progress at the dinner table (or anywhere else) so the boy must have been aware he was talking on his own to a ghost.

Why doesn't the boy help more ghosts?
Interestingly, the film ends abruptly after the boy helps the girl who was poisoned communicate to her dad that her mother did it in a videotape. My theory is the movie is really a misdirection--its really a film about Willis and they wanted to get back to Willis and his wife and lay on the "whamee" scene where he discovers he is the one who is actually dead and a ghost. The goal of the entire film is to lead the audience to this plot twist--the first half of the film with the psychiatrist trying to win over the trust of the boy is the deliberately boring scenery in order to deceive the audience. The film makers need this time to lull the audience into thinking Willis is the stereotypical dedicated public servant trying to reach out to the stereotypical sensitive boy who is picked on by the cruel world of school.

A Better Ending
Not to just complain here, but to offer a better ending. If I had my way with the film I would take it on a Judaeo-Christian journey providing a truthful and uplifting ending. I would fix all the previous scenes by making them a flash forward scenery provided as "vision."

Willis realizes he's dead.

Film then flashes back to the moment of his shooting.

Wife applies better first aid measures (direct pressure to both wounds), gets 911 ambulance/paramedics who stop the bleeding, treat for shock, put an IV in, take him to hospital, he recovers. The entire movie prior to that point was a vision of a mission he is to undertake directed by God or a deception from Satan? He needs to find out. Realizes he has to spend more time with his wife.

Meets a Christian having a heart operation in the next bed over. Tells him about his vision and "ghosts." Finds out the vision is a deception. Sees how it all fits together in a flashback with voice-over of the Christian heart patient (see my text above). Becomes a Christian.

Willis meets little boy. Tells him we are going to have a lot to talk about. Willis will help the boy correctly, Satan's plan backfires.

Happy ending.

Nitpickers.com: Other flaws in the film

Be advised: do not pay attention to the wannabes who make flimsy excuses to the flaws in this film (secondary remarks). Just read the main topic flaws and move on. The idea that dead people are clueless is totally ASININE and a catch-all for an illogical, inconsistent plot that was pure manipulation! Those that want to believe in the lie of ghosts need to cloud the issue in order to believe in such illogical lies.

1st Lt. Mike S. is a U.S. Army Reserve Airborne veteran, and a former enlisted Non-Commissioned Officer in the USMC. He is a military writer, analyst and equipment inventor. Mike is a co-author of the book Air Mech Strike. He is also a graduate of Liberty University.