Signs (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Oct 27, 2024
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
M. Night ShyamalanRelease Date(s)
2003 (October 22, 2024)Studio(s)
Touchstone Pictures/Blinding Edge Pictures/The Kennedy/Marshall Company (Disney/Buena Vista Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: C+
Review
“What you are seeing... is real. It’s unbelievable. Everything they wrote about in science books is about to change.”
Picture if you will... Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), a middle-aged, former preacher who lost his faith when his wife was accidentally killed by a sleepy driver one night. Graham lives on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, raising his young son and daughter with the help of his younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a washed-out, minor league baseball player.
Life’s a struggle for the Hess family, but it’s going along okay... until Graham discovers a strange circle in his cornfield one afternoon. Soon his dogs are freaking out and the local sheriff says it’s happening all over the county. Later that night, Graham and Merrill see a strange figure creeping around their house. And the next day, the TV starts going crazy with reports of unusual lights in the sky and crop circles appearing all over the world. People you’d normally file away as nuts are claiming it’s an alien invasion and that the end is near. But if you’ve lost your faith, to whom or what do you turn when the world is falling apart around you?
Signs is writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s follow up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. And like those films, it isn’t quite what it seems to be at first. As should be obvious by now, Shyamalan likes to end his films with twists the audience doesn’t see coming. The problem is that we all expect the twist now, so it’s harder for Shyamalan to genuinely surprise. And whatever his twist ends up being, the film can ultimately only be that good… or bad.
In the case of Signs, most of the film is genuinely creepy and chilling. But just as the main narrative is reaching its climax, we’re taken out of the moment for a series of flashbacks that pay off its emotional subplot. And the cost of doing that, unfortunately, is to lessen the impact of that main story.
Still, Shyamalan’s writing and direction are mostly good here, though the pacing does drag a bit occasionally. Knowing that what you don’t see is more frightening than what you do, he keeps his audience in the dark for most of the film, offering only teasing glimpses of what lurks in the dark. And he uses sound to his advantage, playing on your nerves with subtle clicks and whispers to great effect. Composer James Newton Howard’s sparse score enhances the experience in key moments as well.
It helps too that Gibson and Phoenix are terrific in their respective roles. They way they play off one another, and use humor to mask their fears, makes it easy to place yourself in their shoes. And Shyamalan’s approach to the actual invasion strikes the perfect note. His invaders’ motivations are truly alien, effectively keeping you on the edge of your seat until very near the end. Ultimately, the film is effective enough that you can almost forgive its cumbersome finale. Almost.
Signs was shot on 35 mm photochemical film by cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense) using Panavision Panaflex Lightweight, Millennium, and Platinum cameras with Panavision Super Speed Z-Series MKII and Ultra Speed Z-Series MKII spherical lenses, and it was finished on film at the 1.85:1 aspect ratio for theaters. For its debut on Ultra HD, it appears that original camera negative has been scanned in 4K and digitally remastered, then graded for high dynamic range (only HDR10 is available). The result has been encoded onto a UHD66 disc. The result is impressive, with crisp detail and pleasing texturing throughout. Optically printed transitions and digital effects shots exhibit a bit of resolution loss, as one would expect, but grain is light-moderate and ever present. The film’s color palette is somewhat muted by design, but highlights are naturally bold, with deep and detailed shadows–especially important as several scenes here take place at night. Signs has never exactly been a cinematic showcase–the film’s camerawork is more static than dynamic–but without a doubt it now looks better than it ever has before on disc. And the improvement over the 2008 Blu-ray is rather dramatic.
Sonically, Signs was released theatrically with Dolby Digital EX, SDDS, and DTS mixes. For Ultra HD, the 5.1 has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio format. Like the visuals, the sound experience here isn’t exactly going to test your surround sound system beyond a few audio jump scares. But the dialogue is clean and clear, the rear channels are employed for light sonic immersion and the occasional directional effect, dynamic range is pleasing, and bass is firm and muscular when necessary. Additional mixes are available in English 2.0 Descriptive Audio, French and German 5.1 DTS-HD, Castilian Spanish and Italian 5.1 DTS, and Quebec French, Latin American Spanish, Japanese, Czech, and Polish 5.1 Dolby Digital. Optional subtitles include English for the Hearing Impaired, French, Quebec French, Castilian, Latin American Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese Czech, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
Disney’s new UHD release includes no bonus content on the actual 4K disc. The package does, however, include the film on Blu-ray. Sadly, it’s not a new disc or remastered in any way, but simply the existing disc repackaged. That said, it does at least include the following special features:
- Deleted Scenes (SD – 5 scenes – 7:32 in all)
- Graham and Merrill (SD – 1:05)
- Flashbacks: Scene #1 (SD – :23)
- Flashbacks: Scene #2 (SD – :36)
- The Dead Bird (SD – :21)
- Alien in the Attic and the Third Story (SD – 5:07)
- Making Signs (SD – 6 parts – 58:31 in all)
- Looking for Signs (SD – 6:11)
- Building Signs (SD – 8:02)
- Making Signs: A Commentary by M. Night Shyamalan (SD – 22:33)
- The Effects of Signs (SD – 8:31)
- Last Voices: The Music of Signs (SD – 8:26)
- Full Circle (SD – 4:48)
- Storyboards: Multi-Angle Features (SD – 2 scenes - 3 audio options)
- Graham, the Knife, and the Pantry (SD – 2:58)
- Graham and Merrill Chase the Unknown Trespasser (SD – 2:13)
- Night’s First Alien Movie (with Shyamalan Introduction) (SD – 2:17)
All of these were originally produced for the 2003 Vista Series DVD release. And for a Vista Series release, the content—while interesting—was rather lean even for the time. Making Signs is a decent making-of documentary, featuring some good interviews and production video, but I don’t know that anyone would watch it more than once. There are five deleted scenes in SD, but they aren’t even anamorphic so the image quality is low. You also get two storyboard sequences, which let you switch back and forth between the storyboard art and the final scene, and give you the option to hear music-only audio, effects-only, or the final sound mix. Again, this is cool, but you’re not likely to view it more than once. And the final extra is a minute-long clip from Shyamalan’s “first alien film” shot as on video has a child. You also get a Movies Anywhere Digital code on a paper insert in the packaging.
Ultimately, if Signs is a bit languidly-paced by modern standards, it remains a creepy, unsettling, and mostly very effective small-scope alien invasion thriller. Its ending may work for you, or it may not, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the experience up to that point. And if you are a fan of Signs, you’ll be pleased to know that while the 4K disc offers just as few frills as the previous editions, the A/V quality is at least very good and a marked improvement over any disc currently on your video shelf. So find a good sale price on it, but don’t hesitate to make the upgrade.
- Bill Hunt
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