I want to talk about God, but first, the facts. This film is intense. It mixes very weird scary bits and "difficult" emotions with some very funny moments in a way that seems uncontrived. Terror builds and you really don't know what is going to happen. It's very lean, spare and sinewy, like an alien. There are none of those extended cheesy moments where your inner critic pops up and shouts for acceleration. The actors playing the children are superb. Mel Gibson's not bad either. In short, it's an exceptionally good horror film with an, ahem, interplanetary element. Go see.

OK, that's that. Now for God. Reviews I read before going had real problems with the ending. Without giving too much away, one of the characters (no prizes) has a last-minute "return to faith." This comes as a result of the realisation that many aspects of the family's life, including the death of the wife, long before the film starts, had, seemingly, been set up way in advance, in order to make things end the way they have.

This is taken, by the character, to indicate the presence of God looking after them.
What seems to annoy people is that all that spooky coincidence, rather than being interestingly explored, is "wasted" on such an All-American response.

But if you go back and have a think, it's not quite that simple. The guy who killed the wife, is played by, wait for it, M Night Shyamalan, writer, director, and producer of Signs. In other words your coincidences are a set-up, Mel, requiring the deliberate interference of the local god in charge of your reality. Who outside a film gets that sort of personal attention from the director?

And look at the conversation where he and his brother discuss whether it's the end of the world. There's Mel's big speech about there being two kinds of people, those who think life's all random and they're ultimately alone, and those who think it's not and they aren't. You're just one or the other, and you'll be happier, he seems to suggest, as a believer, so you better decide to be one, even if he, Mel, just can't now his woman's gone. This sounds good, but makes no sense at all.

The ending shows that the real issue is how much weirdness you can take before you leap for the safe solution that someone (i.e. God) must be doing it on purpose. If you dial a wrong number and get a payphone and the person walking past who picks it up is actually the person you were trying to call, is that proof of God? Probably not, to most people. (Happens surprisingly often, by the way.) But what if getting through to them gives you the vital information to save your child's life and you misdialled because of the finger you lost in the big weird accident 10 years earlier? Proof? Possibly, to many.

So Mel's reaction in sticking the dog-collar back on is an all-too-normal human response. "God killed my wife for a reason, so that's OK. I don't have to think about what kind of a God would get involved in these twisted bargains, because he's on my side, whatever that means."

But this film is not saying it has to be that way. Tom Robbins once wrote that there are two kinds of people : those who think there are two kinds of people and those who are smart enough to know better. Christian fundamentalists will be satisfied by the ending, but anyone who wants to think about it will find enough to chew on.

Recommended.

Ian Threadgill 14/09/02