This M. Night Shyamalan Movie Plothole Is Even Worse Than You Remember
M. Night Shyamalan is one of the entertainment industry’s most controversial filmmakers. The director/writer has been making movies since the early ’90s and has developed a reputation for making films that feature shocking and outrageous plot twists. One of Shyamalan’s most popular films is from 2002 and stars Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. Signs is a supernatural drama that features a tense plot and lots of terrifying visuals. However, the film’s signature plot twist managed to leave fans cold at the time, and unfortunately, it hasn’t aged well, two decades after Signs was first released.
‘Signs’ was released in 2002
Signs tells the story of a disillusioned former priest named Graham Hess, who loses his faith after the sudden death of his wife. After discovering a series of crop circles on his farm, Graham and his family experience a series of weird events before finally witnessing a shocking extraterrestrial invasion. While things seem hopeless at first, Graham eventually realizes that the aliens can be killed with water.
According to IMDb, Signs was a critical and commercial success for Shyamalan, who was already considered to be a top-tier filmmaker in 2002, when Signs was released. While many fans love the film to this day, and appreciate the heartfelt performances from the talented cast, along with the atmosphere of quiet horror that the film features, one particular element of the plot just doesn’t hold water.
What do fans say about the big ‘Signs’ plot hole?
The big “reveal” in Signs isn’t the alien invasion itself — it is when Graham realizes that the aliens have an adverse reaction to water, and can be killed by contact with it. A video on the WatchMojo YouTube channel details why this is a problem, noting that it makes no sense for aliens to invade a planet that is over 70% water when they have such bad reactions to it.
One fan commented that there’s no way the aliens didn’t know about this, posting “That isn’t even my biggest qualm about the aliens being “allergic” to water. It’s not just that there is liquid water covering 66-75% of Earth, or even that there’s precipitation most of the time. The biggest problem is that there’s HUMIDITY IN THE AIR! The aliens should’ve started disintegrating or whatever the second they opened their ship doors. That single aspect of the film makes me go insane every time I remember it!” Another fan noted that “the funniest thing about ‘Signs’ is that the whole plot hole could have been closed by making the aliens allergic to fluoride.
M. Night Shyamalan’s movies have always divided viewers
Signs might be one of the most divisive Shyamalan movies, but there are plenty of other projects in his filmography that have incited lively fan debate. Usually, the problem comes down to the plot twists, which can sometimes seem silly or even nonsensical to viewers. His 2004 release The Village is a good example of this. The movie is a period thriller that tells the story of a small 19th-century community that lives in fear of the woods and the creatures who live within them.
However, the twist at the end of the film reveals that not only are the creatures not real, but that the village itself was founded in the 1970s by a disillusioned professor of American history as a way to protect people from the modern outside world. According to Screen Rant, many viewers thought that this twist was utterly ridiculous, with the reveal effectively rendering the entire story completely meaningless. Still, some of Shyamalan’s notorious twists do land with viewers, such as the one in his 1999 flick The Sixth Sense, which is thought of by many fans to be his best work.
