I SEE DEAD PEOPLE

Letting a 7-year-old watch The Sixth Sense was definitely not a wise decision, but back in 2004—I remember it well—that’s exactly what my mother did. According to her, nothing quieted me down faster than putting on a movie. And really, who could say no to a cute boy with big blue eyes? My mother had already seen Haley Joel Osment, the child prodigy, in A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Forrest Gump (yes, he played young Forrest). And whenever I annoyed her, she would jokingly say she’d rather have a robot child or one who wasn’t so smart instead of me.

Now it’s 2024, and I’m no longer that little girl who couldn’t sleep for nights after watching a horror movie, whining about being scared of ghosts. But The Sixth Sense still holds a special place in my heart. They say that anything created before you were born seems like an antique; anything from before your teenage years becomes a new classic; and after that, everything just feels like junk. There’s some truth to that.

But the classic status of The Sixth Sense doesn’t change with generations. This is M. Night Shyamalan’s masterpiece, a director obsessed with suspense, thrill, and horror elements. Unfortunately, none of his later films ever matched the success of The Sixth Sense. It’s a curse for a creator, but when the work in question is The Sixth Sense, you can’t help but feel resigned. A nine-year-old boy who can see ghosts is surrounded by people who don’t believe him until a doctor who isn't aware of his own death saves him and is saved in return (sorry for the spoiler)? Genius idea. And the casting? Brilliant choice—action star Bruce Willis successfully reinvented himself, while 11-year-old Haley earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor that year.

Anyway, I was recently browsing the “Unexpected Endings” section on Peliplat and saw at least 20 people discussing The Sixth Sense. I figured it was time to revisit this classic—since keeping up with new releases has become less appealing, I’ve been working on a project to rewatch films. But the result surprised me—I didn’t find it scary at all. This isn’t because I already knew the great twist, but because, after 20 years, my views on horror, or death, have changed without me even realizing it.

“I see dead people”—one of the most iconic lines in horror films seems to have lost its edge now. I’m probably not the only one who feels this way. Look at the horror movies popular now—the scares come from monsters (Alien: Romulus) or people themselves (MaXXXine). It’s hard to imagine anyone bothering to convince producers to fund a script like The Sixth Sense or Ghost today—stories that genuinely involve ghosts. Not zombies, not magic, not parallel worlds or something—just simple, plain ghosts.

I bet every kid has wished they had some kind of hidden superpower—like invisibility, walking through walls, teleportation, lie detection, or turning things to gold. But whatever it is, no one would ever want the ability to see ghosts. Who’d want to wake up in their cozy tent only to find a little girl with a pale face lying beside them? Or see a man with slit wrists bleeding in the bathroom as they prepare to shower? Or spot a group of people hanging from the ceiling at school, hear screams from the attic at a friend’s birthday party, and find a bullet hole in a boy’s head when he shows you his dad’s gun?

“I see dead people,” Cole finally confesses to Dr. Malcolm. Twenty years ago, this line terrified me. Twenty years later, it still carries a lot of weight, but it no longer points to fear. “I see dead people”—for the living, death isn’t emptiness or an end; it seems more like a state of suspension. For the dead, they can still be seen and even impact this world, so regrets can still be remedied—suddenly, all ghost stories aren’t scary anymore. Ghosts, at their core, are the living’s most beautiful and comforting imagination of death. How many ghost movies are essentially heartwarming stories? You name it.

I wouldn’t say I’m an existentialist, but I do follow one of its teachings to some extent—an intense fascination with death. I’m lucky that, throughout my life, the people I love, my family and friends, are still with me. The only funerals I’ve attended were for my great-grandparents; they lived long lives, almost reaching 100. Then there are deaths I can barely recall, like one of my grandpa’s brothers who smoked too much, his lungs failed, and eventually, he couldn’t breathe and died. Or a cousin of my grandma’s who drowned while picking lotus roots or water caltrops in a pond one summer. So, if I could see dead people, I probably wouldn’t even recognize them.

But I’d still be willing to see dead people. I’ve never believed in an afterlife; I’ve always thought that when you’re dead, you’re just dead—honestly, it’s harder to live in this world as someone who doesn’t believe in anything beyond. So if I could see dead people, at least I’d know that death isn’t really the end. Whatever it is—a transitional state, maybe? That wouldn’t be so bad, I guess.