'Signs' Biggest Mystery Officially Gets an Answer From M. Night Shyamalan [Exclusive]

M. Night Shyamalan is most notoriously known for his twists and turns, revealing over time what’s really happening in his movies with a surprise or two, or outright turning the entire plot on its head. His breakout film, The Sixth Sense, remains his most iconic use of the formula with the reveal that Bruce Willis‘ character had been dead the entire time, yet nearly every project in his oeuvre has employed the tactic with varying results. On the more polarizing end is his acclaimed alien invasion flick Signs. The story of grieving former pastor Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) and his family being shaken by signals of the arrival of extraterrestrials takes a questionable turn when it’s revealed that the creatures’ weakness is water. While the reveal prompted plenty of questions about why an intelligent species would invade a planet that is mostly water, others have taken it as a sign of a deeper, unspoken twist tying into the film’s themes.

Among the most popular fan theories of Shyamalan’s filmography is that the aliens of Signs are actually demons or something else spiritual in nature. Their arrival only comes amid Graham’s crisis of faith following the death of his wife and the arrival of the creatures, and biblical imagery is spread throughout the film. It’s framed not just as a family’s struggles against the inexplicable, but a battle against their own inner turmoil that must be confronted for them to move forward. The lynchpin of the theory, though, is that the aliens are only affected by water because they’re specifically reacting to holy water. As entertaining as the idea is, the two-time Oscar nominee finally settled the debate once and for all in a wide-ranging conversation with Collider’s Steve Weintraub during Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque.

“Yeah, for me, they’re aliens,” Shyamalan confirmed. However, he fully understands why viewers came away with that theory. Not only does Signs intertwine the sci-fi with the spiritual, but many of his films wrestle with the concept of faith in one way or another, whether it be Unbreakable, which hinges on Elijah Price’s belief in superpowered beings and his push for David Dunn to believe in his own abilities, or Knock at the Cabin, revolving around a group of people’s faith in a higher purpose to stop the coming apocalypse. “But the movie is full of this kind of taking a science-fiction premise and overlaying spirituality and the loss of faith on it, and that there is a larger, binding force that even includes aliens,” said Shyamalan. “So, I think the nexus of what you’re talking about is a fascinating one.”

Steven Spielberg’s Sense of Wonder Inspired Shyamalan’s Approach to ‘Signs’

While Signs approaches faith in the more straightforward religious sense, Shyamalan also incorporates it in his films from a broader perspective, as mentioned with Unbreakable. A lot of that, he says, came from his early love of Steven Spielberg and the sense of wonder and belief his films instill. He believes that power, when harnessed correctly, can be almost indistinguishable from that of religious faith in how it taps into the unseen. With the focus on aliens, Signs taps into both, from the family’s growing belief in life beyond Earth to the restoration of Graham’s faith in a higher power. Shyamalan told Collider:

“At that moment when I was writing it, the idea of believing in something… You know, [Steven] Spielberg so much made me believe as a kid in things I can’t see, that wonder, hitting the wonder button in me, which is so close to faith in a religious sense, as well. Those things are so close together, so I understand why it’s there. I almost don’t want to dissect it too much because they’re so close.”

Signs is currently available to stream on Peacock. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the future of Shyamalan’s filmmaking career.