C@LAg said:

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Chipotlemonger said:

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Off topic but Signs has been brought up a lot so: I'm not sure if some of y'all are the same way, but when Signs came out and I saw it I liked it a lot, but I did not think it was going to be one of the elites of a genre or era. I think it's one of those movies that is just well put together so it does not get stale with age, and I like it more and more as the years go on.

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first 66% is fantastic.

then you realize the stupidity of aliens being "allergic" to water on a planet whose surface is 70% water, where it rains in most places, and water is available almost everywhere. even bottled.

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Still the scariest alien moment of all time, imho.

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C@LAg said:

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Chipotlemonger said:

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Off topic but Signs has been brought up a lot so: I'm not sure if some of y'all are the same way, but when Signs came out and I saw it I liked it a lot, but I did not think it was going to be one of the elites of a genre or era. I think it's one of those movies that is just well put together so it does not get stale with age, and I like it more and more as the years go on.

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first 66% is fantastic.

then you realize the stupidity of aliens being "allergic" to water on a planet whose surface is 70% water, where it rains in most places, and water is available almost everywhere. even bottled.

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Forum Troll said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Still the scariest alien moment of all time, imho.

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I distinctlyremember the reaction of the theater to this scene when I saw it in high school. Audience completely lost their minds.

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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bluefire579 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Still the scariest alien moment of all time, imho.

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That one's good, but I'd give the edge to the ventilation scene in Alien.

Definitely in for this one

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For me, Signs had a couple of moments that did a number on me - the one in this embedded video and the first time they see it standing at the peak of the barn roof. At the time, the house I owned had a window that looked onto a neighbor's house, with a tall pitched roof that just reminded me of that scene.

As for scariest alien moment, Signs does not even rate. Alien is the one and only movie that fits that bill. But reading some of these posts, I see something in common. I can see how Fire in the Sky would mess someone up at age 12, but I was in my 20s when it came out. No real issue with me on that one. I was, however, 12 when my dad took me to see Alien. He thought it was going to be another science fiction movie like Star Wars; I remember knowing it would be a monster movie but more along the lines of a giant monster flick, like Godzilla.

I watched the majority of that movie through my fingers over my face. The air shaft sequence was the scariest sequence, but I will talk a bit about the other sequence that scared the crap out of me. When Harry Dean Stanton goes to get the cat, and the now full-grown alien drops down onto him from the air duct to take him away, I had been clenching my need to urinate. Seemed as good a time as any to go after that. We were at the old Palms Twin in Sugar Land, TX (old building at the time, right across from the Imperial Sugar plant, now gone); when I walked into the restroom, there was a gaping hole in the ceiling. One of the tiles was gone. Whatever. I just knew something was gonna come through that hole while I was taking a leak. I never peed so fast in my life.

Alien had almost as big an impact on my life as did Star Wars, although for different reasons. I had all kinds of nightmares over the next year or so. Didn't always sleep soundly. I've seen it described as The Exorcist in space, which for me is a pretty good description. I saw it again as a fish at A&M at Rudder Theater. No impact of it then, but then again, I'd seen it several times when it finally aired on HBO (2-3 years after its theatrical run for some reason). Yet over the years, I found myself continuing to have my sleep interrupted by a dream featuring either a big slimy monster or some environment that looked like it belonged in that movie. When Aliens came out, I had a bit of a flashback to those feelings of trepidation that I would get any time I saw photos from the interior of the Nostromo, when the Marines opened the doors and we see the long corridor where Hudson says someone must have bagged one of Ripley's bad guys.

Alien also was the cause of the worst financial decision I have ever made. In a doctors waiting room, I read some entertainment magazine in the early 90s about the movie Alien on some technology called laser disc that included all kinds of outtakes, extra footage, interviews, designs, etc, that I had to see. So I bought the player and the disc set ( which started a fairly brief period where I would spend roughy $6K on laser discs, including Alien and the original versions of the Star Wats OT). All as valuable as paper weights these days. Oh well, lessons learned.

As for Nope, I will definitely plan to see that one. But no alien movie will ever come close to Alien.

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Chipotlemonger said:

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Off topic but Signs has been brought up a lot so: I'm not sure if some of y'all are the same way, but when Signs came out and I saw it I liked it a lot, but I did not think it was going to be one of the elites of a genre or era. I think it's one of those movies that is just well put together so it does not get stale with age, and I like it more and more as the years go on.

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Quote:

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SIGNS FAN THEORY Let's skip the M. Night hatred for a moment. I, too, think he's become something of a joke. But he HAS made a number of worthwhile movies, and this is one I initially couldn't stand, thinking it was full of ridiculous plot-holes. And then…EUREKA!
When I first saw this film, I didn't realize that it wasn't about aliens at all. It's about the return of demons. Notice it's all about a priest's resurgence of belief, and a preordained moment of redemption-if-dared-and-attempted. There is no alien technology or weaponry or clothing of any kind, only a clawed, naked beast creature and lights in the sky.
Furthermore: The running joke throughout the movie is that people see these "invaders" in a way that's related to their particular frame of mind: The cop sees them as prankster kids, the bookstore owners see them as "a hoax to sell commercials," the Army recruitment officer sees them as invading military, the kids see them as UFOs…and the priest sees them as test of faith. This understanding of the film removed my hatred of the "You've got to be kidding me; they were killed by WATER!" concept. In fact, the priest's daughter had been referred to as "holy" (as revealed during Mel's key monologue)recognized by all who saw her at her birth as "an Angel;" and her quite particular relationship to water is shown to be very special and spiritual: In other words, she has placed vials of what are, essentially, HOLY WATER all around the house. (And the creature's reaction when coming in contact with this blessed liquid is EXACTLY like monsters/vampires being splashed by spiritual "acid.")
This view of the movie also explains the creature's actions: They act like superior tricksters, are not able to break in through closed doors, can be trapped behind simple wooden latches all mythological elements of demons and vampire-like creatures of lore. It also explains the news over the radio at the end of the movie that an ancient method of killing the creatures has been found "in three small cities in the Middle East" one would suspect the religious "hubs" of the three main Abrahamic traditions, each discovering the "mystic methods" of protection-and-dispatch that I've noted earlier.
Note also: All the Christian iconography throughout the movie, the references to "Signs and Wonders" (the true meaning of the title), the crucifix shapes hinted-at everywhere (check out the overhead shot, looking down on the street driving into town) and the ultimate fact that the entire movie is built around a Priest rediscovering he is not abandoned to a random, Godless, scientifically-oriented Universe but, rather, is part of a predicted and dreamed-of plan.
Now these creatures may for all intents and purposes be some sort of extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional "aliens" but the point of the movie seems to be that they are, in the ACTUALITY OF THE FILM WORLD, the dark stuff from which all the character's tales of devils and night-creatures were born.

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Sapper Redux said:

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Then just make that the antagonist.

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Quote:

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Besides, if that were true and the priest is Mel Gibson, he would have seen Jewish people rather than aliens.

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C@LAg said:

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Chipotlemonger said:

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Off topic but Signs has been brought up a lot so: I'm not sure if some of y'all are the same way, but when Signs came out and I saw it I liked it a lot, but I did not think it was going to be one of the elites of a genre or era. I think it's one of those movies that is just well put together so it does not get stale with age, and I like it more and more as the years go on.

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first 66% is fantastic.

then you realize the stupidity of aliens being "allergic" to water on a planet whose surface is 70% water, where it rains in most places, and water is available almost everywhere. even bottled.

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mazag08 said:

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Signs is a fantastic movie until the end.

Should have ended with the kid getting abducted. Then they are just suddenly gone.

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C@LAg said:

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Chipotlemonger said:

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Off topic but Signs has been brought up a lot so: I'm not sure if some of y'all are the same way, but when Signs came out and I saw it I liked it a lot, but I did not think it was going to be one of the elites of a genre or era. I think it's one of those movies that is just well put together so it does not get stale with age, and I like it more and more as the years go on.

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first 66% is fantastic.

then you realize the stupidity of aliens being "allergic" to water on a planet whose surface is 70% water, where it rains in most places, and water is available almost everywhere. even bottled.

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Quad Dog said:

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C@LAg said:

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Chipotlemonger said:

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Off topic but Signs has been brought up a lot so: I'm not sure if some of y'all are the same way, but when Signs came out and I saw it I liked it a lot, but I did not think it was going to be one of the elites of a genre or era. I think it's one of those movies that is just well put together so it does not get stale with age, and I like it more and more as the years go on.

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first 66% is fantastic.

then you realize the stupidity of aliens being "allergic" to water on a planet whose surface is 70% water, where it rains in most places, and water is available almost everywhere. even bottled.

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humans have lived their entire existence on a planet where over 97% of the water on it is salt water and therefore deadly for us to drink.

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aTmLoKi said:

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With all the talk about Signs in a Jordan Peele thread - is it too early to begin to discuss JP as the next MNS?

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bluefire579 said:

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aTmLoKi said:

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With all the talk about Signs in a Jordan Peele thread - is it too early to begin to discuss JP as the next MNS?

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The Signs comparisons came from the trailer, not from his directorial capabilities. Swing back around to this topic when he starts making movies like Lady in the Water, The Village, or the Happening

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cr0wbar said:

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Need some DP-ing context?

There's a collective group of directors that I'll see their movies no matter - and Peele is becoming one of them.

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Still the scariest alien moment of all time, imho.

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TCTTS said:

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I'd take Sixth Sense and Unbreakable over Signs all day long. Also, we're not "missing the point" with the water thing. It's objectively dumb, and something you have to flat out ignore to *appreciate* the point of the movie.

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