Night of the Living Dread

Image credit: Signs: Frank Masi

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Shyamalan had written his script -- a deliberate attempt to reconnect with mass audiences -- a story about crop circles that was really about an ex-minister who rediscovers his faith. (Hmmm.) The producers had booked a huge star at the reported cost of $25 million and overcome the loss of Mark Ruffalo to inner-ear surgery (Phoenix replaced him).

Then they got the call about what was happening in New York. A table reading had been scheduled for the next day, Sept. 12. ''There was talk about not going forward. We were all standing around in shock,'' remembers producer Frank Marshall, who had worked with Shyamalan on ''The Sixth Sense.'' ''We had a vote that day and everyone wanted to start the movie.''

They also didn't have much choice. Shyamalan wouldn't shoot outside of the Philadelphia area, and the cornfields essential to the plot would be the right height for only so long; missing their window would mean waiting another year. So what was he going to do? Roll film. ''[Costar] Cherry [Jones, who lives in New York] came to work the day after that happened and she was like a rabbit in the headlights,'' recalls Gibson. ''That's how we went into that job. Within the atmosphere of world catastrophe, we walked into this 43-day shoot.''

There were scuffles with ILM over the look of the alien, and a minor hiccup when Shyamalan saw ''Panic Room,'' which features a strikingly similar climax. ''[Screenwriter] David Koepp and I always seem to be thinking about the same things.... I was like, F---!'' he says. But most seem to think the movie went remarkably well. So what's with the hangdog act?

''I'm definitely a burden-type guy,'' says the director. ''That burden overwhelmed me a little bit on Unbreakable.'' For Shyamalan, part of shedding that burden involves putting more of himself in his movies. Literally. The director, who starred in ''Praying With Anger'' and has taken small parts in every film since, wrote himself a major role in ''Signs.'' ''If I can make this movie more personal by my presence, then I'll do it,'' he says. ''This time I wanted to say something specific about me that would help the movie. That's why I play that role. I say, basically, I don't know how this all is going to end'' -- it's unclear if he's talking about the movie anymore -- ''and if it ends in a weird or bad way, I'm sorry for what I did.'' And then, ''You don't think people are going to get on me for that, do you?''

In M. Night Shyamalan's world -- where aliens skulk in the corn and ghosts behind the attic door -- this may be the scariest proposition of them all.