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M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” needs no introduction. The psychological horror, which was released during the summer of 1999, became something of a sleeper hit while cementing Shyamalan’s strengths as a director<\/a> with an intuitive bent for surprise twists. “The Sixth Sense” uses gradually escalating dread to build its central tragedy, and knowing its big twist in advance doesn’t detract from the experience. If anything, it adds thematic layers to the plight of the troubled Cole (Haley Joel Osment), while highlighting the unique anxieties of life during the cusp of the millennium.<\/p>\n Toni Collette’s nuanced performance as Cole’s mother, Lynn Sear, earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Academy Awards, where horror awards are rarely recognized. Yet Collette wasn’t actually aware that “The Sixth Sense” was a horror movie during the time of filming. In an interview for the radio show\u00a0Q with Tom Power<\/a>, she explained that her initial understanding was that Shyamalan’s film was a “spiritual” drama, and that the horror aspect of the narrative only dawned on her when she saw it being pieced together:<\/p>\n “I haven’t done that many [horror movies]. It’s only a handful, and I don’t like to watch them. But being in them is very different […] I just thought [‘The Sixth Sense’] was a beautiful spiritual story. I remember walking past a makeshift edit suite on set […] And they were cutting the scene together where Hayley is at that girl’s house, played by Mischa Barton [who plays the ghost of Kyra Collins]. And he walks past the bed, and she reaches out and grabs him. And the way it was shot, I was like, ‘Oh, holy sh**. I think this is a horror movie!’ [Laughs].”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n