For a three-year period between The Sixth Sense and Signs (’99 to ’02), M. Night Shyamalan was almost the new Hitchcock. And then his rep took a hit with The Village (’04) and Lady In The Water (’06). Then he rebounded slightly with ’08’s The Happening (although the big topic of conversation back then was the scene in which Mark Wahlberg talked to plants). Then his career totally went off a cliff with The Last Airbender and especially in the wake of After Earth. Now with The Visit (Universal, 9.11), an apparently harmless little horror flick, he’s more or less become Wes Craven. I remember the being-compared-to-Hitchcock days. I remember his delicious, insightful commentary on the Strangers on a Train DVD/Bluray.
