Reflecting on M Night Shyamalan

Haley Joel Osment, in "The Sixth Sense"

I offered the following commentary on Google+, in response to an article The Death Spiral of M Night Shyamalan's Career:

I loved "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable" and "Signs," but M Night Shyamalan's subsequent films were mostly OK, at best, and he fell off my radar. Now, he's out with "The Visit."

The following, from Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight, sums up my sentiments:

"Here’s hoping his time in the wilderness made M. Night Shyamalan a better director of the kind of movie that made him big in the first place: tense, tightly-written thrillers with a strong emotional core. Sure, there’s probably going to be gauzy convolutions of plot, but emotional heart can cover for that. Anyone who enjoyed his early work has to be rooting for a comeback."
My post sparked a bit of a discussion, to which I added:

In a way I was glad Shyamalan fell off my radar, because I really didn't bother to read reviews or comments about him. People slamming him is unfortunate, because the dude is quite talented.

Besides the three I mentioned above, I also liked "The Village" and "The Happening" reasonably well, more because of the actors than the stories themselves. "Lady in the Water" was underwhelming, really. But I watched "Devil," and loved it, before I found out that he had written it.

BTW: I checked Wikipedia, and every single one of his films had box office returns that exceeded the budget. Not a bad run, in the least, for a talented filmmaker!

The box office success that Shymalan enjoyed makes Hickey's characterization as film making career in a death spiral rather overstated.