Film in Philadelphia

You may not have noticed, but Shyamalan loves Philadelphia and frequently makes it the backdrop of his films, including The Sixth Sense. Hey, it's where he grew up—we can't blame him for having a little hometown pride, right?

Shooting on film, he manages to make the city look lovely but vaguely ominous, with lots of low-key lighting and shadows draped around the characters. When Cole and Malcolm are out and about in the daytime, obviously scenes are brighter, but the colors are still pretty muted.

Overall, the effect is to make the world seem cold and colorless (except when Shyamalan wants a color to pop—check out our "Symbols and Tropes" section for more on the color red), and vaguely scary, like something horrible is about to happen or jump out from the shadows at any given moment. Which seems appropriate in this film, no?

The fact that there are no obvious special effects in the film allows the everyday aspects of the story to emerge. No GCI ghosts or cataclysms distract from the emotional narrative. Make-up jobs like sliced wrists or missing parts of skulls are about as extreme as it gets. In a way, this makes Cole's otherworldly encounters all the more terrifying, since the ghosts look like regular people, except somewhat mutilated.