By now, you've gotten the memo: Cole sees dead people. In fact, he sees them so often that he really can't function as a normal boy. They appear to him in school hallways, they show up in his bedroom (he's built a special tent to get away from them), and they come and move things in his house. Imagine having to deal with a ghost moving your stuff around. Isn't finding your phone hard enough sometimes?
Anyway, in The Sixth Sense, Cole is having a difficult time coping with all that until he meets child psychologist Malcolm Crowe. Malcolm ends up being very helpful, which is both ironic and appropriate, given that Malcolm is one of the very ghosts that Cole's been trying to escape. Malcolm doesn't know that he's dead (none of Cole's dead people do), but he still gives Cole some good insight into the spirits' ghostly motivations. All they need is someone to listen, just like the rest of us. As a result, Cole figures out how to relate to them instead of living in a constant state of terror.
Questions about The Supernatural
- Why put a child at the center of a supernatural thriller?
- Why does the tent (sometimes) protect Cole from the ghosts?
- How does Malcolm find Cole? Malcolm mentions a missed appointment when they first meet. Do you think Cole was originally on Malcolm's books before he, you know, died?
- Why does Cole's grandmother (a ghost) move the bumblebee pin? It's not like she can wear it. What role does that device serve in the film?
Chew on This
Ghosts are just a big fat metaphor for the kind of psychological "demons" that we all deal with. Open and honest communication is the only way to get rid of them.
The fact that the ghosts are given human motivations, rather than just being purely evil or terrifying, keeps the film out of the pure horror genre.