THE SIXTH SENSE: "Dead People" - with Books in the Freezer host Stephanie Gagnon

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06/13/22 • 75 min

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1999: The Podcast

The Sixth Sense was 1999's most unexpected phenomenon. And it really was a phenomenon.

Filmed on a $40 million budget, the film made a respectable $26 million its opening weekend, but great reviews and word of mouth propelled it to a $293.5 million domestic box office gross and a worldwide gross of just shy of $673 million.

It was the only movie to stay #1 for 5 weeks aside from The Phantom Menace, and, most impressively, it made at least $20 million all five weekends it was #1, making more than $29 million its final weekend.

Not bad for a decidedly not-action movie centered around Bruce Willis, a year after Armageddon and then at the early stages of the waning days of his star power, and a relatively obscure child actor named Haley Joel Osment, and written and directed by an almost entirely unknown filmmaker named M. Night Shyamalan.

So much of The Sixth Sense rests on its legendary plot twist, so already knowing how it ends, we invited Stephanie Gagnon, host of the horror book podcast Books in the Freezer, to join us in taking another look at the movie to see if it still holds up as a haunted horror movie.

Check out Books in the Freezer here.

The Sixth Sense was 1999's most unexpected phenomenon. And it really was a phenomenon.

Check out Books in the Freezer here.

Previous Episode

EYES WIDE SHUT: "Fidelio" - with New York Magazine's Lila Shapiro

Stanley Kubrick’s final film (and perhaps the nail in the coffin for Hollywood's most famous couple), the psychosexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut, was released on July 16th, two days after the limited release of The Blair Witch Project, and on the day that birthed a thousand QAnon conspiracy theories as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy died in a plane crash while everyone in America kept listening to Destiny’s Child’s Bills Bills Bills.

The film was, at the time, well received if not overwhelmingly praised by critics and audiences.

But it’s worth noting that the critical division is unusually stark, with critics who reviewed it positively giving the film overwhelming praise and vice-versa, with very little in between (Slate’s David Edelstein called it “a somnolent load of wank,” for example).

And, to be fair, many critics have given the film a second look and come to their senses.

But the question now is not whether or not Eyes Wide Shut is a great film (it is) but whether or not it’s Kubrick’s greatest film.

In this episode, John and Joey welcome New York Magazine feature writer Lila Shapiro, who wrote the 2019 essay What I Learned After Watching Eyes Wide Shut 100 Times for Vulture.

Check out more of Lila's work here.

Next Episode

AMERICAN BEAUTY: "Roses" - with Aislinn and Tobin Addington

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American Beauty was 1999's Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards. And it was an unstoppable behemoth when it came to end of year accolades, cleaning up as well at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, SAG, and more. Critics practically tripped over themselves digging deep into their vocabularies to properly articulate the film's genius.

And yet, 23 year later, the consensus seems to be that the film is...bad.

So what happened (beyond the dark revelations of Kevin Spacey's long history of terrible, abusive behavior and sexual assault)? And is there anything left to make American Beauty a film that can still be appreciated? Is anything about American Beauty still beautiful?

This week, John and Joey are joined by the Addington siblings, Aislinn and Tobin, co-hosts of CageClub's very own The Contenders podcast.

They discuss their journeys from loving and then really, really hating Sam Mendes and Alan Ball's strange, misguided, ambitious, and hopelessly outdated failure.