If You Want a Solid Guarantee That I Will Not See Your Shitty Movie…

…use this as your tagline – “From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan”. There’s…something about this particular combination of words that I cannot understand, mostly in regards to its currency as a market proposition. Let’s face it, that’s really all movies are – market propositions. Going to the movies presents, at its essence, the exact same consumer experience as just about any other place of business – the product just happens to be temporally limited. But other than that, you are going to a business that specializes in selling a thing (electronics, movies, religion, or whatever), and has many varieties of that thing for sale (products/genres), from which you must select the particular thing that matches your specifications and preferences. Perhaps an example would help illustrate how ridiculous this “From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan” business really is. Let’s say I’m buying a…car. Sure. Here we go.

DORIAN walks into a car dealership. Smelling fresh meat, SALESMAN ASSHOLE shares a private moment with a shit-eating grin before approaching Dorian.

As he walks over, Salesman Asshole feels a rush of endorphins, the physical manifestation of his belief that making this sale will allow him to achieve orgasm tonight without punching his wife in the stomach mid-coitus. His mind quickly veers, scoffing at her silly notion that there is a correlation between his sexual proclivities and her inability to bear children.

SALESMAN ASSHOLE (to Dorian): Aren’t women stupid?

DORIAN: That’s a fucked up way to sell cars.

Salesman Asshole winces. This isn’t the first time he’s done this.

SA: Look, I’m really sorry—

D (interrupting): No need for that. I’m game – what d’you got?

SA: Let me introduce myself first. My name’s Asshole.

D: That’s unfortunate.

SA: Well, I make it work.

D: That’s very…big of you? Look, I don’t really care. I came here to buy a car.

SA: Ah yes. Here, take a look at this baby – it’s called, “Devil.”

D: Bitchin’ name. Who makes it?

SA: Oh, it’s from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan.

D: Who the fuck is that?

SA: A famous car designer. He released his first car in 1999, which came out of nowhere and took everyone by surprise. Sold like crazy. Not a bad vehicle, but nothing revolutionary enough to warrant the acclaim it was receiving if you ask me. Anyway, he released three more cars over the next five years, all of which were basically the same as the first, so naturally, sales started to decline. He came up with another design in 2005 that his manufacturer told him had serious structural defects, but his ego had gotten so big by this point that he told them to fuck off and found another manufacturer who was so smitten by his celebrity that they were willing to overlook the obvious problems within this design. So they went ahead and made it. That car is still regarded to this day as one of the worst cars ever made.

D: I can’t imagine why you would posit this as a reason to buy this car - I’m guessing he had some kind of heroic comeback recently?

SA: Well, he designed an off-road vehicle in 2008, but he hired a former rapper to be the head engineer, so the final result lacked the balls to do any true off-roading. And actually, he just released his most recent car a few weeks ago. It’s his most expensive design yet!

D: …and?

SA: Sales are terrible and Consumer Reports called driving it, “an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.”

D (pointing to the Devil): And he made this car?

SA: No, it just came from his mind.

D: What the fuck does that even mean? Did he just will this thing into existence?

SA: I think he came up with the concept and someone else made it.

D: So why would I ever want to buy this thing? This Shyamalan character sounds like a hack – don’t you have something else?

SA: Yeah, but to be honest, they’re all pretty much the same.

D: Oh. Well, is there somewhere around that I can get a thought-out, innovative car of sound structural integrity?

SA: There might be one or two places still in business, but they’re out in the middle of nowhere, and they usually only sell the good ones on Friday and Saturday at midnight.

D: Well that’s horribly inconvenient – I’ve got five kids to feed!

SA: Well, that’s why we’re here, all day, every day.

And so the tired analogy comes to an end, but I think the point is made – who the fuck would buy a car with this pedigree?

As an aside, I would like to note that I do not actually have five, or any, children – I just can’t pass up the opportunity for a Total Recall reference. This is probably a good thing for both me and my imaginary children, as I don’t believe they would last very long with me being one of their primary caregivers. I’m sorry, but I simply do not respect any living creature that is incapable of feeding itself. It’s inexcusable.

But let’s get back to Devil – its makers were clearly unsatisfied with presenting only one potent argument against seeing their movie in their poster, so they added a second, self-prophesying tagline – “Bad Things Happen for a Reason”. See if you can identify the bad thing and the reason in this statement – if you produce anything conceived by M. Night Shyamalan, you will end up with a shit movie. It seems a simple enough understanding, yet so many people have failed to grasp it, which baffles me because I was under the impression this was common knowledge as of a few years ago, even before Lady in the Water. Does this pompous motherfucker think he can just ejaculate his lack of versatility as a film maker and a storyteller right in our faces and expect us to swallow? The only thing more harrowing is the follow up question – if so, is it working?

I guess that’s enough about the poster. As for the trailer itself, I mean, it’s terrible. What the fuck did you think I was going to say?

-Dorian