My Opinion on his career and why i still root for him
First my thoughts on his films individually...
(i havent seen Wide Awake or Praying with Anger. I also havent seen The Last Airbender, I will explain why later)
The 6th Sense is a masterpiece and one of the greatest horror thrillers of all time. It was nominated for MULTIPLE Oscars (including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress) for a reason. a true classic.
Unbreakable was a very well done film, while i personally find it kinda boring and its not one of my favorites, i recognize what he was going for and i get why people love it.
Signs was amazing and his scariest film.
The Village is one of my top 5 favorite films of all time!! The Oscar nominated score is one of the best pieces of music ever written. The Roger Deakins camera work is stunning. The message behind the film really touched me. The acting was great (Bryce Dallas Howard deserved an Oscar nom IMO)! It was a period love story that got marketed as a horror film which is why people got pissed. The twist ending (not the one about the monsters but the one about what year it really is) BLEW ME AWAY more than any other ending i have ever seen in my life! I guarantee you if The Village came out today, was a Chris Nolan film and came out in November and was marketed as Oscar bait, it would be hailed as a masterpiece. People went in expecting a summer (it came out in July of 2004) horror film with jump scares but instead got a slow moving period romance that was also an allegory for violence in our society and the lies our gov't tell us to 'keep us safe'. Brilliant brilliant stuff that went over so many peoples heads. People crap on this movie yet call Mad Max Fury Road (a paint by numbers action flick with no story about a bunch of people out in the desert racing/fighting each other) a 'masterpiece' just because the STUNTS ARE REAL YO! Seriously....
But....after that, Night went off the rails for me...
Lady in the Water was not as bad as people say but i did walk away very disappointed in that film. And Night giving himself a big role in the film definitely hurt it. He should have cast an actual actor in that part.
The Happening is boring, stupid, and makes no sense, with some of the worst acting in the history of cinema. Its better as a comedy. That films big scary "threat" is the WIND???? Really??? Mark Wahlberg is lucky to still be working after the performance he gave in that film. All his trademarks (Oscar caliber acting, good dialogue, beautiful cinematography, artful direction, suspense, an interesting premise, a mind blowing twist ending, haunting music) were ALL missing here. Nowhere in sight. What was marketed as his first R rated movie and his 'most violent film' ended up coming off as his first comedy, and not in a good way. Its by far his worst effort.
I havent seen Last Airbender (never saw the cartoon so i was worried i wouldn't understand what was going on and plus Night had let me down 2 times in a row plus reviews were AWFUL so i skipped it).
I tried to watch After Earth but about 20 minutes in i had to turn it off and haven't had the urge to revisit it since. Jaden just cannot carry a film. Once Will gets knocked out the momentum dies.
Not gonna see The Visit mainly because i dont like found footage movies (only good one was Cloverfield...but that at least had big SFX and action) and also the plot for The Visit doesn't interest me at all, so I will skip it....
...BUT i will ALWAYS root for M. Night because he does have talent and gave us two masterpieces (6th Sense and The Village) and 2 great films in Signs and Unbreakable. When he makes a film that has a trailer i'm interested in, i will go support him. He has original ideas and pours his heart and soul into his work, which you can't say for most filmmakers nowadays. I will always support that.
Most horror films are cheap, simple, basic, lazily written pieces of work with ZERO sense of character or story or plot. They just exist to create cheap jump scares in easily frightened teenagers and people who get off on gore, make some money opening weekend, then fade off into the distance. No real suspense. No real heart.
Night takes us back to when Hollywood still treated horror films like true FILMS. The days of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, etc. To him every movie is essentially an Oscar bait drama HIDING inside a horror film, and I love that. I miss that about his work. He made Oscar caliber dramas that SCARED the crap outta you. That's what The Sixth Sense was. That's what The Village was. That's what Signs was. Hopefully one day he will get back to that. And if/when he does, I will be there waiting...with popcorn in my hand and a HUGE smile on my face.