M Night Shyamalan has said that “the twist”, the plot device with which he is most famously associated, isn’t actually of particular interest to him as a director.
Shyamalan has long held a reputation as the “master” of the plot twist, dating back to his Oscar-nominated film The Sixth Sense. The 1999 film ultimately revealed that a character played by Bruce Willis had been dead for the duration of the movie.
Speaking to the New York Post about his new Apple+ series, Servant, he said: “For me, [the twist] is not actually something that’s of interest. Mystery or suspense inherently has a moment of awareness. If I told romantic comedies, there would be an emotional moment.
“So, by nature of the genre that I’m interested in, it will most likely have a moment where you realised something,” he continued. “That comes more with the genre than with me.”
Servant is a series of 30-minute episodes about a young couple existing in the aftermath of their baby’s death. To cope, the father Sean gets a doll and pretends it’s their baby – the mother, Dorothy, is so distraught that she doesn’t seem to notice. They hire a nanny to look after the child as though it’s real, and things quickly turn sinister from there.
While Shyamalan suffered negative reactions to films such as Lady in the Water (2006) and The Happening (2008), he has enjoyed a resurgence with 2015’s The Visit and 2016’s Split, which starred James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy.
