The M. Night Shyamalan brand needs help.

I’d meant to write about him after seeing M. Night’s latest The Happening months ago, but got busy. See that puzzled look on Marky Mark’s face? Yeah, that was me was after leaving the theater feeling both confounded and about as inspired as the suicidal zombies I’d just seen. Then I saw David Mamet’s recent Redbelt, and started thinking about both directors as it relates to brands, and why M. Night seems to be in such a funk.

(By the way, if you like your ass-whooping with a philosophical edge and snappy noirish dialog, rent Redbelt. Sure, Road House may have similar themes, but Mamet never wrote “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” and “Prepare to die!”)

Whether you like him or not is another matter, but Mamet is the brand that does one thing well, does it consistently, and is dependable movie to movie. Forgetting the junk food comparison for a sec, but it’s like McDonald’s in that regard. No matter what, the hamburger I order will taste the same in Ohio as it does it in California. (Whether it’s actually one in the same burger is another debate, but you get the point.)

Three things about him: 1) His characters deliver oft-repeated lines progressively shorter in length. 2) He’s going to have tricky plot twists. 3) He may depend on his go-to cast of characters a little too much. When he makes a film incorporating these elements though, it all works together for what he’s trying to accomplish. He’s not taking two steps back for every one he takes forward.

Then there’s the Shyamalan brand.

It’s not that he isn’t consistent, he is: He keeps trying the same approach in every film. Thing is it worked at product launch, but not since. Why does this work with one director and not the other? I think it comes down to execution.

Three things about M. Night in this regard: 1) He always poses the big, sounds like it wants to be compelling ‘What if...?” thought in his films. 2) He sets up this premise at the end, then tries to build a movie ahead of time that will hopefully support it through plot twists. 3) He has The Big Surprise™ at the end.

The Sixth Sense definitely had some wtf? moments. Unbreakable to a degree as well. The Happening actually had what I consider some genuinely freaky and disturbing scenes, and not like stuff you’d see in a typical Saw/Hostel sadistic gorefest either. But each of those scenes was surrounded by some of the most boring moments ever put on film.

Which is what gets me about him.

On one hand, he has the ability to create compelling visuals like nobody else, and on the other, he undermines it all with gimmicky plot tricks two seconds later.

He got one by on us the first time out with this execution, but by Unbreakable, you were catching on. By the time Signs rolled around? The one-trick pony needed to be put down. Don’t even get me started on the The Lady in the Water or The Village. See No. 3 above because he’s also revealing this way to early those films.

The problem now is that ‘consistency’ has became predictable.

Nothing wrong with that, predictable works for movies like Independence Day, which is junk food entertainment at its finest. You know going in that Robert Loggia will be the cranky general. You know mankind will prevail as Will Smith saves the day.

But M. Night burst on the scene as the critic’s festival darling and a new voice with his blend of mystery-horror-sci-fi fable. He was supposed to elevate the genre, and so naturally, people expected more. Lest you think this is another MTLB Unproven Theory™, he does have a formula by his own admission. I’ve been following his films to see if he’d be as successful using it as he claimed he one day would be.

It was after Sixth Sense first came out and he was doing an interview, being all M. Night “I could tell you but I’d have to thrill you” coy about why he thought the movie would be successful. He hinted that he knew a specific way to put a plot together guaranteed to work each time out. But, M. Night wasn’t sayin’.

Since? The only consistent thing he’s done is appear in his own films.

Fine for the ego, but as a brand. Customers are pissed off now and worse, most are bored. What’s it say about your brand when the only thing people still think of is the first thing you did?

One possible solution for the brand: Flip the script—literally. The surprise thing isn’t working anymore. Open with the premise and support it the rest of the way out like Mamet does. He introduces a central metaphor right at the start, then as things progress, you see how people either live up to or are done in by it.

Or change genres. Do a comedy. Do a political thriller. Anything without a hint of the supernatural. When you’re consistently doing things that aren’t working, doing anything different might be worth a shot.

Otherwise, you end up with one director making films you rent and another one making films that disappoint, and a lot of angry customers.