This video essay discusses the dual personalities of both M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 film The Sixth Sense and the city of Philadelphia, where the movie is set. We draw from film scholar Matt Hills’s theories about autonomous and heteronomous production within the horror genre. We relate this distinction between the artistic and the commercial to Shyamalan’s reputation for creating “August films”. Like The Sixth Sense balances elements of an arty indie film and a blockbuster thriller, Philadelphia hovers between a refined site of history and culture and a home for the scrappy underdog. 

Our video essay is expository and poetic, incorporating voiceover, onscreen text, and music. In order to create this video essay, we utilized carefully selected clips from The Sixth Sense that illustrated our point of both the blockbuster and contrasting artistic nature of the film. Additionally, we searched for clips within Shyamalan’s movie that showcased Philly’s aforementioned duality. In order to emphasize our point we cultivated scenes from the various Philadelphia media we have analyzed throughout this capstone course, including Philly DA (2021), Rocky (1976), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and Witness (1985). We reached beyond course material through the use of additional sources, such as advertisements for the city of Philadelphia, modern political clips, and cinematic trailers. Overall, this video essay analyzes The Sixth Sense as a unique piece of Philadelphia media that captures this city’s fascinating contrasting public images.