From kids who see dead people to aliens invading a family farm, M. Night Shyamalan’s films are never short on unique concepts and crazy ideas. To celebrate the release of horror-comedy The Visit, about a couple of kids’ weird visit to their grandparents’ house, let’s remember why we fell in love with his movies in the first place. Oh, and prepare yourself for that final plot twist!

“I See Dead People” in The Sixth Sense (1999)

If you can judge the cultural importance of a movie based pure on how often it has been quoted and parodied, then M. Night Shyamalan has one of the most important movies of all time. Haley Joel Osment confiding his secret (that he sees dead people!) to Bruce Willis is a truly chilling scene, beautifully acted and unsettling. It’s Shyamalan’s most famous scene and for good reason – it’s exquisitely crafted stuff. It’s so good that it has survived 16 years of people reducing it to a punchline. It’s that great.

Cole Uses His Gift in The Sixth Sense (1999)

The Sixth Sense is not only scary, it’s also moving, filled with scenes of effective emotional catharsis. By the film’s end, young Cole has learned that with great power comes great responsibility (he really is the Spider-Man of ghost whisperers) and has begun using his gift for communicating with the undead to actually help people. It reaches its grand conclusion in a scene with his mother. Stuck in a traffic jam, he confesses his secret and... well... just watch the scene again. And bring tissues.

“This Is a Piece of Art” in Unbreakable (2000)

Shyamalan is best known for his ability to create tension out of thin air, but he rarely gets credit for how funny his writing can be. Take this memorable scene from Unbreakable, where Samuel L. Jackson’s comic book art-gallery owner lays into a potential customer who wants to buy a piece for his young son. Jackson is a master of the cruel, condescending monologue and Shyamalan gives him one of his best speeches. In a movie filled with grim subject matter, this scene arrives just in time to provide the perfect amount of levity.

A Superhero Is Born in Unbreakable (2000)

Bruce Willis’ David spends the bulk of Unbreakable refusing to acknowledge his unique gifts. Yeah, he may never get sick and he may never get hurt and he may be able to bench an absurd amount of weight, but does that make him a superhero? The film’s climax makes it clear that the answer is yes. Years before Christopher Nolan made the idea of a “realistic” superhero cool with his Batman movies, Shyamalan was paving the way. This is the gritty, grounded, all-too-real superhero movie everyone wants these days. It just arrived a little early.

The Alien Birthday Party in Signs (2002)

Few films play their audiences like a fiddle quite like Signs, which transforms something as massive as an alien invasion into something deeply personal and claustrophobic. Oh, and scary. Like really scary. Like the unforgettable scene where Joaquin Phoenix watches a news report about an alien sighting and gets the jump-scare of his life. This scene probably made you shriek like a small child in theaters in 2002. And you know what? It’s somehow just as frightening on YouTube.

Peeking in the Pantry in Signs (2002)

There’s an admirable patience to Shyamalan’s filmmaking. He’s rarely in a rush, choosing to extend scenes to the breaking point, practically ordering you to yell at the screen. Few scenes ask you to yell at fictional characters with as much gleeful sadism as this scene where Mel Gibson tries to catch a glimpse of the alien behind the pantry door. This is a lengthy scene that begins tense and only tightens as it goes on. Shyamalan spares no beat and never feels the need to get to the scare quickly. But when he does... uh, just try to not be drinking anything when it happens.

The Creatures Invade The Village (2004)

A small, isolated community in the middle of nowhere has a truce with the monsters that live in the surrounding woods. The truce ends. And things get weird. Although the ending of The Village turns the whole movie on its head, its most effective scene works in any context. The red-robed creatures slip past the watchtowers and the village is thrown into a panic... but Bryce Dallas Howard’s blind Ivy won’t go inside until Joaquin Phoenix’s Lucius comes for her. And as she stands on her porch, she cannot see the red figure closing on her. Eeep!

The Lion Attack in The Happening (2008)

You’ve got to respect a scene where Mark Wahlberg watches a man driven to suicide by vengeful plants literally throw himself into a den of lions. That’s not something you see every day.