M. Night Shyamalan likes the fact that’s it cold, dark, and rainy outside. “It’s atmospheric,” he says with a mischievous grin, laughing at his own cheekiness when he notices me frown out the window of the Manhattan hotel room where we meet.
Atmosphere is, of course, Shyamalan’s thing. Or it’s one of his things at least. Big creative swings, polarized fan reactions, and, of course, surprise twists are very much his thing, too. They’re all being employed in the latest project from the famed horror-thriller director (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Split).
The big swing here is Servant, a new series that Shyamalan is executive producing for Apple TV+. For a filmmaker who has made a studied practice of managing the release of his movies to be seen by as many people as possible, he admits that he’s not entirely sure what to make of the brand new streaming service and what the best strategy might be to launch a show on it. And so he landed on what some might think of as a peculiar release date for a moody series chock-full of M. Night Shyamalanisms: Thanksgiving Day.
