Parents Record Teen Son’s Reaction to Watching ‘The Sixth Sense’ for the First Time

TikToker Bronson (@bronsonthehunter) had the internet rolling in the aisles after posting a video of his teen son’s reaction to the iconic twist ending of The Sixth Sense. The video, which now has 757,000 views, is titled "When you thought everyone already knew the plot twist and realized your kids didn’t," and it captures the hilarity of sharing one of cinema’s best-kept secrets with the next generation.

The clip opens with Bronson’s son watching The Sixth Sense, completely oblivious to the big reveal. As the suspense builds, an overlay text playfully reads, “Shocking the hell out of the next generation,” before a cheeky “processing…” bar appears, symbolizing the slow dawning of realization.

When he finally catches on, the look on his face is priceless. “Do you get it?” the parents ask, trying to contain their laughter. After a pause, the boy exclaims, “Yeah, I get it. He’s dead! How did I not realize?” The video wraps up with a humorous text card saying, “Re-evaluating his whole existence.” And given the timing, it was the perfect spook right after Halloween.

In the comments, nostalgia flooded in. “Oh to be watching The Sixth Sense for the first time 😭😭,” one user wrote, evoking memories of experiencing that mind-blowing twist for the first time. Another added, “I saw it opening weekend, so I didn’t even know there was a twist. There was a collective gasp from the audience when we all realized at the same time."

A third commenter reminisced about The Sixth Sense as M. Night Shyamalan’s crowning moment, joking, “This is why we’ve put up with M. Night Shyamalan all these years—in appreciation and hope he might do something this great again someday.”

When The Sixth Sense debuted in 1999, it was a different world for moviegoers. You could go to the theater with no clue about the twists or turns a story would take. Without the omnipresent spoiler-filled discussions that come with today’s digital age, it was easier to be genuinely shocked.

Audiences had no clue about Shyamalan’s now-iconic twist style, and as one commenter described, “There was a collective gasp from the audience.” It was a time when a movie’s secrets could stay hidden until you watched it yourself.

Today, however, we live in an era of spoiler alerts, where everything — from TV finales to movie twists — is dissected online almost immediately after release. Even the briefest plot point can pop up in a trending hashtag or a well-meaning meme, meaning that today’s surprises rarely stay secret for long.

While fans now try to keep key plot points under wraps, spoiler warnings have become necessary on most reviews, trailers, and articles. It’s a nostalgic and wholesome moment to watch a younger viewer get completely blindsided by a twist.

For parents like Bronson, sharing these classic moments with their kids becomes a chance to relive their own experiences, and fans in the comments were thrilled to see this reaction captured in real-time.

Sharing these timeless shocks with a new generation keeps the magic alive, proving that a truly great twist will stand the test of time — even if it’s a little harder to preserve the surprise in today’s world.

Ah, the good ol' days.

M. Night Shymalan's filmography has left many audiences ambivalent. Fans of the Philadelphia based director would probably cite his earlier films as the best ones he's ever produced. Following The Sixth Sense, he collaborated with Bruce Willis again as the lead in Unbreakable starring opposite Samuel L. Jackson.

The film took a horror/thriller twist to the superhero genre, when Bruce Willis' character discovers that he possesses superhuman strength. Like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable also features a shocking twist that caught many viewers by surprise, but fit in perfectly with the narrative cues of the superhero genre.

After that, he worked with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix in Signs, another lauded film dealing that aftermath of an alien invasion and a family's struggle to survive and fight back against a new threat to humanity. His flicks that followed didn't receive as much fanfare, however.

The Village divided viewers: the movie, which presents itself as a period piece ultimately reveals that many of the characters are living a secret they had no prior knowledge to.

Lady in the Water is another movie that many attribute as "the beginning of the end" of Shymalan's dominance as a horror director.

The Happening is the oft-ridiculed Mark Wahlberg led film that was mostly made fun of because its primary villains was foliage. Shots of Shymalan menacingly cutting to trees swaying in the wind prompted ridicule from fans and critics alike. In recent years, however, Shymalan's Split, Glass, Knock at the Cabin, and Trap received much more positive responses.