HE does not want to be dismissed as a one-trick pony, and so M Night Shyamalan succours his audience with two tricks in The Village, another dark journey into the human soul.

The wait goes on for his ultimate trick, maybe something light from his twin M Day Shyamalan, but in the meantime his audacious, elaborate, elegantly executed ghost stories continue to scare and delight adult and younger audiences alike. He confronts expectations, he makes us look anew by turning a mirror on the world, and he does so by twisting Hollywood conventions to new ends.

After ghosts, superheroes and aliens in The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, now he takes another movie staple: the creature in the forest, beloved of King Kong, Tarzan, The Blair Witch Project and Wes Craven alike.

Shyamalan leads the viewer into a forest clearing where a 19th century village community lives in rustic austerity.

You could be in Witness territory, in this self-contained community, except that the villagers are under strict orders never to enter the woods or venture beyond, because of the creatures that lie within.

They live in fear of "those of whom we do not speak", ghoulish figures that can be heard in the woods at night and flit in and out of camera shot with their red capes and huge, bony claws.

The beasts wear red, the symbol of danger; the villagers wear yellow, the symbol of peace and calm, and there is a tacit agreement that beasts will leave the humans to their own 19th century ways as long as they do not cross the boundary signified by flickering lanterns.

The village is kept in check by the elders, ruled by William Hurt's stern mayor, who nurtures the fears of the young by advocating lives of innocence, honesty, self-preservation and unquestioning faith.

Inevitably, the order not to mess with the beasts' patch is a red rag to the inquisitive, especially when blood is daubed on doors and rotting animals are left on the ground. Joaquin Phoenix, the village's blue-eyed boy, craves to learn more, but his mother (Sigourney Weaver) is not forthcoming, and so boundaries are duly broken.

It falls upon his love interest, blind Bryce Dallas Howard (wonderful in her screen debut) to save the day, and here Shyamalan gives us the non-too-subtle metaphor of the blind seeing what others can't.

After King Kong and Witness, now we have moved on to Little Red Riding Hood, as Howard confronts both beast and Phoenix's rival, village idiot Adrien Brody.

Shyamalan remains a master of spooky atmospherics and a gripping if manipulative yarn spinner, but his ultimate message is murky. He appears to be advocating a return to the values of village communities, yet he is also damning religious fanaticism; his politics are as simplistic and muddled as those on display in Madonna's Re-invention Tour.

Lars Von Trier's similarly themed Dogville, newly available on DVD, is a superior work, both in terms of cinematic invention and clarity, and it is a more honest piece too. Nevertheless, Shyamalan's spooks and tricks make him a very enjoyable drama queen.

Updated: 15:42 Thursday, August 19, 2004