FRIGHT GIVES WAY TO PERFORMANCES, GOOD STORY `SENSE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Though it's hardly the jolt ``The Blair Witch Project'' was, ``The Sixth Sense'' is a similarly pleasing, eerie surprise. It's an unusually well-told ghost story, more a parapsychological study than a horror movie, with solid internal logic and a terrific twist ending that's beautifully, even rigorously, set up.

And even though fright is not the main agenda here, ``Sixth Sense'' boasts a good half-dozen scary moments. That's six more than ``The Haunting'' remake could manage.

On the minus side is a slow-starting early section and one of those ``sensitive'' Bruce Willis performances in which he whispers most of his lines and employs one of two facial expressions (smirky or lost-in-thought) for practically every scene. This even proves to be a sound approach by the time we learn what's really going on, but that doesn't make it any more engaging to sit through.

Fortunately, the movie's true star is expressive enough to carry the piece just fine on his small, fragile shoulders. Eleven-year-old Haley Joel Osment, who played Forrest Gump Jr. and Murphy Brown's son, brings complete conviction to haunted Cole Sear, a boy with the ability to see dead souls but who only wants to be normal.

Understandable enough. But the way Osment plays him - often frightened yet empathetic, in an almost responsible way, to the sad shades that reach out to him - is immensely compelling. He creates a spooked but brave little boy whose courage doesn't really come from facing down the supernatural but from accepting the gift that's the source of all his more mundane problems.

Willis is Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a Philadelphia child psychologist who becomes obsessed with trying to help Cole overcome his apparent delusion. Crowe himself is driven by a recent trauma - a former patient (Donnie Wahlberg, overdoing it) broke into his home and shot the doctor before taking his own life. Now, neglecting his wife (Olivia Williams, from ``Rushmore'') to the point of driving her into severe depression, Crowe lavishes attention on the fatherless boy, determined not to fail another young patient.

``Sixth Sense's'' writer and director, M. Night Shyamalan, comes from a medical family, and what can only be called an inbred bedside manner informs this sensitive, probing film. Cole's relationship with his single mother, Lynn (Toni Collette, the fine Australian star of ``Muriel's Wedding''), is observant and terribly touching. The fact that the boy can't confide in her like he feels he can with Dr. Crowe - he just couldn't take her thinking that he's a freak, like all the kids at school do - honestly breaks your heart.

So even though it starts out like a slow-motion ``Omen,'' ``The Sixth Sense'' is well worth sticking with. It's got story sense to spare, which is about as rare as ESP in Hollywood these days.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Sixth Sense'' (PG-13; violence, language, children in jeopardy).

The stars: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Produced by Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Barry Mendel. Released by Hollywood Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 51 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment, left) finds an extremely attentive listener in Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) in ``The Sixth Sense.''