Remember the Noughties, when people just watched films about the world ending rather than… actually living through it? Allow Ariana Grande to take you back to those simpler times. The “Rain on Me” singer, who will perform her Chromatica track with Lady Gaga at the VMAs on 31 August, made a nod to M Night Shyamalan’s Signs on her Instagram Stories on 19 August – and it might just make you reach for the nearest roll of tinfoil.
For those of you who somehow missed watching the frankly seminal horror movie, a quick recap of the 2002 blockbuster. Set in rural Pennsylvania, it stars Mel Gibson as lapsed Episcopal priest Graham, who’s still reeling from the death of his wife in a car accident a few months earlier. Living with him on his remote farm? His brother Merrill, a minor-league baseball star played impeccably by Joaquin Phoenix, who helps to take care of Graham’s children, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin). Then aliens land near their property – part of a violent global invasion – and all hell breaks loose.
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Naturally, the film includes plenty of terrifying moments (the tinkle of wind chimes will forever strike fear into your heart after watching) but it’s one of Signs’s funnier scenes that’s proved most memorable. While glued to the television in an attempt to make sense of conflicting media reports about what’s happening (relatable), Morgan, Bo (and, later, even Merrill) fashion giant pointed hats out of tinfoil “so the aliens can’t read our minds”.
And while there are no aliens on the horizon in real life at the moment, there’s enough craziness going around that we’ve definitely reached the point of tinfoil-hat-level hysteria. After posting a still of Phoenix, Culkin, and Breslin lined up in their Hershey Kiss-like hats, Grande shared images of herself wearing her own tinfoil creation, followed by a shot of her boyfriend, real estate broker Dalton Gomez, in a similar look. Her only comment on their less-than-perfect metallic headgear? “I tried…” With the way the world is going, anything is worth a shot if it keeps anxiety at bay. Consider tinfoil hats the new sheet masks.
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