Villager Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) attempts to ward off the mysterious creatures in the woods by painting surrounding trees with a color that might deter them. Shyamalan wanted the landscape and visuals of the film to be stark: “I do prefer one chair on a porch rather than all kinds of things on the porch, so to speak. That alone helps create a certain sense of isolation. One of my inspirations for The Village was McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which has more of a residue after you’ve seen it — you feel you were there and experienced the feelings of those characters, as opposed to what you encounter in the normal summer movie. So the question is, can you release McCabe & Mrs. Miller as a normal summer movie?”