Review - The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan's latest is a technically awful but oddly watchable horror, which Shyamalan calls a “B-Movie.” Whether he decided it was a B-Movie while filming or after he viewed the final cut is unknown. The film opens with a surprisingly creepy scene in New York, where people in Central Park all come to a standstill at the same time, walk a few steps backward and then promptly kill themselves via the most convenient means. This strange and horrible situation sweeps throughout the city, with nearly the entire population attempting to off themselves, including a memorable scene with construction workers hauling themselves off a building. The action then moves to Philadelphia, where Elliot and Alma Moore (Mark Whalberg and Zooey Deschanel) find themselves swept up in this bizarre suicide epidemic. We follow them as they desperately try to make sense of this “happening,” and avoid ending up getting affected themselves.

Despite the interesting premise the script and story is a schlocky mess. None of the characters speak like normal people, they all speak like a narrative in a book. The story doesn't really go anywhere and requires a huge suspension of disbelief. In these types of films characters are always doing silly things but I did have a bit of trouble getting emotionally invested in a scene where the characters have to run away from the wind. Yes they run through a field with the “wind” blowing and trying to catch up behind them. Difficult to explain, mind blowingly stupid to watch. The acting is horrific, which is a shame as Whalberg and Deschanel aren't bad actors. I don't know if it was a stylistic choice by Shyamalan but the actors read their lines like they're on a cue card behind the camera and they only rehearsed five minutes before filming the scene.

But despite the poor acting, simplistic script and silly story, The Happening does have two things going for it. The first is the excellent music by James Newton Howard. The second is the shocks sprinkled throughout the film. Shyamalan does understand what makes a good scare and the suicide scenes, although far fetched, are just tongue in cheek and creepy enough to work. There's also a couple of effective shocks outside the suicide scenes as mankind falls apart at the hands of the epidemic and paranoia sinks in.

Clocking in at 90 minutes The Happening is to brief and goofy to be a bore to watch. There's no doubt this is a poor effort and the over the top suicide scenes and occasional shocks don't make up for the failings in the script and acting. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this film but if it's on late night TV, which is probably the rightful home for a film like this, it might be worth catching, if only for the silly death scenes.