The Happening

I don't know how he did it, but I have to see every movie M. Night Shyamalan makes.

I can't help it. You can't either, especially when the only other options are superheroes, supercomedians, or superskanks.

Lately though, I feel hopelessly enslaved to his bizarre whims and fantasies, like a parent forced to watch their child's terrible kindergarten plays and hang their horrible drawings on their refrigerator. I loved the originality of The Sixth Sense, loved being scared of nothing in The Village, and watching the plot come together in Signs. I hated Unbreakable because it was dumb, and Lady in the Water left me wondering what drug I had just taken and how much money I'd spent.

M. Night's sixth film The Happening settles into the hodgepodge of weird films nicely, without making a real name for itself or it's director. Deceptively tense and suspenseful during it's opening scene, the film fails to deliver any sort of dynamic and instead plods on, steady like a freight train, til the end. A crowded central park is suddenly and eerily filled with disoriented people who eventually begin to kill themselves. Naturally, the nation suspects terrorism, but when the events spread throughout the northeast the explanation seems much more difficult to understand. Groups of survivors begin to flock to each other seeking safety, and the typical disasters ensue as they flee the mob of blankly-staring, self-mutilating citizens of the northeast. Beware, paying full price for this movie will cause the same side effects. I think on the way to my car I saw a guy trying to slash his wrists with his ticket stub.

There are genuinely suspenseful scenes, and Shyamalan's knack for creating a creepy atmosphere out of literally nothing is in full force. I was genuinely on the edge of my seat a few times but never knew what I was scared of or for or about... Sometimes it was just because the wind was blowing or a tree swing was swinging way more that it should by itself. Don't get me wrong, I think it takes imagination and skill to create this ambiance, and I am aware and appreciative of the fact that sometimes the scariest scenes never really show anything at all. I don't need to watch some one's legs get sawed off to be scared. But this film fails to weave the terror into any intelligible climax and instead rambles on towards nothingness, without closure and without purpose, like a bizarre dream and not a nightmare. Without ruining the ending all I can say is that I left the movie the same way I went in: afraid of trees, afraid I wasn't "green enough", and afraid the earth was getting pissed at us polluting it and was probably going to do something crazy.

The acting does little to redeem the film's lack of energy, although the one-dimensional, over-the-top characters are likely Shyamalan's tribute to the casts of older horror movies - women in dresses and pearl necklaces and men with fedoras and three piece suits fleeing zombies clutching their pipes. Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel are obvious archetypes, very timeless and all-American looking, and just plain good old people from Philly. Wahlberg is the irritating long lost cousin of Beaver Cleaver and all but smacks himself and says "Gee golly!" as people die left and right. Zooey Deschanel, is simple and irritatingly emotionless, and only a handful of times shows enough emotion to ensure us she herself hasn't succumbed to the blank and suicidal stare of the bodies littering the landscape. A few times her own personality shows through, but her sarcasm and half-hearted Juno-esque delivery are lost in contrast to John Leguizamo's actual personality, a breath of fresh air amidst plastic cookie cutter characters.

The film's redeeming qualities are hard to appreciate without a predisposition towards classic horror films (specifically those of Hitchcock) and a willingness to let yourself get into the plot. The tight camera angles put the viewer right in the mob and subtly instill a sense of panic, the shots are simple and the minimal panning and camera movement make the film very classic-like. Even the little plot decoys thrown in (Wahlberg's mood ring, the crazy old woman) are reminiscent of Hitchcock's playful way of leaving the story very much inconclusive, and deceiving you into thinking a resolution is near.* I kept waiting for the little details to come together like they did in Signs or The Sixth Sense, and instead at the end of the film was left shaking my head and saying "Touche, Mr. Night, Touche," as I walked to my car feeling stupid.

I only wish I would've been scared more along the way to at least justify this ride to nowhere.


*See Hitchcock's film The Birds. They keep carrying around those dang lovebirds in a cage and in the end it had nothing to do with the story.

Random Tidbits:
- Green is supposedly the most stable color in a mood ring.
- If you missed Shyamalan's cameo in the movie and expected to see him, he was the voice of Joey on the phone.
- The Einstein quote written on the chalkboard in the begining of the movie is not attributed to Einstein, or has recently been proved as a false quotation.