The Happening
A pathogen is sweeping through America’s northeast. It renders its victims temporarily motionless. When they come to, they mumble gibberish before committing suicide with whatever implements are at hand. Is this a terrorist attack, the result of global warming, or something else?
Mark Walberg plays Elliot Moore, a Philadelphia science teacher, who will call upon rudimentary scientific methodology to try and solve the riddle of the rueful deaths. Meanwhile, his wife has contemplated a fling with another man, in what appears to be one of a few superfluous threads throughout the film. The truth is, we don’t necessarily care about the characters (especially Wahlberg’s, since he is one of the most insipid actors around). Actually, there has been a significant amount of effort put into constructing sub-plots designed to make us care about the core characters. Nevertheless, the main draw in this film is the suspense of an eerie and threatening apocalyptic event, and its violent and horrific effects. The vague possibility that Wahlberg’s character may not survive, is a bonus.
Sure, this film is full of logical errors, but even they can be amusing when watching this DVD with friends who are prepared to suspend belief for an hour and a half or so, and see the humorous side of the film’s failings.
M Night Shyamalan has never quite been able to reproduce a story as good as The Sixth Sense. Certainly, this film was panned upon its release. But The Happening, while still falling short, is better than most of the Sixth Sense’s successors, and is a vast improvement on the embarrassment that was The Lady In The Water. It’s also probably the first of his films in which Shyamalan doesn’t appear (although we still hear his voice). Having left the acting to the actors, one can only hope that he will leave the writing of his next project to screenplay experts.
The Happening is reasonably entertaining, and a good film to catch on DVD, especially if you enjoy seeing the lighter side of horror/suspense films.