The Happening - Movie Review

Yeah you read it right, I'm going to be talking about M Night Shaymalan's The Happening. Yes, it's a film that's definitely a hilariocity, a film that's such an atrocity it's hilarious. However, over the past couple of years something popped into my head that made me wonder: Is The Happening actually brilliant? You might now say, "Dude, you're drunk. Go home." And to that I say: "What? No! I've only have one glass of hard cider. I'm not drunk." This question didn't just come out of the blue and I've thought a lot over this idea. So this might be less of a review and more of thought provoking article on the film and so there will be some spoilers.

So let me start out by saying in my younger years I didn't like Shaymalan that much as a direct. I noticed his bad films, including this one, and hated the dialogue and overuse of plot twists, all within nonsensical stories. Over the years though I've gained a better appreciation for his work, especially after watching films like Unbreakable and Split. Now I find him one of the few directors working today striving to create highly original stories. Yes, not all of his work as been successful, but some films like the ones I mentioned, as well as The Sixth Sense and Signs (which I've gained a much better appreciation for), have elements to them that make them very good to some viewers.

Now again, The Happening is an awful film with many moments are unintentionally funny. But before The Happening in 2008, Shamaylan had made several films that are highly regarded as some of his best films. These include The Sixth Sense in 1999, Unbreakable in 2000, and Signs in 2002. Signs especially because it's a film that has some very creepy and times terrifying moments, like the famous "Disturbing Footage" scene. That part especially is scary because of the well-done buildup and payoff the scene delivers. Clearly the director knows how to scare and unnerve people. So that begs the question: Why was The Happening not scary at all, but instead funny?

For those who never heard of it, The Happening is about Mark Wahlberg, a bee-loving high school science teacher, suddenly in the midst of an unknown epidemic where masses of people begin to start killing themselves. Eventually the characters figure out that somehow a lot of plants are emitting some type of neurotoxin or something into the air that causes people to commit suicide as a defense mechanism against humanity and our destructive ways. Mark Wahlberg and several other people try to survive the pandemic with some weird characters and it's just a crazy ride.

The concept itself is actually pretty cool idea. It's very sad, but humanity has been continually destroying nature in so many ways for decades. Only until recently, with the red skies of Southeast Asia and Australia, have people realized that our planet is going to be screwed over unless in the next couple of years we do something about it. Plants also, from research over the years, are very diverse and adaptive. The idea of human conditions becoming so bad for planets they develop some sort of chemical to combat us is entirely possible. There are plants with spores, fruit/ berries, or just leaves that have chemicals that can severely damage the human body, the movies just cranks this defense up to 11.

With such an idea though, the film is now remembered as something we can all watch and laugh at for hours. There's just so much hilarious dialogue, dumb character decisions, and the deaths are, despite intending to be horrifying, come off as gut-bustingly funny. The movie is very campy and somehow can make mass suicides hilarious to watch. I know, it sounds very horrifying to laugh at suicides and maybe it's just me and many other perceive the portrayals, but watching a guy suddenly turn on a huge lawnmower, laying down, and letting it run them over... I'm laughing at just how ridiculous it is because it's depicted as scary, more funny and us scratching our heads. All these scares are so obvious and over-the-top you can't help but laugh. Any other director would have toned it down, but Shaymalan made it so crazy it's kind of intentionally laughable.

So is there anything we can take from The Happening that isn't laughter? Well let's first talk about how the film was marketed. It's rated R and in teasers for the film Shaymalan himself appeared and talked about how test audiences were horrified about the film. However the poster for the film had some oddly written words on it: "We sensed it, we saw the signs, now it's happening." It's odd because he's references two of his biggest successful films: The Sixth Sense and Signs. Now that seems very obvious for anyone who watched a Shaymalan film and I'm pretty sure it was intended as such. Now with Shaymalan always wanting to have something deeper with this films, whether a discussion of the idea of faith or morality of superheroes and villains, I've been trying to figure out what The Happening's hidden meaning could be besides one day plant-life is going to murder every one of us in our sleep.

I think though, after years of pondering this question, I've got an answer: This film is a satire of horror films, specifically the ones made by people who don't understand how to make genuine horror. Examples of such genuinely awful horror movies could including Ouija (which was produced by Michael Bay and only exists to expand on a much better horror movie), Annabelle (which continually and poorly ripped off better horror films), and Book of Shadows: Blair Witch II (just... f#ck that film). Some of these are made after a previous, related horror film did very well and someone wants to cash in on that. Others are just films with a very small budget with terrible writing, character with a quirk or stereotype and no other character development, continually questionable plot decisions, and endless jump scares. That's just three examples though, there are countless terrible horror movies out there that deserved to be forgot or at least have all their DVDs burned in a pyre.

The Happening has a large cast of characters, several of which are played by famous actors, with very simple, basic traits and development. Wahlberg's closest friend is a math teacher who can't shut up about math, there's an army guy who can't stop talking about food, and a guy who has this weird obsession with hotdogs (though he's my favorite character of the film). That's just three of so many weird characters in the movie. They also, like many terrible movies, make dumb, obvious decisions that any normal person would never ever make, along with dialogue that no normal person would ever say. At one point in the film while Wahlberg's character rides a train it suddenly stops in the middle of nowhere and when he questions the conductors on why they did it they answer, "We lost contact," to which Wahlberg says, "With who?," and they reply, "... Everyone." So you're going to just stop a train in the middle of the woods because nobody is answering your calls? What the hell kind of thinking is that? And there's another scene with an old lady who's acting and thinks Wahlberg or his small group will murder her in her sleep and all he says is, "What? No!" in the most hilarious way ever! Then there's another scene where Wahlberg mistakes a plastic house plant for a real plant, but before he realizes he tells it he and his group are going to the bathroom and that's that... I could go on and on guys, seriously.

All of this and more are littered throughout The Happening, but how it's portrayed by Shaymalan and the actors makes it all funny. Like really funny. And that's another thing a lot of bad horror movies have in common with The Happening: Some of them have an interesting concept to them, but their executions are horrible and people either hate them because they're boring or how not scary they are or how filled they are with fake jump scares or they laugh at how terribly executed they are. This is why The Happening, despite being a terrible movie, is still watched today, because while it does try to be serious it's also clearly over the top ridiculous and it's not trying to hide that. Let me give you an example from the film: Wahlberg's character is with the daughter of his math-loving friend and out of nowhere this woman tell them to look at this video she got and it shows this man happily letting two lions rip off his arms. In real that would be very disturbing and horrifying to watch. But the film makes it almost a comedic scene.

You see what I'm talking about now? So many bad horror films are continually ripping off better films and trying to be super serious and scary or have an interesting idea with terrible execution. The Happening though doesn't really care and while it is trying to make the characters in the film scared it's also so overdone that it's hilarious. I mean come on, there's a scene where the wind is blowing this suicide toxin about and the main characters are trying to run away from the wind. How can you not roll our eyes and burst into laughter at that?! Plus, with Shaymalan having actually made genuinely scary stuff in the past, including a few moments that implemented plants, this could only mean he and the people involved in the film were only half-assing it (which is entirely possible) or that it was intentional that everything about this film is so hokey. In fact in interviews Mark Wahlberg has stated how much the film doesn't make sense and how much he hates it, so most likely the film was made as a joke.

If I want to genuinely serious though, the film also does have an obvious message to it: Be respectful of nature. As I've said some plants have evolved to fend off humans and other animals and the idea of them evolving further to produce some sort of chemical that can wipe out a lot of people is entirely possible. I mean right now a simple animal, whether it's a bat or a pangolin, is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths over the past couple of months. If that's possible, maybe plants can evolve as well. Also, we're losing and more nature every day because of the carelessness of humanity and one day, maybe in the near future, we might lose it all and as we begin to die off people will think, "I should have recycled more or planted some trees every now and then." But by then it'll be far too late.

So is The Happening secretly a masterpiece? Ummmm... nah. It's so unintentionally (or possibly intentionally) funny and is so ridiculous that you can't really take it seriously. If you want to watch The Happening and laugh at how terrible it is, go ahead. You'll have the time of your life. However, don't hate it because it's bad because it might have been designed to be terrible to poke fun at all those people who treat the horror as some sort of quick and easy cash grab. Shaymalan's previous work shows he can create great films and through the marketing it is hinted that he was just making a silly B-movie. As much as I would love to give this film a ten out of ten, I'm rating this film on good it is. Even though I just love to watch it, it's just not that well done.

Tentative Score: 2/10

Definitive Score: 2/10

Still, I do recommend it because it's just so damn funny. Making this review I was thinking I was going to end up making a long-ass sh!t post, but I feel really happy with what I've talked about. Some bad films can have something meaningful to them. Also the fact that Shaymalan continually makes films even after his failures, sometime even dipping into his own savings to create his work, is something to just admire about the guy. He really wants to make genuine entertainment for people and you got to respect him for that.