The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan is back with another creepy feature for our viewing pleasure. The Happening (starring Mark Whalberg and Zooey Deschanel) is Shyamalan's first R-rated feature which set this writer's horror-heart all a-twitter. Let's face it, The Sixth Sense, at only a PG-13 rating was pretty swell nightmare-fodder, what can the man give us with an R-rating?

The Happening was, at best, strange. At worst, not what I had hoped it would be. Perhaps, had it not come out of the pen of a writer who has earned such high expectations from me, I may have not been so critical but as it was the movie was odd. Basically, we learn in the first five minutes, as is Shyamalan's no-nonsense, get-down-to-business style, something is making people sign into the banana factory quick, fast and in a hurry. Two young ladies sit on a bench in Central Park, discussing a book, when suddenly Claire (the other girl was never properly given a title) starts behaving, well, strangely. Repeating herself, forgetting where she was in the book. A woman, somewhere off screen, screams, and Claire removes a chopstick from her hair and, just as calmly as if she were tying her shoelace, drives it through her carotid artery.

And things only get worse for the people of the American Northeast.

What disappointed me most about this film was not what was happening *ahem* but the rationing of script time. A significant amount of screen time was given to the various methods of suicide people elected and there was definitely a great deal of discussion about the science and mechanics of what was *ahem* happening but scientific and mechanical dialog do not horror film make. The happening of The Happening was not given sufficient attention to make me worry about it. I believed, when it was all over, that it could happen, scientifically speaking.

Perhaps the problem was not that there was insufficient attention given. Perhaps all the science and mumbo-jumbo sterilized it. Whatever the case, I say, wait until it comes out on video and rent it. I suggest spending your $15 after popcorn and a beverage on something worth of the 20 foot screen and super-dooper sound system. The Hulk or Hancock, perhaps. But if you are a Shyamalan fan, it is worth the rental fee.