M. Night Shyamalan wants to give you nightmares. The Happening comes pretty close as he plays with the survivor genre in the tradition of Night of the Living Dead. Remember in NOTLD how we begin with a brother and sister in a cemetery complaining about being at the cemetery and the brother laughs saying, "They're coming to get you..." when without any warning a zombie attacks her? Scary beginning.
Shyamalan plays a similar trick on us. Two blonde women sit reading in Central Park. One hears someone scream and she looks up to see a few people walking backward. She turns and a larger group of people have all stopped and slowly a few of them begin walking backward. Her friend appears catatonic, takes a metal needle from her hair and sticks it in her neck. We recognize the genre but the film is definitely going to be an "R" ride.
The first attack is believed to be from terrorists, but as the movie progresses we're given lots to mull over. Bees have begun to disappear. Attacks are first in larger cities, but gradually move to less urban area. Everyone affected has the desire to kill themselves in pretty gruesome ways--running into trees, shooting themselves, throwing themselves off buildings, hanging themselves from trees, allowing mowing machines or wild animals to maul them, slamming heads into glass. And the body count gets pretty massive during the film.
Never do the scientists in the film find an answer to why it happened: Have the plants and trees suddenly become our enemies? Is it a result of global warming somehow? Is it our government attacking us? Whatever caused it (like Hitchcock's bird attacks) happens without warning and can start and stop suddenly.
In order for the survivor gimmick to work, we have care about the people trying to survive. Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo and Betty Buckley all keep our sympathies. As they learn on their journey what is important about relationships and caring, we hoping they'll make it, even though we know not everyone will survive. (For awhile it does look like no one will make it.)
Shyamalan doesn't deviate very much from the standard formula of the survivor film, but that's what we expect. If you don't mind violence and disturbing images, the film is a pretty good ride told by an interesting storyteller.
The Happening (2008) ****
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