It’s been almost ten years since writer/director M. Night Shyamalan unleashed The Sixth Sense on us all, a cinematic phenomenon both in its genius plot twist and how it has affected modern day films. Whenever the word "twist" gets mentioned in relation to movies most people will immediately think of that film. He followed that with the sombre and very effective Unbreakable, which in my opinion is his finest work, and then the underrated Signs. The Village was one of the worst excuses for a horror film I had seen in years when it came out, with the twist being particularly laughable, and I dodged his reportedly putrid Lady in the Water for obvious reasons.
After two serious bumps in the road, Shyamalan has come back with The Happening. And I am sad to inform that despite some genuinely creepy moments, it's a failed exercise for the most part, a case of the creator having a great initial idea and not having a clue where to go with it. Without giving too much away, The Happening revolves around a family on the run from a large-scale threat to humanity. Most of the point of the film is knowing as little as possible going in.
The initial idea of The Happening, the selling point if you will, is that one day, for seemingly no reason, people just drop dead. We learn throughout the early sections of the movie that they actually kill themselves and the people who haven’t yet done so believe that it’s the work of terrorists. But as the movie goes on, stranger things keep happening and the likelihood that it's terrorists who are behind it becomes “less and less likely.” The initial novelty of the idea only lasts so long, let's say till about half-way through, and then it becomes kind of boring. There’s only so much of seeing the at-first shocking act of someone committing suicide before it gets a bit repetitious.
In those aforementioned scenes, particularly in the first stages of the film, of seeing people commit suicide it is occasionally very creepy indeed. Most of the film has this nerving, upbeat theme accompanied with ominous tones that effectively save the film from being a bad one. There are moments which allow the true talent of Shyamalan to shine through, echoes of the creepier moments in Signs for example, but unfortunately those are few and far between.
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