2018, the year America was finally dumb enough to make a The Happening remake a craze

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2019)

Ok i have to say first that I came across Birdbox on Netflix unexpectedly (Like most Netflix releases) and days before the first I had heard of it starting a craze across social media (a big reason I gave up social media years ago, too many loud stupid voices dominating the popular opinion) and immediately put it on thinking it had a chance to impress me as Netflix releases usually fail to bring much substance. But then then it started and after 5 painful minutes of what I viscerally felt as the death rattle of many former successful acting careers (Malkovich, what the hell?) I got the jist, like I had already seen this movie, i had, its called the Happening, so I turned Birdbox off. I didn't give it another thought until my wife asked what the deal with this Birdbox thing everyone was freaking out about on Facebook etc. and I told her it was a new Netflix movie and asked what the freak out was about and she said people were talking about it being the scariest film of all time. I want to say I was shocked or disgusted but honestly it makes sense that so many Americans in this 2018-2019 society that marches day by day closer to full blown Idiocraxy, not metaphorically but like life imitating art. People realize Mike Judge was critiquing societal trends towards shallow vapidity and not cheering for the mental retardation of a population right? Making a poor ripoff of an all time disaster of a film that nearly ended the one time genius directors career, literally, no one would give him money anymore because it was like investing in toxic waste. But Birdbox makes the Happening seem like a benchmark worth striving for, it at least had an interesting premise, however poorly executed. Birdbox replaces that premise with an unexplained demonic force rising up and causing anyone who looks upon it to commit suicide, but inexplicably cannot appear indoors, but is able to get you through cctv feed, and instead of just coming inside to knock off the rest of humanity (and tie up faulty plot holes I.e. 'what about the blind') the demon/s allow the criminally insane to look upon them without being suicided which turns them into a possessed zombie people? Which is definitely as bad as it sounds and insults the intelligence of those with any shred of self respect left. So yea I ended up going back and watching it all the way just to make sure popular opinion hadn't suddenly proven me wrong and no it wasn't the best thing I've ever seen but it wasn't the worst either. My cutting words are simply directed towards popular opinion that has repeated millions of times how great something so clearly mediocre was. I actually found it sweet at times. But unoriginal and lazy it was most of all. It only succeeded in making me want to suicide myself for being the darling to so many lovers of average. I mean Sandra Bullock was playing an expecting mother and was clearly at least 50 years old. Yea I said it.