This could have been good, I think.

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2008)

I am probably of the small minority who thought that M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" was a so-so, highly predictable film and that "Signs" was a thriller at his dark comedic best. "The Village "didn't bother me so much and his other films, well, I just can't say anything about them others haven't already said. So here comes "The Happening" and I've gotta tell ya, the ball really, really dropped on this one. It could have been one of his better films.
Who's to blame? Well... ya never know. When I can see that a story and plot is on its way somewhere and then goes South, its so easy to blame the writer, producer and director (in this case, M. Night Shyamalan for all.) But nowadays, I give just as equal blame to the studio (financier), test audiences and distributor as well.
The first 1/2 hour to 40 minutes was a little dark even for M. Night Shyamalan but I enjoyed watching this side unravel. I loved the mystery - What was going on? What was it? Then I began to notice the things that bugged me. One thing I would not have done was leave the classroom background and try to get into the "family life" of a few of these folks. It didn't work. I though sticking with the young adults would have been more interesting.
But the biggest thing that bothered me was finding out what the problem was. I was incredibly let down. Not because I didn't believe that problem wasn't a possibility... it is. But because of the dark way M. Night Shyamalan laid it out in the beginning, he wimped out in showing the audience "what it was". Ruined the film for me.
I agree with my friends who had also seen the film that it needed to stay with its dark & violent tone. But if so, therein poses a problem for M. Night Shyamalan. How to make what is happening go from supernatural to...well..horrific scary. And if he could, how not to make it look so silly and get the point across. Here's where he should have gone back to "Signs" for a possible answer. That point may also lie with Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" of a formula of which I also thought could have help him out of the supernatural/horrific problem of something we never considered a threat before.
I pondered the almost silly suggestion of one of my friends who thought he should go "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" forest kinda thing, while another one of my friends added, "Well at least he could have a rogue philodendron the little girl brought home earlier that gave clues as to what was to come, or some ivy crawled up the side of the house and then you see folks dead." I laughed at that, but there is a point.
The film isn't horrible, it just doesn't hit the mark intended. You may be left thinking there is more that could be done to get the point across since it began so "not" of the M. Night Shyamalan formula. But I can also see the challenges in making "what it is"...believable and memorable to an audience. Me...? Well, I would have went with the mysterious crawling ivy.