M. Night Shyamalan's less ambitious movie

Rating: Null/10 (12 June 2008)

While none of M. Night Shyamalan's subsequent movies has attained the status of "6th sense" (and some will say not even close to it), they are still shrouded in a certain sense of mystery. To be considerate to people who have not yet seen "The happening", the less said the better.
Having said that, a brief recap of the premise does no harm because this is just things you have seen in the trailer and they are all disclosed in the first 20 minutes of the movie. The plot is remarkably simple. Purportedly, certain toxic substance released by plants has the effect of making people insane (to save a complicated medical description), starting with walking backwards, mumbling gibberish and ending in suicide, often in a most gruesome manner. The attacks start in the northeastern areas of the US, spreading from densely populated areas (e.g. New York), working their way to progressively less populated locales. The protagonists are running away from it.
Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) is a relatively young couple with some marital problems. In this Exodus, they are left with the charge of a little girl whose father, Elliot's colleague, has to look for his wife who happens to be out-of-town as the "attack" happens. Most of the movie is not unlike a road movie following the strange (and often scary) encounters of the couple and the little girl.
That is about all I am going to say about the movies. One consistent element of Shyamalan's suspense thrillers, notwithstanding the focus being naturally drawn to the clever (and some not so clever) twists, is the depiction of human relations (particularly within a family)  mother and son in "6th sense", father and son in "The sign", and quite a few of them in "The village". There is also a consistently warm, positive outlook that even though there may be problems, the goodness of human nature prevails. "The happenings" is no exception.
But most people will go to see the movie for the scare. Many of the gore come from people killing themselves. Shyamalan has never been one to splash the screen with gruesomeness. Although you'll see blood, literally, they are child play compared with most of the horror movies in the market. And he makes efforts to shield the audience from the worst  for example, the scene of a victim throwing himself at a pack of lions in the zoo and having his arm torn off is seen on the screen a cell phone, with the distance making it less revolting than otherwise. On the whole, he employs here less "scare tactics" (e.g. sudden loud noises) than you see in many other movies, or even his own previous movies. This movie is also sprinkled quite often with comical or humorous situations and one-liners.
It seems that Shyamalan likes to team up big-name male actors with relatively less known but talented) female actors. That seems to be the case if you consider "6th sense", "The sign", "Te village" and "Lady from the sea". In this one, Wahlberg needs no introduction. Zooey Deschanel I noticed and liked when I watched "Bridge to Terabithia" where she plays a guitar-playing school teacher. I like the performance of both in "The happening".
I have said a little as I can. I don't agree with the comments that stoop to gross exaggerations to get noticed. I enjoyed this movie. It is not as ambitious as Shyamalan's previous movies but basically does what it intends to do.