Leaves a mark.

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2008)

This movie has made quite an impression on me - although I might think twice about watching it again.
I've seen films of the apocalyptic nature before; nothing has hounded me more than this happening did. The night I watched it, I went to sleep with the suicide scenes still running in my head...girl piercing her own neck with a hair accessory, construction workers' calmly stepping off of the edge of a building, bodies hanging from trees in a quiet neighborhood (gets my vote for Most Chilling), John Smith getting himself mowed. I don't think most of those acts can even be conceived by the normal suicidal person. I wonder how the infants killed themselves.
It was around 4:30am when I woke up and couldn't go back to bed. So Mark Wahlberg, Alma, and the little girl didn't get infected because they shut themselves inside a room, blocking anything that the wind can pass through; that college kid calling mom's cellphone didn't lose human logic before she opened the window. For people inside buildings, I'm assuming that the way the ventilation for air conditioned facilities' work let the toxins in. Oh, think of the materials one can use in the corporate world! The mere idea makes me shudder.
The fact that it has hounded me longer than your typical The-End-of-the-World-is-Just-Around-the-Corner movie and forced my mind to explore places I would rather not go to tell me that there's something about The Happening that was actually done right - if not masterfully so.