Just Expect The Unexpected

Rating: 6/10 (28 June 2008)

I just finished watching this movie and I have very mixed feelings about it, which is not unusual when one comes in direct contact with M. Night Shyamalan's vivid and ever so subtly terrifying imagination. For it is exactly the unusually subtle nature of the fear he invokes that makes his works so remarkable.
If you are looking for blood, gore and spilled guts, do not watch "The Happening". This movie's strength is in exploring the kind of horror most of us can relate to: treating our direct environment (let that be people or any other living organisms) with neglect and then facing the unpleasant consequences. We get a sense of havoc, but the story revolves on the fragile state of the human psyche in terms of dealing with a sudden shock.
I suppose I liked "The Happening" more than I disliked it. It is so refreshing to see something unexpected in a genre that lately has presented such monotone plots. It also allowed me to reflect on the possibility of an impending doomsday with a little more objectivity.
As for what I personally did not enjoy so much was that the movie seems to progress at a slow, comfortable pace - up until about the last ten minutes, during which events sped up so rapidly that I was scared to blink in case I might miss something. I am not so content with the ending, which keeps me from highly praising this movie.
This is one of those love-it-or-hate-it flicks. I happen to love it more than I hate it.