M. Night Shyamalan, the name itself carries with it certain style and expectations from the audience. It’s both a success and a curse, and sometimes his movies are highly misunderstood. But for this one, I left the cinema literally speechless for once.

The Happening is M. Night’s first R rated, and his most gory, film to date by using a mass suicide plot. The scenes are disturbing, no doubt – a move that could very easily be seen as a gimmick. And at this point in time, for him, it’s a fine line between desperation and brilliance in this move. But if it was indeed a brilliant move on his part, than the movie would have come out better as a result of a brilliant move. Instead, that feeling of a good movie, much less a great one, just wasn’t there.

And the fact that there wasn’t a “conclusive ending” to the story didn’t help his case at all. Usually his twists are what tie the whole movie together nicely in the end be it a revelation or just a mere explanation. This time, to explain the mystery behind the mass suicide, it came from a random doctor giving, only, his opinion in light of the event.

I wanted the Mark Wahlberg to discover something. I wanted him to explain to the audience what just happened, not find out from a guy on the TV! I wanted something to tie everything up in the end that makes sense and make me go, “Oh, I see… I get it now.”

And because I was expecting all those things to happen, I was disappointed. But was that my fault to expect a similar style from Night? Was that Night’s fault for going in a different direction? I honestly don’t know.

One thing I know was how bad some of the cast were. The strongest performance was John Leguizamo. Zooey Deschanel was the weakest link. Ashlyn Sanchez wasn’t impressive and probably hurt the movie more than helped (Dakota Fanning would have been brilliant in this setting). And I was sorely disappointed with Mark Wahlberg’s performance as I thought this was one of his worst.

There was a scene with Deschanel and some other travellers asking Wahlberg what they should do in a close-up shot. Then suddenly the shot changed to Deschanel walking away but looking back at Wahlberg first. Her expressionless face was confusing as hell because I didn’t know what that shot was going to convey. This should have been edited more properly and there’s only Night to blame for overlooking this detail.

Also, to fault Night, some of the dialogues were really random. Especially when Wahlberg was trying to have his “revenge rant” on Deschanel. And progression wise, one big, big flaw was when the train stopped and forced everyone off to the platform, only Wahlberg bothered to pester the conductors. That was really, really bad on Night’s part as it was too unrealistic that I must point it out.

Another random event was how the two teenagers were kicking and screaming at the people inside a house. Maybe it can be explained from being a moment of crisis but that really felt random to me. I would have done it differently for that scene.

The final scenes in the hut just weren’t good enough. It was far too simple and didn’t carry too much weight as a conclusion to the suspense.

As for the good, it had suspense, thrills, scares, gore; his unique storytelling and trademark directions were present, and there’s this feeling of the old scary movies like Alfred Hitchcock’s (I only know of Hitchcock) – an updated version of a retro horror movie. But these qualities were not enough to save Night from his worst movie ever made.

I think it’ll take a second viewing for a fairer judgement as my expectation of the movie was wrong since I never received the “no twist” memo. But as for now, it was neither here nor there.

Rating: 5 / 10

(all images from imdb.com)