M. Night Shyamalan is a name that comes with a lot of
baggage. He shot to stardom on the
success of The Sixth Sense. People loved the movie. He followed it up with Unbreakable and Signs,
both movies that people enjoyed. His
career took a downward slide after that.
Something about his filmmaking produced movies that have been negatively
received. Either his talent faded or he
was given more creative freedom which weakened the overall product.
One movie from this downward slide was The Happening. The 2008
horror movie played more like a dark comedy than anything scary. It was about a science teacher named Elliot
(Mark Wahlberg) trying to help his estranged wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his
friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian’s daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez)
escape an attack that caused people to commit suicide. They travelled across Pennsylvania looking
for safety.
The thing about The
Happening is that, although a terrible movie, it is still highly enjoyable
for the weird choices that M. Night Shyamalan made. There are moments that shouldn’t be in any
movie that managed to find a place in this one.
They could be things that add to the runtime without adding a single
thing to the storyline (I can think of a few), or it could be something
completely ridiculous that seems like it should be in a comedy (there are many). The
Happening presents everything so seriously that it’s hard to imagine these
are legitimate jokes. These moments will
make up this post.
The following are moments that were included in the
movie. If you haven’t seen The Happening, you might think that I’m
joking when I bring up these points. I’m
not joking. As unbelievable as these
are, they exist. Sit back and enjoy what
these moments are. I’ll be as astonished
as you that these were included.
The Classroom Scene
The story of Elliot began in as he taught his science class
about the disappearance of bees. He pointed
out his looks of one student to get the kid to answer a question. It wasn’t a particularly bad teaching
style. He made it so that the kids would
be on his level rather than droning on about the lesson. He was your basic movie or television
teacher; the one inserted to be what we all want out of the people that teach
us the world basics. That part was a
good decision, aside from maybe picking on the guy for his looks.
What stood out was a moment at the end of the scene that
felt unnecessary. The lesson helped to
establish Elliot as a character, as well as Mark Wahlberg in the role. When the students were leaving, Elliot called
out to them. “Hey guys,” he said in the
patented Mark Wahlberg nice guy light voice.
A few of the students turned around in the doorway to look in his
direction. He looked back for a few
seconds before shaking his head slightly and continuing, “Nevermind.”
Why was this in the movie?
The entire interaction took about ten seconds. Maybe less than that. It was completely unnecessary. The interaction did not build character in
any way whatsoever. Elliot never dwelled
on what happened to his students. He
never even thought about the moment again.
None of the students came back later in the movie. It was a moment of uselessness that added ten
seconds to a movie that did not need it.
Alan Ruck
While at school, the teachers met up to discuss what might
be going on. The main speaker was none
other than Alan Ruck, the best friend from Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off. This was the only
scene in the movie in which he appeared.
It was not an important role. There
were bigger roles with unrecognizable actors.
I’m not sure why Alan Ruck played this character. It did nothing for his career. There couldn’t have been a reason for him to
want to pop up in an M. Night Shyamalan movie for about a minute and a half. He wasn’t in any of Shyamalan’s previous
movies. If he wanted to work with
Shyamalan, I’m sure he could have gotten a bigger role. It just seemed like this was the wrong role
for him. I’m not sure how or why this
happened.
Hot Dogs
One of the more infamous scenes in The Happening is the greenhouse scene. After fleeing Philadelphia and being stranded
in a small town called Filbert, Elliot and his group were looking for a safe
way to continue their journey. They come
upon a friendly couple who had space in their vehicle. The couple wanted to stop off at their home
first to grab a few provisions before heading off into the unknown. The group (sans Julian, who joins another
group to find his wife) went to this couple’s home.
At the home there was a greenhouse. The wife went into the house to grab some food
and stuff while the husband took Elliot, Alma, and Jess into the
greenhouse. He explained the whole plot
of the movie in this scene. He told the
group about plants and the defense mechanisms that they use to get rid of
predators. He also said that being
friendly with plants will make them friendlier to you. This is all because plants are living,
breathing organisms. Just like animals.
The plant conversation wasn’t the strangest thing that
happened in this scene. There was
another, quicker conversation that took place.
The man looked at Elliot and Alma and asked if they liked hot dogs. You see, the food that his wife went into the
house to get was hot dogs. Elliot and
Alma didn’t seem too excited about the prospect of eating lots of hot
dogs. That didn’t deter the man. He went on about hot dogs and how great they
are. They have a cool shape and they
have protein. He likes to have mustard
on his hot dogs. It’s a scene of
important dialogue (the plot) surrounded by something insane and completely
irrelevant (hot dogs).
Math
Julian and Elliot were best friends. They wanted to travel together to escape the
suicide epidemic in Philadelphia. They
worked at the same school. Elliot was
the science teacher and Julian was the math teacher. Though Elliot didn’t use his science
expertise too often in The Happening,
Julian was always trying to turn everything into math. That was how he connected with people. He used his knowledge of mathematics to
soothe them in troubling times.
The soothing came to the foreground when Julian met his
end. As he travelled to Princeton with a
group of strangers to find his wife, they discovered that the town was filled
with dead people. The travellers began
to freak out and Julian used math to calm them.
He asked how much money they would have after a month if they started
with a penny on the first day and doubled their money each day. It made everyone stop acting like lunatics as
they headed off into their deaths, where they would act like suicidal lunatics.
His final moments of speaking were spent
sharing math riddles with people he barely knew. That is how much the character loved math.
The Houseplant
Back in the greenhouse scene, the owner was telling Elliot,
Alma, and Jess about talking to plants.
This information would come back later in the movie. When Elliot and his group of survivors
entered a residential area, they took refuge in one of the abandoned
homes. They looked for food or anything
to do while they rested. Elliot took a
moment to test out the theory that the greenhouse owner had told him. He found a houseplant and began talking to
it. He was comforting and friendly. Then he felt it and discovered that it was a
plastic plant.
This moment brought up the strange tonal struggle that The Happening had. The movie was played serious and straight but
had these moments of misplaced humour that made it seem as though there was an
attempt at comedy. It never felt like
real comedy because the movie was soaked in seriousness. The movie was played completely straight, as
though the funny things that happened weren’t funny. It had comedic beats without a sense of
comedy.
The Singing
There was a moment in The Happening where the characters
approached a seemingly uninhabited house in search of food. It didn’t take long to discover that there were
people in the house and that they were not friendly. Elliot attempted to earn their friendship and
trust by singing a bit of a song. The song
was Black Water by The Doobie Brothers.
This was one of the worst renditions of the song ever put to audio. It was reminiscent of Mark Wahlberg’s bad
singing in Boogie Nights, though it
was played completely straight in this instance.
The Old Woman at Night
Near the end of the movie, Elliot, Alma, and Jess were taken
in by an older woman in an isolated home.
The woman had no idea what was going on in the outside world. She was friendly at first to the group of
travellers, but there was an underlying darkness to her. At one point, she slapped Jess’s hand when
Jess was taking food at the dinner table.
It was a signal for what would come with the character.
She let the three strangers stay in her guest bedroom. That’s a better place for them than in her
own bedroom. When Elliot peeked out of
the door during the night, the old woman accused him of wanting to steal her
things. He said he wasn’t going to steal
anything. Then she accused him of
wanting to murder her in her sleep. A
normal person would respond along the lines of “What the hell are you talking
about?” That was not how Elliot reacted. He instead replied with “What? No…”
It sounded more suspicious than calming.
It made it seem like Elliot was
planning on murdering her. I can’t
imagine anyone having that response in that scenario. Why would Elliot be written to act like that?
The Cheating Storyline
One of the best decisions that was made was to include a
storyline in which Alma was cheating on Elliot.
It added a much needed depth to the characters and put an emotional
storyline into the movie. The problem is
that it never felt real. It felt like a
manufactured storyline meant to tug at people’s emotions. It never succeeded. In fact, it only added to the unintentional
comedy.
The most notable part was the way in which Elliot forgave
Alma. Through the beginning portions of
the movie, Alma’s phone was shown with a call coming in. That call was from another man. Elliot eventually noticed and asked who that
was. When he found out, he made up a
story about going into a pharmacy and getting a bottle of medicine simply
because the woman behind the counter was pretty. When the story was being told, it seemed as
though Elliot was trying to make Alma jealous.
When she asked him if that really happened, though, he shook his head
with a look of “I’m just kidding.” She
thanked him and the storyline was done.
Intensity of Deaths
The Happening was
too serious for its own good without actually being scary. That was especially present in the deaths. Some of the deaths managed to capture the
tone that the movie was going for. Most
of them, however, were too overdone and intense. It created this weird tone that permeated
through the entire movie.
Here are a few examples of the deaths depicted. One of the opening deaths involved a bunch of
construction workers walking off the top level of whatever they were working
on. On paper, this sounds like a great
idea. It sounds like a scary cinematic image. That didn’t come across in the execution. The same could be said for the man who let
lions rip him apart. The one death that
worked, though it still felt out of place, was one in which a man let a riding
lawnmower run him over. That was
visually frightening. It might be the
only visually frightening image in The
Happening.
Mood Ring
One item that Elliot always had with him was a mood
ring. It meant a lot to him. The mood ring was how he met Alma and started
the relationship that he never gave up on.
He used the mood ring to relate to most of the characters that he met. It’s how he bonded with Jess. It was how he brought Josh (Spencer Breslin)
and Jared (Robert Bailey Jr.) into his group.
The mood ring was a constant reminder of his love for Alma and the thing
that kept him hopeful that they would get back together.
That about sums up The
Happening. The movie combined all of
these ludicrous elements and came out as a strange entity. It was bad.
There is no doubt about that. The
thing is, if you’re not taking the movie seriously, it can be highly
enjoyable. There is a lot of
entertainment to be mined out of what M. Night Shyamalan put together. It’s one of those movies that manages to
transcend what a bad movie typically is.
It goes to another level. Few
movies match the insanity presented in the hour and a half runtime. As much as I’ve spent this post talking about
the weird things that this movie had, I still love it. I have a great time whenever I watch The Happening. It’s one of my favourite bad movies. You should check it out.
You should also check out these notes:
- A few posts that are similar to this one are the posts for Robo Vampire, Gnome Alone, and Batman & Robin.
- Have you seen The Happening? What do you think about it? Is it entertainingly bad or just plain bad? Use the comments below to let me know your thoughts.
- The comments are also a good place to let me know about any movies that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. If not there, let me know on Twitter. I’m always looking for more movies to watch.
- You can follow me on snapchat as well. I have the username jurassicgriffin, and my stories usually include clips of whatever bad movie I’m watching. So check that out.
- Next week’s movie is going to be Mom and Dad Save the World, which is basically Idiocracy if it was written by the characters from Idiocracy. Come back next week as I put up a post for it. See you then.
