The Happening

2008 "We've sensed it. We've seen the signs. Now...it's happening."
5| 1h31m| R| en| More Info
Released: 13 June 2008 Released
Producted By: 20th Century Fox
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.thehappeningmovie.com
Synopsis

When a deadly airborne virus threatens to wipe out the northeastern United States, teacher Elliott Moore and his wife Alma flee from contaminated cities into the countryside in a fight to discover the truth. Is it terrorism, the accidental release of some toxic military bio weapon -- or something even more sinister?

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Reviews

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Alanjackd Read a lot of reviews on this so watched it to see how it squared up.The first thing I noticed is that as it appears is EXACTLY how it was conceived. By that I meant it was made and acted to be a 50s or 60s B movie....and they pulled it off brilliantly.has a marvelous Twilight Zone feel to it and hams up the genre superbly.If you think about it , it's ;like playing a piano badly..( Look up Les Dawson on you tube)...you have to be well trained in how to make the notes sound just bad enough for you to recognise. I think all the negative reviewers have missed the point entirely and have had the wool pulled well and truly over their eyes. When they realise this they will feel fools.Imagine The Day Of The Triffids meets Creepshow...this is what you get.To all the amateur reviewers and movie watchers I say this.." Open your eyes "!!
danigras This is the movie with the best idea, but the worst directing and script ever. Mark Wahlberg is a fiasco, as Zoe (and I don't want to say this like them both) but unfortunately both are terrible in this movie. Why did you allowed this to happen? As for the director... You need to be more humble, it's obvious that your ideas are good, but they come across pretentious and fake. Get better.
hughman55 Warning! Warning! Film turd ahead! Wow, you just can't imagine anything this bad coming from the guy who directed "The Sixth Sense". IMDb only allows 1000 words for a review. I'm going to try to keep this under 50. You have to start with the moronic script; and then end there. I haven't heard dialogue this cringe worthy since, well, ever in my life. Betty Buckley as Mrs. Jones... smashing her bloody face through a window, twice... no words. The only thing that kept me watching this giant pant load was the fast forward button and enough curiosity about whether or not it could continue to worsen. It did.
ferbs54 Following the inanity of the borderline train wreck that was 2006's "Lady in the Water," writer/producer/director M. Night Shyamalan rebounded in a very big way with his next film, 2008's "The Happening." His contribution to the type of eco-horror film that was all the rage in the 1960s and '70s--I'm thinking of such films as 1963's "The Birds," 1972's "Frogs," 1977's "Kingdom of the Spiders" and 1978's "Swarm"...not to mention the little-seen 1976 Spanish classic "Who Can Kill a Child?"--the film seems to have divided his fan base and resulted in a bona fide critical flop of sorts. Indeed, the woman who I sit next to at work, a big admirer of film auteur Shyamalan, hated the film, although she professes a love for "Lady in the Water," a picture that I found to be both ridiculous and downright stupid. Go figure. THIS is why there is both vanilla AND chocolate out there, folks!In the film in question, what is at first perceived to be a bioterrorist attack occurs in NYC's Central Park, where droves of people are compelled to commit suicide in horrendous fashions. We then zoom in on Philadelphia schoolteacher Elliot Moore (very well played by the hugely likable Mark Wahlberg), who, along with his wife Alma (the pretty and kooky Zooey Deschanel), best friend and fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his adorable daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), leaves the city by train after a similar attack occurs in their vicinity. Eventually, Julian strikes off on his own to search for his wife in Princeton, NJ, leaving his daughter in charge of the Moores, while it soon becomes apparent that this is NOT an instance of bioterror that has been afflicting the entire Northeast after all, but rather, a bizarre case of nature gone amok. The very trees are emitting a chemical--perhaps in an instance of self-defense--that has started to compel humans to do themselves in! (This action does not strike me at this particular moment as being all that far-fetched, afflicted as I am today with allergy symptoms brought on by tree pollen!) The Moores and Jess head into the wilds of the Pennsylvania countryside to escape the widespread violence, only to fetch up at the home of an isolated woman, one Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley)...a demented biddy who, in retrospect, strikes the viewer as a warm-up for the demented oldsters in Shyamalan's 2015 film "The Visit." But even this isolated locale does not seem to be a safe haven against the arboreal threat that has suddenly arisen....Amazingly, "The Happening" was nominated for no less than four Golden Raspberry Awards--for Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Wahlberg), Worst Director and Worst Screenplay. In "Empire" magazine's list of the 50 Worst Films of All Time, the film came in at the #8 spot! Are these people kidding?!?! Have they never seen such films as "Blood Freak," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "The Astro-Zombies," "Horror of the Blood Monsters," "The Beast of Yucca Flats" and "The Worm Eaters"? THESE are truly horrendous and ineptly made pictures, worthy of anybody's contempt. But "The Happening"? Really? This film is expertly made and well acted by its cast of appealing players. It also looks terrific on the screen, is loaded with any number of suspenseful moments, is laced with pleasing bits of humor (my favorite: Elliot talking in fear to what turns out to be a plastic plant), and is capable of stunning the viewer by dint of a pleasing number of shock moments (such as the sight of one man offering himself up to the giant cats in the Philadelphia zoo, a young woman casually sticking a rather long hairpin into her neck, and the truly awesome spectacle of a half dozen construction workers blithely diving off the top of a building to their doom). The film is nowhere near as bloody as the 2001 Japanese stunner "Suicide Club" (how could it be?) but yet manages to startle and impress, nevertheless. And if the film does not provide one of Shyamalan's patented twist endings, it yet contrives to wind up on a note of not-so-unexpected pessimism. Like the Hitchcock film referenced above, a clear-cut explanation for the bizarre events in the film is never vouchsafed, and we are left to be content with these words of wisdom from the Wahlberg character: "There are forces at work beyond our understanding. To be a good scientist, you must have a respectful awe for the laws of Nature." And perhaps not so coincidentally, "respectful awe" was the feeling that this viewer was left with by the conclusion of this hugely impressive and effective film. Very much recommended....