The Happening: Nearly Totally Gory

So you've seen The Village and go "meh", and then you saw "Lady in the Water" and you thought, "Such a pity, after Signs this guy has completely lost his ability to horrorize". HAH! So why should you give him another chance, right?

I decided to give The Happening a chance. The film is set to be "A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity". The posters give hints on what possibly seemed like mysterious mass death. One even has "Don't look for the answer, it's already too late" tag on it. Filled with caution, I entered the auditorium, bearing a tremendous sense that I'd be disappointed and went "Peh" after the 90 minutes of the film.

Well I didn't. And my date wasn't disappointed either.

The story follows Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), a high school science teacher, his cute but morose wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), their friend Julian the math teacher (John Leguizamo), and Julian's daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez).

The film opens with something really freaky happening in New York City. Terorist attack, they say. Panic spreads all the way to Philadelphia, Elliot and the gang decided to fled the city to somewhere they thought to be safe. Terorist attacks won't happened in smaller insignificant cities... Well, since this is a paranoid thriller, guess what, nowhere is safe.

Soon enough after our heroes left Philly, what happened in New York also happened in Philadelphia. People are dropping dead like flies after a Baygon frenzy. And sure enough, the happening starting to spread to smaller insignificant cities. The characters in the film are smart enough. Ok, avoid smaller cities then, keep on the road with the happening pressing behind them. But the happening is much more persistent then they thought. It haunts their track and closes down any chance of escape.

As there are no adequate explanation on the event of the happening, it frustrates Elliott, and the audience. They kept running and running avoiding this happening, and the audience might find themselves also running... out of patience.

If you're expecting a glorious ending, don't. Shyamalan is not known for making a glorious ending or making heroes out of his character. There's always a twist. And in this film the twist starts from the very beginning up to the very end.

Some might find themselves resenting this film, but Shyamalan didn't give empty promises. he delivers the film and really did what he set out to do. In that aspect, this film rocks!

1. Music Score, Ost and SFX: AWESOME! You will really hate it when you started to hear the scream and the wind blowing. Think of how you hate Anton Chigurrh in No Man's Land. The fact that you can't personified the object of this hatred, you'll just simply freaked out.

2. Actors: Outstanding. You'd feel like drinking some exquisite broil of herbs. Every actor are handpicked down the last unnoticeable guy in the background who dropped dead... nah am kidding. But it's an array of good actors playing.

a. Mark Wahlberg is apparently a good actor. Elliott Moore is a difficult one to play, he's a regular guy with a lot of tendency of being a loser, but nonetheless, he's the main character in this film so in a sense he's the hero. A hero that's not heroic. I'd love to see Will Smith trying to beat this one in Hancock. Trivia: Check The Sixth Sense and note the guy who shot Malcolm Crowe. Hotness in the gene there.

b. Zooey Deschanel usually plays a lovable character and in this film, she pulls it off as Alma Moore. You'll hate her, and then you'll think she's cute, and then you have another second thought about three or five times. All of these reaction from you in just 90 minutes span. Rachel Bilson should learn from Zooey Deschanel.

c. John Leguizamo. I still can't figure out why he shines so bright in his every supporting actor role, and suck sooooo deeep if put in the main role. This film is no exception. People should give this guy an Oscar already, PLEASE!

d. Betty Buckley: The woman in the last 30 minutes of the film. See her. Admire her. Incredible facial expression. Depth. IMDb her. I did. I feel so bad for not knowing who she was.
***spoiler****

e. Careful.... it's M. Night Shyamalan himself as Joey. He's just got to be in his own film somehow. Hahah.

3. Story Plot: It's said on the poster. "Don't look for the answer, it's already too late". You won't get answers here. You just bear The Happening from start to end and starting to feel sheepish whenever the wind blows. Feeling lack of conclusions? You won't get any, it's meant to inject that dose of paranoia in you.

4. Editing and Directing: Cool. Shyamalan wrote and direct this film. Pretty Gory too.
There... I can not suggest anything but for you to watch this film on your own risk.
As for the rating, fFive stars from me because I don't usually like horror flick in whatsoever form.

Thank you , Readers.