After a freak incident happens in Central Park where people become disorientated and commit suicide it is thought to be an unspeakable act of terrorism, however soon it becomes clear that terrorists aren’t responsible for the harrowing events that occur early on a Tuesday morning, could what’s responsible be a warning from God?
High School science teacher Elliot (Mark Whalberg) loves his job and has an avid interest in the subject that he teaches, when the Central Park events are released to the teachers they are told to send all the pupils home. When the severity of the incident emerges and this freak incident begins to spread all across America, Elliot is invited by his best friend and fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) to board a train with him and his daughter to meet up with his wife in Princeton. Elliot agrees and with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) the four frightened people board the train. The train stops and after speaking to police they inform Elliot that they’ve lost contact with everyone around them. After the group split up, Elliot and his obnoxious wife Alma are left with Julian’s daughter Jess to find a way out of this living hell… but how?
After seeing the trailers for this film last year it piqued my curiosity and I went to see this, the trailers had made this film out to be an extremely harrowing horror film and even made a conscious point
to release it on Friday 13th. I was expecting this to be a really good film but unfortunately The Happening is far from a classic horror film, there seem to be so many things wrong with this film it’s unimaginable how the film was even released at the cinema instead of going straight to DVD which it should have done in order to save so many people from wasting their money.
M. Night Shyamalan is a respected horror director after masterpieces such as Signs and The Sixth Sense, unfortunately his films seem to be becoming progressively worse and after the diabolical end result of The Happening I shudder to think what torture he has in store for us with his next project.
The film starts promisingly and some of the scenes are surprisingly harrowing, this however is only on the premise that we have no idea what’s happening and this only keeps us interested for the first 30 minutes, after that the film sadly goes downhill at a shockingly fast pace which is the complete opposite to the pace that the film adopts.
The premise of this film was genuinely promising however it does absolutely nothing to keep your curiosity levels up and your boredom levels down. For a film that’s called The Happening, nothing really seems to happen, it’s all based on the opening sequence which reigns you in and makes you want to watch this. The only reason I ended up watching all 90 minutes of this was simply based on the opening sequence and that maybe the film would regain that strength and pace that started instantaneously.
The acting was absolutely diabolical, Mark Whalberg is an established actor so it just goes to show that when you find a genre especially suited to you, you need to milk it for everything it’s got in favour of taking on roles in horror films which are so dreadful it could have a negative affect on his previously shining career. Mark Whalberg plays the softly spoken Elliot, I can’t even begin to tell you how many things are wrong with his character, even down to his name! He has some really awful lines which do nothing for his credibility factor and with recent films like Max Payne which have been panned by critics you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that his career, much like M. Night Shyamalan’s is steadily going downhill only to inevitably crash and burn. Throughout the film you see no trace of emotion from Elliot which makes the film an incredibly irritating watch, I think if this were a real situation you might have a little more emotion on you face, in your voice and of course the things you say. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Mark Whalberg was given a valium seconds before setting foot onto set in preparation for giving his most wooden performance to date!
The role of his wife Alma played by Zooey Deschanel is just as bad if not worse (that’s if it could get any worse). At the beginning of the film we witness a conversation between Elliot and Julian in which Elliot admits that his marriage may be in trouble, this sets the scene for only half of the film. It turns out that Alma had dinner with a co-worker and now feels guilty, it would have been a lot more entertaining for the viewers if she had been having an affair for the last 6 months in contrast with having an innocent meal with a man! She begins the film in a huff with Elliot and it looks as though their marriage is in jeopardy, this is before we discover what she actually did. Then in an almost instant change of heart Alma becomes a completely different person, she decides that she loves her husband and becomes very protective over Jess. There was no middle ground with her character it was almost as if she was a schizophrenic who can change moods within a blink of an eye!
For a relatively short film I think way too much time was spent on the couple’s bickering and making up, there was no chemistry between them at all and everytime they had a ‘moment’ whether that be a disagreement on a lingering look across a table you’d be wishing the film to hurry up and get back with the main story at hand.
The film isn’t scary, there are a few mildly frightening scenes concerning the suicides but I think they saved the shock factor for the beginning in order to reel people in and it’s almost like when they had the audience in their grasp they didn’t care what they subjected them to. Overall the film seems very contrived and not worth the money you pay to see it whatsoever.
What I did like about the film is the way that tension and thrills are created from nowhere, usually in horror films you’ll have a visual scare factor whether that be some sort of creature of a strange looking man, The Happening is quite original in that aspect it’s just a shame that the premise of the film wasn’t put to better use because this film could have been so much better than it was.
This isn’t a film I’d recommend, there are much better horrors out there, the ending was simply too cheesy for belief!
The DVD is available from play.com for £4.99 from play.com. The film has also recently started showing on Sky Movies so I suggest catching it on there if you really are desperate to see it.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Jul 18th, 2009
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