Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Happening

If you don't want to know anything about The Happening, then why in the name of God are you reading a review of it? Hop off!
The Happening (Winner of the "Vaguest Movie Title Since 'The Thing'" Award), for those of you who were living in a sensory deprivation chamber throughout the earlier part of the year, is the most recent offering from visionary wank-fart M. Night Shyamalan. Of course it's filled with social points, surprising performances from actors you previously discounted as being completely cardboard and of course the mandatory unnecessarily uncomfortable close ups of frustrated looking people.
That's pretty much par for the course in an M. Night film.

What's different is that this one was rated "R"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!1!!!!one!!!!!! OMG U guyz!

The trailer and pre-release press were very aptly set up in a way to make people watching think "Oh my God, what if the things happening in The Happening really happininged?"!
Such is the way with semi-epic "Oh Gosh, what if something slightly weird, but not too chaotic, happens?" films.

In this film Mark Wahlberg's character (who should have been played by William H. Macy in order to make this film about 523 times less douchey) is a school teacher (See? Why is Wahlberg teaching children things? Truly this is a work of horror beyond compare...) and soon becomes aware that trees are communicating with grass and sunflowers and telling them to send out magical "Take 4 steps backwards then kill yourself" beams to all the humans in the vicinity.

"I can't stop furrowing my brows any more than you can stop looking all 'indie', dear"

A truly magnificently terrifying concept that Mr. Shyamalan has presented us with. If plants could make us all take 4 steps backwards and kill ourselves what would happen, man? Good God! It would truly be The Happening!

Yeah, unfortunately the whole concept of plants being able to release some sort of spore into the air that evokes the exact same reaction in every single one of the highly developed Homo Sapien psyche's it encounters is about as likely as M. Night Shyamalan's next movie not trying to mess with your head in one way or another.

Yes, bees are disappearing and yes, if we're to believe the crazy cross eyed weirdo in the movie, plants can emit some sort of spore that attracts a very specific wasp to deter a very specific caterpillar when it feels threatened by it's presence - but these things are insects.

Did you know that there are parasites that can completely envelope ants, snails and spiders minds and have them do their bidding? Turning them into effective "zombies"?
It's true! But there's a very good reason why no-one with half a brain created a movie in which those very same parasites were responsible for a zombie outbreak and it's because it doesn't make sense. There's a huge difference between controlling, distorting or completely destroying the mind of one of the most simple and low functioning creatures on the planet and being able to control the mind of any mammal, never mind the human brain.
Don't get all environmental on me!
The Human brain would be far less susceptible to any sort of mind controlling spores, even in as simple a way as we have communication and understanding to get us through such crises.

It's not like a movie couldn't exist where weird spores were affecting us in some way... why not make the spores just make people go a little nuts? Sure, suicide rate is up but everyone isn't killing themselves in exactly the same damn way!
That doesn't make any sense!
You could have murder rates up... people pressing their own eyeballs out through their noses, people hallucinating that their long deceased ancestor is talking to them through their bathroom mirror beckoning them to kill every pet Pug in the neighborhood, people stapling pancakes to peoples heads... a whole manner of messed up shit happening! People going nuts in their own little ways all over the place creating chaos!

But instead we have a bunch of people calmly stepping off buildings and Mark Wahlberg looking like he's on the verge of a very minor breakdown, from which he will only recover with a huge dose of Chamomile tea.

Screw this film, M. Night, your next one had better be about 100 times better.

(It wasn't that bad actually, just unrealistic... unlike Unbreakable, that made perfect sense!)



The Happening Movie Site

NOTE: To see how this film should have gone down, watch The Signal, which I reviewed a couple of posts back...

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The Human brain would be far less susceptible to any sort of mind controlling spores, even in as simple a way as we have communication and understanding to get us through such crises."

There are parasites that alter the human host's personality. You might have them right now :)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1525429/Parasite-that-makes-cat-lovers-neurotic.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Behavioral_changes

This has been your HORRIFYING fact for the day :D

Spike Vicious said...

Ahhh but see I don't doubt a parasite could affect the human brain but I do doubt it could affect it to do very specific tasks in exactly the same way as it would in any other human brain...

Foir instance, there is a difference between a parasite making a human feel more degrees of guilt, as the toxoplasmo thing seems to, and a parasite making someone feel the sudden guilty need to withdraw $245.87 from their bank accounts and donate it to a cat shelter... see what I mean? Or am I as clear as mud?

Anonymous said...

Yes, the toxywhatevers aren't that precise D=

Spike Vicious said...

Not... YET!

Anonymous said...

Elliot had toxoplasmosis, remember?

Spike Vicious said...

I do, it concerned me...
What if it developed and makes me take 4 steps backwards and kill myself?

Anonymous said...

Should we be tested? I mean, we're both neurotic... right? So... um.... what?

Make Ryan tell us what to do.

Spike Vicious said...

He's no longer replying here. He must have been abducted by trees

Anonymous said...

But if you get tested, and you have it, and they remove it - it could supposedly affect your personality? Like... what if you find that when you're cured you no longer think talking dogs are awesome? (Which they are, but i'm probably infected too?)

Spike Vicious said...

Or what if the part of my brain that thinks that Nicolas Cage is a douche gets deactivated????

Anonymous said...

Better not to risk it!

Anonymous said...

They were talking about it last night on some tv show and it made the monkeys crazy!!!!!! I didn't pay that close attention because I was working at my secret second job.

Does CURING it make you go crazy? Or the disease itself?

Elliot did get all retarded.