The Happening

R

Released Jun 13, 2008

1 hr. 31 min.

Sci-Fi

Mystery & Thriller

List

18%

187 Reviews

Tomatometer

24%

250,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

An apocalyptic threat to humanity arrives out of the clear blue sky with a series of violent, inexplicable deaths spreading across the country. The cause of the terrifying phenomenon remains unknown, prompting science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and his colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) to try to elude the invisible killer in Pennsylvania's farmland. Soon it becomes clear that no one is safe.

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Critics Consensus

The Happening begins with promise, but unfortunately descends into an incoherent and unconvincing trifle.

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Braco s

I sometimes feel people have lost their sense of wonder. It's a good film! The visuals are great-some scenes are amazing- there's some fun humor here and there. It has it's stupid things, but I enjoyed it, and appreciated quite a lot of it. It's got some really creepy parts- I'll put a five because people voted it too low, so I will compensate. True rating should be about 3 and a half.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

04/16/24

Full Review

Kristian M

Big mark wahlberg fan, but this one bored me out of my mind! It makes no sense at all

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

04/09/24

Full Review

Carson P

Probably the weirdest most bizzare movie I have ever seen but not in a good way this movie was so bad that it made me think what was the point of it there is first a scream from a distance then everyone freezes then they start behaving strangely and then commit suicide and they say it's caused by plants which produce fresh air but instead produce some kind of toxin that causes us to commit suicide???? That's just one of the dumbest ideas to be put to film obviously a movie can have a dumb, silly and ridiculous premise like if it's based on toys or some board game for children but the movie itself doesn't have to be really dumb if there is serious acting and effort put into it but the happening just about has no effort to it whatsoever the actors don't seem to be acting with human touch to them and at often times they say words and reactions that don't make sense or apply to what one or the other is thinking how would the charachters even try to stop this thing that's like a pandemic and they also say one by one the toxin will effect individuals but then stops all of a sudden but even then I still didn't get or figure out if the world was safe from apocalypse or not and didn't even explain it America was safe from it because it ends with eurupe starting to get infected by it but why and also how does it work and how does it actually start what caused the scream or why was it happening in the first place but in the end it doesn't make sense whatsoever, the acting is bad, the production values are shoddy, and the script is just a bizarre mess, heck it doesn't even look like it has the thought provoking mysteriousness of the talent shyamalan has for making thrillers it's as if he was used by some parody director to make it which this movie is like a parody of shyamalans genre and its not just the fact that this takes itself to seriously to try to be scary and suspenseful but instead of that it just ends up being bizzare and just downright incoherent the scenes that are supposed to be scary have no impact and all look just so unconvincing. I did expect to see people getting scared and shrieking of seeing others die but this didn't make that style look good and everytime one charachter that gets involved with the main charachters dies there's no mention about it and it's not helped that these charachters have no debth and come of as shallow and lifeless the chemistry and interactions between them are wooden and stale and you don't root for them, the dialogue is clunky and cliched almost every word is said is so nonsensical and doesn't look like it applies to a story, this is just a bizzare mess of a film everything about it in the end was just weird, cringe inducing, uncomfortable and just incomprehensible from the title to the set up to the sound to the production to just everything oh and let's not forget the musical score, holy 💩 this has got to be one of the most bizarre and dreadful musical scores ever composed it's all over the place it's supposed to matching the horror of its film but comes off as underwhelming and at the end just making you feel this kind of music shouldn't be played in a film like this it felt like some late 60s early 70s experimental avant garde inspired sounds but they sound so awful that it's even worse than the sound of a fork scratching russted metal. This was just a dull, lifeless and overall atrocious film and if you are looking for movies that are so bad that they are bizzare and confusing then this is the film for you otherwise I can't give it anything other than an F

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/04/24

Full Review

JonNookI

While the concept of The Happening was cool, the execution was abhorrent. The acting and delivery of lines was awful, which is strange considering there are good actors in here, but the dialogue was written so poorly that I can't really blame the actors. The movie was very light on plot, with not much happening throughout, and while the writing was pretty terrible the whole film, I think the way the characters were written at the end, and just the ending in general was stupid and lazy. The only redeeming thing about this movie, besides the concept is some of the deaths, which many being very shocking. After reading this review, I doubt you'll want to watch this movie, but if you do, the last part of the review contains spoilers, so continue at your own risk. By far the most annoying part of the film though, was how it was never explained what exactly was happening (no pun intended) and it was just brought down to a "Force of nature, that we'll never truly comprehend," that just started randomly, to stop randomly later. Certainly some of the worst writing I've ever seen in a film.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/01/24

Full Review

Ron S

it is an ok film ... not as bad as some of the reviews

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/07/24

Full Review

Mars P

Shyamalan is playing a cruel game with his audience. And his financial backers. Unfortunately most people don't watch movies to be toyed with, they watch to be entertained. This isn't exactly entertainment and it isn't exactly art. It's not exactly comedy and it's not exactly horror. It's not a stylized horror comedy either. It's not a self-aware parody like Don't Look Up, although that would have been brilliant. You have to wonder if MNS rejected this idea or didn't have the skill to pull it off. In any case most viewers will rightfully pan it because they don't get what they came for. However this is clearly a deliberate attempt to make something novel, and memorable, with an unambiguous environmental sermon, anticipating more successful and less experimental efforts like Bird Box. In that sense M. Night succeeds. As a doomer I appreciate his effort, although I'm sure he didn't do his career any favours.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

12/30/23

Full Review

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M. Night Shyamalan

Director

Mark Wahlberg

Elliot Moore

Zooey Deschanel

Alma Moore

John Leguizamo

Julian

Betty Buckley

Mrs. Jones

Ashlyn Sanchez

Jess

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Jason Bailey

Flavorwire

For reasons still unknown, Shyamalan wrote the dialogue this stiffly, and instructed his performers to act like they'd never said words or interacted with each other before.

Jan 30, 2017

Full Review

Chris Stuckmann

ChrisStuckmann.com

The Happening is his first hilariously awful film.

Rated: C

Apr 17, 2015

Full Review

Nigel Floyd

Time Out

At first, a great deal happens, then nothing much happens for quite some time, then something so underwhelming happens that one is left wondering, 'Did that really just happen?'

Rated: 2/5

Nov 16, 2011

Full Review

Patrick Cavanaugh

The Wolfman Cometh

The handful of visually unsettling sequences fail to make up for the complete absurdity of the premise and performances.

Rated: 1/5

Sep 20, 2023

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Brian Eggert

Deep Focus Review

The result is a promising idea realized with a laughable amount of hokum.

Rated: 1.5/4

Sep 6, 2023

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Sean Price

The Spool

But suppose you squint your eyes and pretend it’s a satirical comedy. In that case, it turns from an all-time debacle to one of the most unintentionally funny (and prescient) horror comedies of the 21st century.

Feb 24, 2023

Full Review

Read all reviews

Synopsis

An apocalyptic threat to humanity arrives out of the clear blue sky with a series of violent, inexplicable deaths spreading across the country. The cause of the terrifying phenomenon remains unknown, prompting science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and his colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) to try to elude the invisible killer in Pennsylvania's farmland. Soon it becomes clear that no one is safe.

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Executive Producer: Ronnie Screwvala, Zarina Screwvala, Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber
Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Production Co: Blinding Edge Pictures
Rating: R (Violent and Disturbing Images)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 13, 2008, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 25, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $64.5M
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

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