The Happening is widely considered M. Night Shyamalan’s worst movie, serving as a punchline to many arguments about terrible horror movies and sitting at the top of many least favorite movie lists. While The Happening spawned immediate backlash when it was released, it’s developed a reputation for being one of the worst movies ever released, and that infamy is certainly undeserved.
The movie follows a science teacher, his wife, and his colleague as they flee a mysterious apocalyptic threat to humanity as violent, inexplicable deaths spread across the country. Following in Shyamalan’s traditional style of slow-burn psychological horror followed by a big twist ending, The Happening’s ending enraged moviegoers and the rest of the movie didn’t have enough to make up for it.
However, The Happening is an interesting foray into something different for Shyamalan and explores some interesting themes even though it didn’t all play out in the best way. While it’s certainly not a perfect film by any stretch, it currently holds a 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and that’s a bit excessive for a movie that, by all accounts, is really more misunderstood than it is a cinematic travesty.
The biggest issue that many moviegoers had with The Happening upon its release is that most people interpreted it as a movie that was being played straight, to be taken at face value. However, as time has passed, more and more people have reflected back on the film to realize that it is much more of a modern, M. Night Shyamalan take on a classic 1950s B-movie.
The first to argue this re-evaluation of the movie as a straight-faced comedy patterned on the B-movies of the atomic age was Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of AV Club in 2016 who explained that The Happening follows almost all of the classic traditions of this film type complete with an ending in which a man in a suit explains everything that happened. It mimics a lot of the silliness of these movies as well, especially in Mark Wahlberg’s performance.
However, unlike more modern comedies, the movie presents itself entirely seriously, which was confusing for people seeing the film for the first time. This led to many bad reviews of The Happening, who assumed that the movie was simply a poorly constructed thriller without much meat to it. On the contrary, a lot of the film is laced with camp, hiding the deep anxiety that informs its scares with silliness. The Happening utilizes tropes of classic disaster/survival B-Movies, but turns them on their head.
On the 10th anniversary of The Happening in 2018, more reviewers began to release articles discussing the film and how, with time, it’s become clear that it should be embraced as the intentionally goofy, highly entertaining B-movie that it is. The Happening should be celebrated for its own charm rather than mercilessly mocked as a terrible film. Even in examining the tone and pacing of the movie, it’s clear that starting off fast-paced and then coming almost completely to a standstill by the end is an intentional reversal of the classic disaster movie formula.
In 2020, Scott Mendelson of Forbes revisited The Happening, explaining,
"The Happening is unique unto itself, is rarely boring and has aged well in terms of being a bonkers/original premise delivered with a relatively straight-face (and just a hint of knowing camp). At its core, the sci-fi chiller is essentially 'What if one of our more genuinely talented directors made a big-budget, R-rated Ed Wood movie?' Shyamalan is nothing if not sincere, and while he’s attempting a modern-day version of a 1950’s sci-fi warning movie, the film is absolutely invested in its ‘mother nature is tired of humanity’s bulls**t’ premise."
A deadpan comedy in disguise, M. Night Shyamalan’s most misunderstood movie, The Happening, should be given a second chance, and rewatched through the lens of a goofy B-movie with its own unique and quirky charm.