Let me start by saying I love watching bad movies. I really, really love watching bad movies. Just as great movies show what film can achieve, bad movies show what happens when everything goes horribly wrong. Movies like The Room, Birdemic and Foodfight!, to name three of the most well-known, all have this certain quality that, while there's no denying that they suck, makes them unforgettable.
The Happening is not one of these films.
My brother warned me not to watch it. The Internet warned me not to watch it. My friend Kyle warned me not to watch it when it came out in 2008. He actually paid money to see it and hated it. I ignored all of them.
The basic plot of the movie is that people are committing suicide for no apparent reason which is later revealed to be plants. Plants are emitting chemicals that, when inhaled, cause people to kill themselves. But only if you're outside. And only if the wind blows. And only in New England. This is played completely straight and taken deathly seriously.
Our protagonists Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel have to escape with Mark Wahlberg's best friend's daughter, so obviously they decide to head out into nature. Also, Zooey Deschanel had tiramisu with a coworker named Joey who I like to imagine is Joey Tribbiani from Friends because it makes the movie's obsession with her not-even-really-a-date marginally more bearable. The movie makes it look like it's going to be a major plot point, like maybe she is actually cheating on Mark Wahlberg and we're gonna have a big confrontation and some actual personality to these characters, but nope. Nothing ever comes of it. The most we get is a scene where Mark Wahlberg talks about how he almost bought cough syrup he didn't need because of a hot pharmacist. I'm not making this up.
There's unnecessary dramatic zooms, poorly-scored scenes, bodies freakin' everywhere and a complete lack of acting from Mark Wahlberg. It's actually kind of beautiful how obviously he doesn't care. He always talks like he's talking to a very small and somewhat unintelligent child and his behavior borders on nonsensical. See: the cough syrup scene, the scene where he sings the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water" to prove he's human (???), a dinner scene where he along with everyone else in the movie has no idea of basic manners.
Obviously the script is just awful. Real people don't talk like the characters in this movie. Ever. None of the characters are developed or even have any semblance of a personality. They're blander than white bread dipped in skim milk. We're also treated to the worst CGI lions I've ever seen and some really surprisingly bloodless deaths. It actually really surprised me; a movie that sold itself on having so many gruesome deaths actually wasn't that graphic. That's another problem with The Happening: it has no guts, not in the literal "you see so many intestines in this movie" sense but in the sense that it doesn't even come close to touching any sort of line. I'm not promoting excessive gore just for the sake of gore, but at the same time...you're supposed to be making a horror movie. Horror can be effective without blood and guts (and those are often some of the best), but those are usually closer to thriller and psychological horror. The Happening is neither of those. In this case, I'd dial up the blood and guts a little more.
Now, these are all hallmarks of bad movies. The Room has nonsensical dialogue and plot threads that are mentioned and dropped almost immediately, like Claudette's breast cancer. Foodfight! has the worst animation I've ever seen and actors that care less than Mark Wahlberg. Birdemic has special effects that are anything but. There's a big difference between those movies and The Happening. With most other bad movies, you can tell that someone, somewhere, somehow cared about it, even if they only cared about it for the paycheck (looking at you, animated Titanic movies). The Happening is completely soulless.
The movie has its moments, like the cough syrup scene and the line "why you eyin' my lemon drink", but overall it's just...boring.
The worst, worst thing a movie can do is be forgettable. It can be poorly made (Birdemic) or disappointing (Green Lantern) or way too pretentious for its own good (Breathless) or just bad overall (The Room), but those movies, at least for me, are completely unforgettable in just how bad they are. The Happening has nothing. It's an hour and a half of unremarkable everything. I made it through; I never turned it off, but it was one of the most difficult movies to sit through.
Do I regret it? Kind of. I mean, I could have been finishing The Neighbors or catching up on The Last Man On Earth with those 90 minutes. Would I recommend it? No. Not even as a bad movie. All you need to do is watch clips or read Cleolinda's "Movies in 15 Minutes" write-up of it. That's all you need.
NEXT UP: Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Alex Gibney's HBO documentary. Hoo boy. This was an adventure.
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