3) The Happening (2008)
Deadly plants can make great horror movie villains – as ably demonstrated by The Day Of The Triffids in 1962. Even The Little Shop Of Horrors carried it off effectively – twice (1960 and 1986). But, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening just dies on its feet, so to speak, thanks to the utter futility of its foliage.
The premise of the film sees a terrible incident occur in Central Park, New York City, during which a large number of people become infected with some kind of neurotoxin that causes them all to kill themselves. Once biological terrorism at the hands of humans has been ruled out, and the condition begins to spread across the country, it becomes clear that it is, in fact, the world’s vegetation that is doing the air-borne poisoning. It seems that our plant-life has got sick of our destruction of the environment and the planet, and has decided to retaliate by attacking large groups of people with spine-tingling passive-aggressiveness.
Of course, we need lead characters to invest in, and Shyamalan asks us to do so with Elliot (Mark Wahlberg), and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) – but there’s not much to care about. We feel little interest when the life-threatening situation worsens, the plants increase their attack, and it looks as though all is lost. Elliot and Alma – along with a friend’s young daughter – embrace in the open, convinced they are in their last moments, only for the botanical bad guy to change its mind and just stop. It literally just stops.
There’s no showdown, there’s no fight-back or attempt at conflict resolution. It just stops. It is the lamest of denouements for a lame horror movie villain.
Published: Oct 8, 2014 01:39 am