****Contains Spoilers****

What’s “The Happening”?

Donny: A brand new piece of garbage from director M. Night Shyamalan.

Jon: An environmental horror film that is uninspired in execution despite a decent trailer.

What’s your personal opinion of M. Night?

Jon: I remember when “Sixth Sense” blew up big; everyone was talking about the film and the director. I also remember liking the film. When “Unbreakable” came out it split the audience down the middle, some liked this different take on the superhero genre, others hated it. I feel “Unbreakable” is a fine film and unlike his other films, it holds up upon multiple viewings. For me, he started to fall with “Signs”. It was interesting up until you learn about the aliens and see them. When the “Village” was about to come out, I remember this Sci-fi Channel documentary thing on M. Night; it was to be about him, although it was leaked to be a marketing ploy to build up to the “Village”. I thought he was a pretentious little a-hole and I still feel that way.

While he isn’t a bad director by any means, he’s so stuffy and arrogant, I can’t stand him. I avoided his last two movies like cancer and now I suffered and laughed through his latest. He needs to stop writing scripts himself or at least have someone help him in that department. His genre reinventions are becoming stilted and predictable.

Donny: I don't know M. Night personally so I'm not sure I can off much of a personal opinion on the man himself, but I can dish out plenty of opinions on the writer/director known as M. Night. First I'd like to say that I really enjoyed "Sixth Sense" as well as "Unbreakable," and "Signs." I even have a soft spot for "The Village" because while predictable, it was still solid traditional story telling. But then he made "Lady in the Water." What can I say about this flick, it had some wonderful actors, beautiful cinematography, a pretty wicked villain, a stupid character with one big arm and one small arm, and a story that I just couldn't identify with. And now with "The Happening" he took a story that could have kicked ass, and made a movie that blew goats.

The first half hour of the flick was a quite fulfilling movie going experience, but right after the half hour mark the film went places that it shouldn't have. For one, they stumble upon a house in the middle of nowhere inhabited by an old woman that lives without electricity, and grows her own food. Only the woman is crazy and lives with a freaky doll that has its own room. She also shouts at them and rants for no apparent reason at all. This character felt like M. Night was up late at his desk fleshing out a draft of the script and because he was stuck decided, "I know, crazy old ladies are creepy, and so are dolls. I'll just throw them both in there and call it a day."

Also, on another note, grass is not scary. It's just an observation, but in my opinion when characters are running from grass that is being pushed in their direction by wind led by a creepy soundtrack and the audience is laughing, then that pretty much means that grass is not scary. No mater how much creepy music and wind you put behind it. Also, the killing off children for just for shock value is really irritating. If a scene moves the story forward then by all means kill a few youngsters, but in "The Happening" it really didn't move the story forward in any way, it actually made it suck more. If I'm the moron that's crazy enough to kill a few kids to make a point, then I'm going to finish off the adults as well. But again it's like he wasn't thinking clearly when he wrote the script.

So for me personally, I think M. Night is an extremely talented writer/director that has lost his way with his last few films, but I'm not loosing all faith in him. I know he has the skills and I'm hoping that after this truly awful movie he'll pull himself together and bring us some of the ass kicking M. Night magic that we all know and love.

How’s the acting?

Donny: I'm going to give M. Night props as a director because the actors were all pretty solid, they just weren't given a great script to work with. I thought Mark Wahlberg did a fine job, and Zooey was very cute, although her character was irritating. Leguizamo was also solid but the scene stealer for me in this one was Ashlyn Sanchez who played Leguizamo's daughter. Overall "The Happening" had a well rounded cast that did their best with what they were given.

Jon: The cast is decent as Donny has said, but they can’t save the film. In fact, I’m sure enough that M. Night didn’t really direct them well as some of their line delivers seemed off and odd. Zooey, as much as I liked her in “Bones” and “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, is quite an eye soar here as she seemed lost within what type of character she was playing. She and Mark’s chemistry didn’t exist and it needed to, especially for the climax.

How does this compare to other films of M. Night?

Jon: Right now I think you need to look at his 6 films in two sections. Section 1 includes “Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable”, and “Signs”, with Section 2 having “Village”, “Lady in the Water” and now “Happening”. “The Happening” is perhaps his better film in Section 2, but that’s not saying too much. It departs from his filmography as it doesn’t feature a twist, but in the end it can’t compare to any Section 1 films as it plays so hokey. I thought the trailer did a good job of selling it, because at the start of the year, I had zero interest in seeing it. When push comes to shove, “The Happening” is more than likely his silliest film. He doesn’t get much out of his cast, unlike any Section 1 films and much like Section 2 films, displays his new ability at camp. “The Happening” might have worked better with a script touch up to help with some silly situations and dialogue that’s very limp, but in the long wrong his flaws as a filmmaker are more so apparent here than in any Section 1 films.

Donny: I'm going to disagree with Jon on this one. I enjoyed "The Village" and while I didn't love "Lady in the Water" I didn't despise it either, but the second half of "The Happening" was so bad that I felt cheated. At least all of his other films had an ending, but "The Happening" not only had no ending, but it preached to the mass of moviegoers like a bad Al Gore film.

Bottom line?

Donny: For me "The Happening" was one of those films that could have been but wasn't. The trailer was awesome, the cast rocked, and the first half hour sent chills down my spine, but because of a script that didn't deliver, a weak-tit antagonist, and the complete lack of an ending, I won't be upset if I never have to see this flick again. I was one of the people that said M. Night should loose the twist ending and make different types of movies, but now I'm wishing for M. Night to go back to the beginning of his career and bring back that twist ending, because he rocks that shit like no other director.

Jon: Arguably one of the worst films of the year. An environmental themed horror film seems right for our current climate, but it’s delivered so cheesy. When done right, like in “Long Weekend” or say “Day of the Animals”, the environmental angle for a horror film can feel just as scary as the statistics in “An Inconvenient Truth”. But people out running the wind and ominous shots of grass and trees just doesn’t add terror, it adds unintentional humor. M. Night fans will be vastly disappointed and horror fans should just go see “The Strangers” again. As for M. Night, sadly as talented as he is behind the camera, he now needs someone to deliver his scripts as with each film his sense on structure and dialogue have been dwindling.