The Happening

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.

The Happening is his first hilariously awful film.

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?'

[A]n astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined.

The Happening is an awful letdown, yet it leaves you with something new, as a gently waving tree -- that classical image of pastoral tranquillity -- mutates into a harbinger of doom.

There are some creepy moments but overall The Happening is a bit of a non-event.

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

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

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.

How did this particular work turn out so badly?