History Film / TheHappening

** Even before the movie was made, the most credible theories regarding Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees hinged around naturally-occurring immunodeficiency and fungal pathogens (i.e., not human-caused).
* ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum: Elliot Moore describes the plants’ mass homicide not as an unprecedented biological phenomenon, but as something that just “happened”.
** Science doesn’t seem to be in great shape in this movie’s universe, in the opening scenes, Elliot asks his students for theories on disappearing bees. One student suggests, “It’s just a phenomenon of nature and we’ll never understand it”, which, in the real world, a science teacher would consider a desperate cop-out from an ignorant student, but Elliot considers it a perfectly valid answer. One gets the impression M. Night lacks an understanding of science and how it works, given that the whole point of science is to explain natural phenomena.

The movie takes a [[Creator/AlfredHitchcock Hitchcockian]] approach to the horror — the suicides merely happen without explanation — [[ItWasHisSled until somebody]] ''[[ItWasHisSled does]]'' [[ItWasHisSled explain it]]: plants, in response to human overpopulation, are emitting a neurotoxin that makes a person’s survival instinct kick into reverse.

* CreatorCameo: M. Night Shyamalan provides the voice of Joey, with whom Alma had dessert once [[FelonyMisdemeanor and acts as if she had an affair with him]]. [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen And the viewer never sees the man himself.]]

* CloudCuckoolander: Mrs. Jones is (supposed to be) a non-comedic example. She has clearly lived in isolation for many years, and displays misanthropic behavior and [[NotGoodWithPeople truly terrible social skills]] (she even accuses Elliot of planning to murder her with no basis at all). She even flips out at Elliot trying to examine the doll on her bed (which presumably represents her younger self, given she screams its her face, and she was apparently hiding nearby to see if Elliot got near it) and [[GetOut orders him to leave at once]]. Obviously she has some serious mental problems.
* CoincidentalBroadcast: Whenever the characters need any sort of exposition they can find a broadcast, regardless of wherever they are, whether it be the abandoned truck, or the radio in the middle of the field (that no one bothered to take with them), or the montage of other people all over the U.S. watching the TV news.
** Doubles as KentBrockmanNews in certain situations.

* CuteMute: Jess, who rarely speaks until the very end.

* DullSurprise: The reaction to the mass suicides is, shall we say, less expressive than one might expect.
* EmotionlessGirl: Alma, more or less, spends most of the movie in DullSurprise mode, and states at the beginning “I don’t like to show my emotions.” Maybe the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example among many in this movie is her line about the foliage “It makes you kill yourself” … '''[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment right after she and Elliot heard the newscaster say it together]]'''!

* GaiasVengeance
* {{Gorn}}: Apparently someone in [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]]’s marketing department learned that people were just laughing at the answer to the "mystery", so commercials for the DVD release focused ''solely'' on the deaths and its status as Shyamalan's first R-rated film, ignoring the mystery aspect.

* MadeOfPlasticine: The man being (very easily) torn apart by lions.

* NothingExcitingEverHappensHere

-->'''Construction Worker''': …and little guy says, “You have a girlfriend named Wendy, too? Well, I saw your thing and it says ‘WY’.” And the big guy says, “Noooo man. Mine says ‘[[BiggusDickus Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day.]]’”[[note]]The missing part of the joke is “Two men are standing at adjacent urinals, and they both notice the other has the letters ‘WY’ tattooed on his penis.”[[/note]]

* RedShirt: Quite a few characters have shirts are redder than roses, redder than poinsettias.

** Science doesn’t seem to be in great shape in this movie’s universe, in the opening scenes, Elliot asks his students for theories on disappearing bees. One student suggests, “It’s just a phenomenon of nature and we’ll never understand it”, which, in the real world, a science teacher would consider a desperate cop-out from an ignorant student, but Elliot considers it a perfectly valid answer. One gets the impression M. Night doesn’t really understand what science is or how it works, given that the whole point of science is to explain natural phenomena.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Mrs. Jones has this and some obvious mental issues going for her. She displays very hostile behavior towards Elliot and others for no good reason at all.
* ShapedLikeItself

* TelevisionGeography: The real Filbert, PA is near Uniontown, PA, about forty miles southeast of UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}}, putting it very far from the eastern part of the state that the guy in the restaurant points out on the TV screen, and well past their train’s stated destination of Harrisburg. The actual town has no rail service, either.

* WhenTreesAttack

[[caption-width-right:350: ''"[[MemeticMutation What? Nooooooooooooo.]]"'']]
->''"Plastic. I'm talking to a plastic plant. I'm still doing it."''

A 2008 film written and directed by Creator/MNightShyamalan.

Something big is going down: people all over the East Coast of the United States start to kill themselves for no reason, and there's no explanation as to the mass suicides. High school teacher Elliot Moore (Creator/MarkWahlberg) tries to escape UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} with his wife Alma (Creator/ZooeyDeschanel), fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian's daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez).

The movie takes a Hitchcockian approach to the horror -- the suicides merely happen without explanation -- [[ItWasHisSled until somebody]] ''[[ItWasHisSled does]]'' [[ItWasHisSled explain it]]: plants, in response to human overpopulation, are emitting a neurotoxin that makes a person's survival instinct kick into reverse.

* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: For some reason, the film's R rating was a huge marketing point.
* BehindTheBlack: Funny how the characters don't notice the bodies hanging from the trees until the camera reveals them, even though they had been driving straight towards them for a good 30 seconds.

* ChekhovsGun: Really, really obvious one -- the two rooms where you can hear whatever the person in the other room is saying.
* CloudCuckoolander: Mrs. Jones is (supposed to be) a non-comedic example. She has clearly lived in isolation for many years, and displays misanthropic behavior and [[NotGoodWithPeople truly terrible social skills]] (she even accuses Elliot of planning to murder her with no basis at all). She even flips out at Elliot trying to examine the doll on her bed (which presumably represents her younger self, given she screams its her face, and she was apparently hiding nearby to see if Elliot got near it) and [[GetOut orders him to leave at once.]] It's clear she has some serious mental problems.
* CoincidentalBroadcast: Whenever the characters need any sort of exposition they can find a broadcast, regardless of wherever they are, whether it be the abandoned truck, or the radio in the middle of the field (that no one bothered to take with them), or the montage of other people all over the U.S. watching the TV News.

--->'''News Reporter:''' [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic An unconfirmed source]] says [[GovernmentConspiracy the government is responsible]].

* EmotionlessGirl: Alma, more or less, spends most of the movie in DullSurprise mode, and states at the beginning "I don't like to show my emotions." Maybe the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example among many in this movie is her line about the foliage "It makes you kill yourself" ... '''[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment right after she and Elliot heard it together]]'''!
* TheEndOrIsIt: The end of the film, where it appears that [[spoiler:the whole thing starts over again in France]].

* {{Expospeak}}: The principal explains the symptoms at the beginning to the other teachers. Later, the nursery owner explains plants' ability to release chemicals. Mrs. Jones explains the speaker in the springhouse.
* FakeFood: In a gag which runs on a little long.

* {{Gorn}}: Apparently someone in [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]]'s marketing department learned that people were just laughing at the answer to the "mystery", so commercials for the DVD release focused ''solely'' on the deaths and its status as Shyamalan's first R-rated film, ignoring the mystery aspect.
* GoshDangItToHeck: The private's use of "Cheese and crackers!" as an exclamation, and the construction worker's use of the word "thing" for "penis".

* HumansAreBastards: This is thought to be the reason for the plants' sudden "evolution" and revolt against humanity. Additionally, in one scene, [[spoiler:a guy shoots two obnoxious teenagers because he doesn't want them coming into his house]].

* TheMeadowRun: Fine, it's more like the Meadow Walk, but even so...

-->'''Construction Worker:''' ... and little guy says "You have a girlfriend named Wendy, too? Well, I saw your thing and it says 'WY'." And the big guy says "Noooo man. Mine says '[[BiggusDickus Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day.]]'"[[note]]The missing part of the joke is "Two guys are standing at adjacent urinals, and they both notice the other has the letters 'WY' tattooed on his penis."[[/note]]
* PoorCommunicationKills: Elliot, Jess and Alma get all the way through dinner with Mrs. Jones before deigning to mention the event, but Mrs. Jones makes it clear she doesn't want to hear about it anyway.

* ProductPlacement: When Elliot tells them to stop the car because of the bodies on the road, the next shot is the wheel stopping with the word "Jeep" on the hubcap perfectly lined up horizontally and readable.

* ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum: The mass genocide of humans by plants is described by Elliot Moore as something that just "happened", rather than an unprecedented biological phenomenon.
** Science doesn't seem to be in great shape in this movie's universe, in the opening scenes, Elliot asks his students for theories on disappearing bees. One student suggests "It's just a phenomenon of nature and we'll never understand it"; in the real world, a science teacher would consider that a desperate cop-out from an ignorant student, but Elliot considers it a perfectly valid answer. One gets the impression M. Night doesn't really understand what science is or how it works, given that the whole point of science is explaining natural phenomena.

* SoleSurvivor: In the beginning, [[spoiler:and in the end in France]], only one random person isn't affected by the neurotoxins, and ForcedToWatch everyone kill themselves.
* ShoutOut: Jess has an ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' backpack in the end. Foreshadowing of [[Film/TheLastAirbender things to come]].

-->'''We've [[Film/TheSixthSense Sensed]] It.'''\\
'''We've Seen [[Film/{{Signs}} The Signs.]]'''\\
'''And Now...It's Happening.'''
* TelevisionGeography: The real Filbert, PA is near Uniontown, PA, about forty miles southeast of UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}} -- this puts it very far from the eastern part of the state that the guy in the restaurant points out on the TV screen, and well past their train’s stated destination of Harrisburg. The actual town has no rail service, either.
* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: Spencer Breslin's character's line, "Open this door, bitch!"
* TitleDrop: The word "happening" is spoken in about every other scene. But as [[WebVideo/BadMovieBeatdown Film Brain]] points out in his review, it soon becomes repetitive and annoying.

Something big is going down: people all over the East Coast start to kill themselves for no reason, and there's no explanation as to the mass suicides. High school teacher Elliot Moore (Creator/MarkWahlberg) tries to escape UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} with his wife Alma (Creator/ZooeyDeschanel), fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian's daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez).

* GoshdangItToHeck: The private's use of "Cheese and crackers!" as an exclamation, and the construction worker's use of the word "thing" for "penis".

* CloudCuckoolader: Mrs. Jones is (supposed to be) a non-comedic example. She has clearly lived in isolation for many years, and displays misanthropic behavior and truly terrible social skills (she even accuses Elliot of planning to murder her with no basis at all). She even flips out at Elliot trying to examine the doll on her bed (which presumably represents her younger self, given she screams its her face, and she was apparently hiding nearby to see if Elliot got near it) and [[GetOut orders him to leave at once.]] It's clear she has some serious mental problems.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Elliot, Jess and Alma get all the way through dinner with Mrs. Jones before deigning to mention the event.

* EvolutionaryLevels: The plants suddenly evolve the ability to emit neurotoxin. All species of plants. ''[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Simultaneously.]]'' On the other hand, the speed and diversity of the toxin may be an acceptable literary deceit -- plants may not be personally sending mankind a warning, they could just be the mechanism Nature is using to force an out-of-control population back into balance.
** Perhaps de-evolutionary -- "I read this article about the coast of Australia. It said they have found large quantities of primordial bacteria. It hadn’t been around for ''billions of years''. It just appeared in the water. It’s toxic to humans, fishermen who come into contact with it are dying."

* {{Gorn}}: Apparently someone in Fox's marketing department learned that people were just laughing at the answer to the "mystery", so commercials for the DVD release focused ''solely'' on the deaths and its status as Shyamalan's first R-rated film, ignoring the mystery aspect.

* InfantImmortality: Averted when the two teenage boys get shot. [[BlackDudeDiesFirst Jared, the black one, goes before his white buddy Josh.]]

* ShoutOut: Jess has an ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' backpack in the end. Foreshadowing [[Film/TheLastAirbender things to come]].

* ProductPlacement: At the end of the film, when she's getting ready for her first day back at school, Jess is sporting an [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Avatar]] schoolbag, which is {{Foreshadowing}} of what M. Night Shyamalan's [[Film/TheLastAirbender next movie]] would be.

----
* ProductPlacement: At the end of the film, when she's getting ready for her first day back at school, Jess is sporting an [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Avatar]] schoolbag, which is {{Foreshadowing}} of what M. Night Shyamalan's [[Film/TheLastAirbender next movie]] would be.

* EvolutionaryLevels: The plants suddenly evolve the ability to emit neurotoxin. All species of plants. ''[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Simultaneously.]]'' On the other hand, the speed and diversity of the toxin may be an acceptable literary deceit -- plants may not be personally sending mankind a war.

* ProductPlacement: At the end of the film, when she's getting ready for her first day back at school, Jess is sporting an [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Avatar]] schoolbag, which is {{Foreshadowing}} of what M. Night Shyamalan's next movie would be.

* EvolutionaryLevels: The plants suddenly evolve the ability to emit neurotoxin. All species of plants. ''[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Simultaneously.]]'' On the other hand, the speed and diversity of the toxin may be an acceptable literary deceit -- plants may not be personally sending mankind a war

* EvolutionaryLevels: The plants suddenly evolve the ability to emit neurotoxin. All species of plants. ''[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Simultaneously.]]'' On the other hand, the speed and diversity of the toxin may be an acceptable literary deceit -- plants may not be personally sending mankind a warning, they could just be the mechanism Nature is using to force an out-of-control population back into balance.
** Perhaps de-evolutionary -- "I read this article about the coast of Australia. It said they have found large quantities of primordial bacteria. It hadn’t been around for ''billions of years''. It just appeared in the water. It’s toxic to humans, fishermen who come into contact with it are dying."
* {{Expospeak}}: The principal explains the symptoms at the beginning to the other teachers. Later, the nursery owner explains plants' ability to release chemicals. Mrs. Jones explains the speaker in the springhouse.
* FakeFood: In a gag which runs on a little long.
* GaiasVengeance
* {{Gorn}}: Apparently someone in Fox's marketing department learned that people were just laughing at the answer to the "mystery", so commercials for the DVD release focused ''solely'' on the deaths and its status as Shyamalan's first R-rated film, ignoring the mystery aspect.
* GoshdangItToHeck: The private's use of "Cheese and crackers!" as an exclamation, and the construction worker's use of the word "thing" for "penis".
* GreenAesop
* HumansAreBastards: This is thought to be the reason for the plants' sudden "evolution" and revolt against humanity. Additionally, in one scene, [[spoiler:a guy shoots two obnoxious teenagers because he doesn't want them coming into his house]].
* InfantImmortality: Averted when the two teenage boys get shot. [[BlackDudeDiesFirst Jared, the black one, goes before his white buddy Josh.]]
* MadeOfPlasticine: The man being (very easily) torn apart by lions.
* TheMeadowRun: Fine, it's more like the Meadow Walk, but even so...
* NonSequiturThud: One of the late stages of the toxin involves speaking nonsense.
* NoPeripheralVision: When Elliot walks up to the truck with the open door, only after looking through it does he notice the house in the distance. He then points it out to everyone else ''who was looking in that direction already'', and they notice it.
* NothingExcitingEverHappensHere
* OnlySaneMan: Two women are seen holed up in an apartment, wearing gas masks. This is one of the smartest things you can do if you believe that a chemical/biological weapon has been used and there is minimal option for evacuating safely.
* OrphanedPunchline:
-->'''Construction Worker:''' ... and little guy says "You have a girlfriend named Wendy, too? Well, I saw your thing and it says 'WY'." And the big guy says "Noooo man. Mine says '[[BiggusDickus Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day.]]'"[[note]]The missing part of the joke is "Two guys are standing at adjacent urinals, and they both notice the other has the letters 'WY' tattooed on his penis."[[/note]]
* PoorCommunicationKills: Elliot, Jess and Alma get all the way through dinner with Mrs. Jones before deigning to mention the event.
* PrettyLittleHeadshots: When the police officer and others shoot themselves. Odd, given the gory scenes in other parts.
* ProductPlacement: When Elliot tells them to stop the car because of the bodies on the road, the next shot is the wheel stopping with the word "Jeep" on the hubcap perfectly lined up horizontally and readable.
* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler:The plants just happen to stop emitting the neurotoxin minutes before Elliot and Alma decide to go outside and hug. In the original script, the subtext became text and it was literally ThePowerOfLove.]]
* RedShirt: Quite a few characters have shirts are redder than roses, redder than poinsettias.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The Disappearing Bees, Terrorist Attacks, Global Warming, etc. The film is just a grab bag of topical terrors.
** Even before the movie was made, the most credible theories regarding Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees hinged around naturally-occurring immunodeficiency and fungal pathogens (i.e., not human-caused).
* ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum: The mass genocide of humans by plants is described by Elliot Moore as something that just "happened", rather than an unprecedented biological phenomenon.
** Science doesn't seem to be in great shape in this movie's universe, in the opening scenes, Elliot asks his students for theories on disappearing bees. One student suggests "It's just a phenomenon of nature and we'll never understand it"; in the real world, a science teacher would consider that a desperate cop-out from an ignorant student, but Elliot considers it a perfectly valid answer. One gets the impression M. Night doesn't really understand what science is or how it works, given that the whole point of science is explaining natural phenomena.
* ShapedLikeItself
* SoleSurvivor: In the beginning, [[spoiler:and in the end in France]], only one random person isn't affected by the neurotoxins, and ForcedToWatch everyone kill themselves.
* ShoutOut: Jess has an ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' backpack in the end. Foreshadowing [[Film/TheLastAirbender things to come]].
* SpaceWhaleAesop: Be more environmentalist, or plants will kill you.
* TelevisionGeography: The real Filbert, PA is near Uniontown, PA, about forty miles southeast of UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}} -- this puts it very far from the eastern part of the state that the guy in the restaurant points out on the TV screen, and well past their train’s stated destination of Harrisburg. The actual town has no rail service, either.
* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: Spencer Breslin's character's line, "Open this door, bitch!"
* TitleDrop: The word "happening" is spoken in about every other scene. But as [[WebVideo/BadMovieBeatdown Film Brain]] points out in his review, it soon becomes repetitive and annoying.
* WhenTreesAttack
----

A 2008 film by Creator/MNightShyamalan.

Something big is going down: people all over the East Coast start to kill themselves for no reason, and there's no explanation as to the mass suicides. High school teacher Elliot Moore (MarkWahlberg) tries to escape Philadelphia with his wife Alma (ZooeyDeschanel), fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian's daughter Jess.

Compare ''[[AliveTheFinalEvolution Alive: The Final Evolution]]''.

* CreatorCameo: M. Night Shyamalan as Joey, with whom Alma had an affair. [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen Although his character is never seen.]]

* ChekhovsGun: Really, really obvious one - the two rooms where you can hear whatever the person in the other room is saying.
* CoincidentalBroadcast: Whenever the characters need any sort of exposition they can find a broadcast, regardless of wherever they are, whether it be the abandoned truck, or the radio in the middle of the field (that no one bothered to take with them), or the montage of other people all over the US watching the TV News.

-->'''News Reporter:''' An unconfirmed source says the government is responsible.

* DullSurprise: The reaction to the mass suicides isn't as expressive as one might expect.
* EmotionlessGirl: Alma, more or less, spends most of the movie in DullSurprise mode, and states at the beginning "I don't like to show my emotions."

* EvolutionaryLevels: The plants suddenly evolve the ability to emit neurotoxin. All species of plants. ''[[YouFailBiologyForever Simultaneously.]]'' On the other hand the speed and diversity of the toxin may be an acceptable literary deceit - plants may not be personally sending mankind a warning, they could just be the mechanism Nature is using to get an out of control population back into balance.
** Perhaps deevolutionary - "I read this article about the coast of Australia. It said they have found large quantities of primordial bacteria. It hadn’t been around for ''billions of years''. It just appeared in the water. It’s toxic to humans, fishermen who come into contact with it are dying."
* {{Expospeak}}: Alan Ruck explains the symptoms at the beginning to the other teachers. Later, the nursery owner explains plants' ability to release chemicals. Mrs. Jones explains the speaker in the springhouse.

* {{Gorn}}: Apparently someone realized that people were just laughing at the answer to the "mystery", so commercials for the DVD release are ''exclusively'' focusing on the deaths, and how it's Shyamalan's first R-rated film, ignoring the whole mystery bit.
* GoshdangItToHeck: The Private's use of "Cheese and Crackers!" as an exclamation, and the construction worker's use of the word "thing" for "penis".

* HumansAreBastards: This is thought to be the reason for the plants' sudden "evolution" and revolt against humanity. Additionally, in one scene, [[spoiler:a guy shoots two teens because he doesn't want them coming into his house]].
* InfantImmortality: Averted when the two teens get shot.

* TheMeadowRun: Okay, it's more like the Meadow Walk; but still, it's played straight.

-->'''Construction Worker:''' - and little guy says "You have a girlfriend named Wendy, too? Well, I saw your thing and it says 'WY'." And the big guy says "Noooo man. Mine says '[[BiggusDickus Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day.]]'"
** The missing part of the joke is "Two guys are standing at adjacent urinals, and they both notice the have the letters "WY" tattooed on their penises."
* PoorCommunicationKills: The group gets all the way through dinner with Mrs. Jones before deciding to mention the event.

* ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum: The mass genocide of humans by plants is described by Elliot Moore as something that just "happened", rather than an unprecedented biological phenomenon.

* TelevisionGeography: The real Filbert, PA is near Uniontown, PA, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh - this puts it very far from the eastern part of the state that the guy in the restaurant points out on the TV screen, and well past their train’s stated destination of Harrisburg. The actual town has no rail service, either.

* TheMeadowRun: Okay, it's more like the Meadow Walk; but still, it's played completely straight.

** RatedMForMoney

* TheCameo: M. Night Shyamalan as Joey, with whom Alma had an affair. [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen Although his character is never seen.]]

Something big is going down: people all over the East Coast start to kill themselves for no reason, and there's no explanation as to the mass suicides. High school teacher Elliot Moore (MarkWahlberg) tries to escape New York City -- where the suicides began -- with his wife Alma (ZooeyDeschanel), fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julian's daughter Jess.

* SpaceWhaleAesop

* EvolutionaryLevels: The plants suddenly evolve the ability to emit neurotoxin. All species of plants. ''[[YouFailBiologyForever Simultaneously.]]'' On the other hand the speed and diversity of the toxin may be an acceptable literary deceit - plants may not be personally sending mankind a warning, they could just be the mechanism Nature - and this has happened before - is using to get an out of control population back into balance.

The movie takes a Hitchcockian approach to the horror -- the suicides merely happen without explanation -- [[ItWasHisSled until somebody]] ''[[ItWasHisSled does]]'' [[ItWasHisSled explain it]]: [[GreenAesop plants, as a warning to humanity]], [[YouFailBiologyForever are emitting a neurotoxin that makes a person's survival instinct kick into reverse]].

* NonSequiturThud

* WhenTreesAttack: And how!

* ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum: The mass genocide of humans by plants is described by Elliot Moore as something that just "happened", rather than an unprecedented biological phenomena.

The movie takes a Hitchcockian approach to the horror -- the suicides merely happen without explanation -- [[ItWasHisSled until somebody]] ''[[ItWasHisSled does]]'' [[ItWasHisSled explain it:]] [[GreenAesop plants, as a warning to humanity,]] [[YouFailBiologyForever are emitting a neurotoxin that makes a person's survival instinct kick into reverse.]]

* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler: Alma is revealed to be pregnant at the end.]]

* {{Gorn}}: Apparently someone realized that people were just laughing at the answer to the "mystery", so commercials for the DVD release are ''exclusively'' focusing on the deaths, and how it's Shyamalan's first R rated film, ignoring the whole mystery bit.

** Science doesn't seem to be in great shape in this movie's universe, in the opening scenes, Elliot asks his students for theories on disappearing bees. One student suggests "It's just a phenomon of nature and we'll never understand it", in the RealWorld, a science teacher would consider that a desparate cop-out from an ignorant student, Elliot considers it a perfectly valid answer. One gets the impression M. Night doesn't really understand what science is or how it works, given that the whole point of science is explaining natural phenomenae.

* SoleSurvivor: In the beginning, [[spoiler: and in the end in France]], only one random person isn't affected by the neurotoxins, and ForcedToWatch everyone kill themselves.