Release: January 12, 2016
Film: The Happening
Tagline: A bad Shyamalan drama makes for a hilarious unintentional comedy!
This review contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Invoked during Julian's suicide scene, with the Critic dubbing into him lines which hark back to his actor John Leguizamo's most (in)famous role as Luigi from the Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie:Critic/Julian: My name's Luigi Mario. I'm a Puerto Rican-Italian raised by a British-Italian who's both my father and my brother. I'm fighting a germophobe dinosaur who's turned Lance Henriksen into a mushroom and thinks ordering a pizza is funny.
- As You Know: All of Tamara's lines are delivered this way.
- Brick Joke: The Critic compares the incoherence of the film's plot to Shyamal-Amon inexplicably coming back to life after dying twice. Cue Shyamal-Amon appearing again.
- Call-Back: Shyamalan Month's intro uses the outro version of "Merry We Roll Along" superimposed with lyrics, first heard on the review of After Earth, another Shyamalan movie.Malcolm/Shyamal-Amon: Why does everybody keep on hiring me? All of my work is shiiit!
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: What was really behind it all? The oranges.
- Fake Interactivity: The Critic likens the awkward pauses in the dialogue to "a kid's show where the kids are supposed to answer back," and demonstrates with an animated Mark Wahlberg.
- Info Dump: The review begins with the Critic being bombarded with these by an Shyamalized Malcolm, Tamara and Jim before he distracts them into going into a room, which he promptly locks.
- Mid-Season Twist: The Critic is really annoyed at the owner of the plant nursery immediately revealing the big Plot Twist of the film one-third of the way through (that is, that plants are apparently causing the mass suicides), which he compares to Charles Foster Kane whispering "It's a sled" with his dying words at the opening of Citizen Kane.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By revealing the Plot Twist of the walls causing the Shyamalization of Malcolm, Tamara and Jim to be a double subversion, Shyamal-Amon unintentionally breaks his thrall over the three, who promptly bolt out of the room in disgust over the sheer inanity of the twist. Subverted in that this time Shyamal-Amon is not to blame.
- Not Me This Time: Unlike his earlier appearances, Shyamal-Amon isn't exactly doing anything malicious other than revealing that his apparent Shayamalization of Malcolm, Tamara and Jim is a triple-subversion.
- Reveal Shot: The abruptness of the pan shot from Elliot, Julian and Jess conversing to Alma saying "Hi" causes the Critic to compare her to a stalker. The next time that scene is repeated, suspenseful music was superimposed, which causes the Critic to flee in terror.
- Shout-Out:
- After the Critic runs off in terror over the abrupt stalker-like transition to Alma, he apparently crashes into the cabbage vendor from Avatar: The Last Airbender, complete with the "My cabbages!" line.
- Upon hearing the "What? No...!" line, the Critic thinks it can be made "better" by replacing Mark Wahlberg's (Elliot) Little "No" with Darth Vader's Big "NO!" from Revenge of the Sith.
- So Bad, It's Good: The Critic's In-Universe verdict on the film, putting it alongside the likes of The Room (2003), Troll 2 and Jupiter Ascending. In particular, he deems the infamous "What? No...!" line to be so wonderfully awful he claims it is a sin to even try criticizing it.
- The Stinger: After the credits, Homer Simpson returns, cheering that Flanders got run over by his lawnmower.
Cheese and crackers.
