YMMV / The Happening

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • As The Happening has been reevaluated as a B-Movie in later years, critics have suggested that the plot of the film should not be taken literally and have offered other interpretations, such as the characters are actually experiencing an event of mass hysteria.
  • Some have taken the film as carrying a pretty hardline Science Is Wrong message, with the opening lecture about the uselessness of scientific theories. More specifically, that it's a tent for Intelligent Design.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Shyamalan was still in the middle of one when he made this movie; its entire premise of humanity being wiped out by sentient killer plants releasing toxins that make humans kill themselves did very little to escape it and cemented this as one of his weaker films.
• Awesome Music: While the movie's quality is... debatable, James Newton Howard still created a fantastic score.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • John Leguizamo’s character is the most sympathetic and best acted in the bunch; of course, this means he’s one of the first to die. You’ll probably be disappointed when you realize the other characters aren’t Decoy Protagonists, because clearly Julian should have been the hero of this movie.
  • The bearded greenhouse caretaker who praises hot dogs is also pretty funny, and popular with many viewers. It helps that he pretty much figured out what was going on before anyone else did.
  • The construction supervisor in the opening scene isn't onscreen much more than a minute, but manages to deliver a terrifyingly heartbreaking scene when one of his crew falls. He calls an ambulence, only to see his friends all start inexpicably falling off the building one after the other.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: The film probably would have been better received if it left the cause of the mass suicides a complete mystery. Making plants the cause pushes it into straight Narm.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The scene where a man kills himself by letting lions rip him apart is a lot more unnerving to watch since someone actually tried to kill himself this way in May of 2016.
  • The fact that Paris is affected by a similar event at the end of the film may fall into this for some, as the film has some 9/11 parallels, and Paris experienced similar terrorist attacks in 2015.
• He's Just Hiding: Some fans theorize that the nurseryman and his wife don't kill themselves like the rest of their group (or at least most of it). During their last scene, they don't seem to be affected and they are standing a ways away from the first guy to go crazy.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Around a decade later after this film's release, Netflix released the movie Bird Box (which is based on a novel by Josh Malerman). Both share a similar premise of people committing suicide for no reason other than contact with invisible forces. Adam of YourMovieSucks.org noted other curious similarities between the two films aside from the basic premise, such as both films featuring scenes in which the female lead blurts out the line "We're not assholes!"
• It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: Shyamalan has stated that The Happening was meant to be a homage to B-movies and that the real issue with its poor reception was that we all Took the Bad Film Seriously.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • “Why ya’ eyein’ my lemon drink?”
  • “What? Noooo…”
  • “Hey, guys!”
  • "My firearm is my friend! It will not leave my side!"
  • “Hot dogs get a bad rap.”
  • "Be scientific, douchebag!"
  • “Fucking trees, man. The plants.”
  • “The ___ening” has become a common way to refer to scandals in certain corners of The Internet, akin to Scandalgate. This started when the mass leaking of celebrity nudes on 4chan in August 2014 was dubbed “The Fappening” (since to ‘fap’ is to masturbate). Another prominent example of this is “The Fattening,” which was when /r/fatpeoplehate and a number of other hate communities were banned from Reddit in June 2015.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • As stupid as the plot is, trees may seem a little freaky after this movie.
  • The man in the house who shoots the two kids. Whether or not the plant toxins had gotten to him by that point, imagine not being able to go near houses to ask for help for fear of their occupants killing you.
• Questionable Casting:
  • A milder version than usual, but Mark Wahlberg as a science teacher is pretty oddball casting, and being in unknown territory with terrible direction makes his performance memetically awkward.
  • Also, casting Brian O'Halloran (Dante Hicks) as the Disposable Pilot of the Jeep.
• Retroactive Recognition: Jeremy Strong has a supporting part as the soldier the protagonists run into and join forces with in the film's second half.
• Signature Scene: The scene where the senile old woman accuses Elliot of planning on murdering her in her sleep, to which he replies, "What? Noooo..."
• So Bad, It's Good: The movie is so hilariously awful, one could think it’s really an M. Night Shyamalan satire of horror films; at one point, the wind menaces the characters, even prompting Wahlberg's character to say "let's just stay ahead of the wind." There’s also Mark Wahlberg turning in the narmiest performance this side of Nicolas Cage in The Wicker Man, at one point begging a household plant to not hurt them while they use the house's bathroom.
  • Multiple Internet Caustic Critics (such as The Spoony Experiment and Brad Jones) have sincerely called this one of the funniest films ever made. Likewise, the Honest Trailers people were surprised that it’s “supposed to be a horror movie.”
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Like many Shyamalan movies, it begins nice and eerie, only for the (risible) explanations to push it downhill. Unexplained mass suicides? Great, great. Caused by pissed-off plants releasing chemicals for exactly 24 hours? Much less so.
  • On the other hand, instead of changing its plot, it could have kept its premise, added some self-awareness to its absurdity (instead of trying to make it into a drama), and increased the Black Comedy, it could easily have been a good horror comedy akin to Shaun of the Dead.
  • As CinemaSins pointed out, removing the plants outright and making the movie about mass paranoia based on unfounded speculation from the news could make for some interesting social commentary and drama.
• Vindicated by History: Starting around 2016, critics have reevaluated The Happening as a B-movie rather than a serious action/disaster film and have since given it more positive marks, as well as examining hidden meanings that could be found in the film's plot once you don't take it literally.

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