THE HAPPENING - Holy mother of Christ, it's unwatchable.

[Starkers]

Never watched all of Sixth Sense and because I know the ending I don't think I'll bother to pick it up again. Unbreakable and Signs are good however he ruined his name with the 2nd half of Village and my god that lady in the water was just poor.

That's the trouble with the 6th Sense, everyone focuses on the twist and kinda ignores the fact that the rest of the film is actually a very tense, very scary and intelligent horror film. If anything the twist lets the film down for me (especially as I saw it coming from about 2 minutes in!) Watching the bits where Haley Joel encounters ghosts in his apartment/school etc are incredibly tense, same with Bryce Dallas Howard stalked in the woods in The Village. There was none of that tension in The Happening, it didn't even feel like MNS had directed it.

 

[stonester1]

MNS. I really enjoy his films. Like us, he loves genre material, and he brings a unique take to genre material, off the beaten path. IMO, this is a very welcome thing and should be encouraged in filmdom. I hate the same ol' same ol'.

Signs-LOVED it.

Unbreakable-IMO, his best film.

Signs-Very interesting, enjoyed it.

The Village-A mixed bag, but very old school, almost Twilight Zone. Good.

Lady In The Water-A deep (pun intended) urban fantasy on the power of myth, the imagination and the importance of storytellers. I agree. Liked it.

Haven't seen The Happening. Call me crazy, but I enjoy his stuff. Perhaps he should take a Lucas tip and colaborate more on his stuff, but I think he's a great idea man, and you can count on his films not being the same rehashed crap from Hollywood.

 

[stonester1]

That's the trouble with the 6th Sense, everyone focuses on the twist and kinda ignores the fact that the rest of the film is actually a very tense, very scary and intelligent horror film. If anything the twist lets the film down for me (especially as I saw it coming from about 2 minutes in!) Watching the bits where Haley Joel encounters ghosts in his apartment/school etc are incredibly tense, same with Bryce Dallas Howard stalked in the woods in The Village. There was none of that tension in The Happening, it didn't even feel like MNS had directed it.

I haven't seen The Happening yet. It may indeed suck. But I'm with you on his prev films.

And I honestly didn't see the twist coming. But for the most part, I don't sit there and try to predict how a story is going to go. I just let it come as it comes.

I find I enjoy movies more that way.

 

[The Evil Dead]

I really enjoy the movie Signs. Most supernatural scary movies don't freak me out cause I don't believe in vampires, werewolves or ghosts but I do believe in aliens so anything with aliens in it being creeps scare the shit out of me.

 

[Mr Light]

I found SIGNS to be terrifying; those two brief glimpses of the alien in the corn field and on the barn roof, *shudder*. Aliens freak me out. Aliens and bigfoot and ghosts. Anything that's near-human. The uncanny valley and all that.

I did find VILLAGE pretty scary until they spoiled the monsters.

 

[theenglish]

Signs-LOVED it.

Unbreakable-IMO, his best film.

Signs-Very interesting, enjoyed it.

The Village-A mixed bag, but very old school, almost Twilight Zone. Good.

Lady In The Water-A deep (pun intended) urban fantasy on the power of myth, the imagination and the importance of storytellers. I agree. Liked it.

I haven't seen The Happening either, but I agree with this assessment of his previous films. Unbreakable has stayed with me over the years much more than 6th sense. The Village was decent and didn't really need to have the 'twist' ending. The viewer could figure it out ten minutes into the film so it should have been revealed earlier in the film on screen, if not to the main characters. And Lady, while weak, was still well done.

I'm glad there are others here who like his films too. I think those who don't like them, are expecting something completely different than what Shyamalan is trying to create.

 

[ScatmanRescueMe]

Glad to know I'm not the only one who likes his other stuff better than Sixth Sense--didn't enjoy it that much and would never watch it again.

Whatever happened to that young actor, anyway?

____________________________________________________________________


"Who is the man with the raspy voice and pockmarked face---SHAS"
"He's an ugly mother-fu......."
"Shut your mouth!"
"But I'm talkin' 'bout SHAS !"
" Yo' damn right !"

 

[zenophite]

It just goes to show you that when it comes to "artistic" products there will never be a "consensus" which is why art criticism IMO is almost worthless - everyone has their own taste and one man's trash is another's treasure. Personally, with most of these Shyamalan films I just wonder what it is that people see in them, but if you get enjoyment out of them then great!

 

[LutherSloan]

My view on his films:

-The Sixth Sense: Pretty good

-Unbreakable: Good

-Signs: Decent.

-The Village: Haven't seen the whole thing, but the parts I did see were bad.

-Lady in the Water: Had no interest in seeing it.

-The Happening: Not going to see it either.

 

[FordSVT]

Some people keep mentioning he's only had a couple of hits and mostly a bunch of "flops", but, if I'm not mistaken, haven't most of his movies actually made a bucket of money for his studios? You don't need to make $300 million at the box office to turn a profit if your movies only cost $60-70 million to make. That's not an indication of the quality of his work, but it should put to rest any silly questions about why he is still working.

He apparently makes people money. This is a common question asked about directors like Micheal Bay as well, when people hate him. They seem to think that their personal opinion about his work trumps the enormous financial gains he creates for a large number of people.

I think he's a decent director, from a technical POV. Being someone else's story and script, I'm not too worried about Avatar, as long as they stick closely to the series. And they'd fuckin' better!

 

[zenophite]

^ I think that shyamalan's films have been financially successful due more to the clever marketing of his films rather than on their own merits.

 

[roguephoenix]

i managed to see this through the end, but yea, the happening just wasn't... happening for me. >_<

i wonder how he'll destroy my much beloved "avatar: the last airbender". i'm sure he'll destroy it, no question about that. that's like having brett ratner make x-men. we all know how that steaming pile ended up. or like having woody allen direct and animated children's movie. just boggles the mind how some execs think. shamalamalama and avatar are one of the most mismatched pairings ever!

 

[bigdaddy]

The only wonder he is is the fact I wonder how he gets movies made at all considering all of them sucks, or were hugely overrated.

 

[zenophite]

The only wonder he is is the fact I wonder how he gets movies made at all considering all of them sucks, or were hugely overrated.

well to be honest the suits don't really care about anything but the bottom line so as long as his pictures make enough money they'll keep giving him jobs. If the box office receipts are ever to actually reflect the quality of his films then it'll be time for Mr Shyamalan to go back to college and find a new line of work.

 

[JuanBolio]

While I haven't seen The Happening yet, the only movie of Shyamalan's that I didn't care for at all was Lady in the Water. I'll give it a chance, for the violence and shock factor alone.

 

[zenophite]

for the violence and shock factor alone.

There is a smidge but not much.

 

[dragunzng]

Quite liked The Happening, although I don't think it was anywhere near as good as my favorite Shymalan movie, Lady in the Water (wonderfully magical). Oddly enough my least favorite Shymalan movie is The Sixth Sense! Sense was an extremely well made movie but I feel it lacked the imagination of most of his other stuff. Not too fond of The Village either, though it was beautiful.

 

[Praetor]

Here's my take:

-The Sixth Sense: Pretty good

-Unbreakable: Boring

-Signs: Good

-The Village: Boring

-Lady in the Water: Interesting but muddled

-The Happening: Actually enjoyed it but not as much as Signs or Sixth Sense

 

[Barbados Slim]

I liked Lady in the Water but I watched it on HBO when I was home sick.

The Happening is terrible. Terrible!

Wahlberg and Zooey were so miscast. But the plot had so many stupid things:

- Leguizamo leaves his daughter behind to go find his wife?

- A man shoots two teen boys through shuttered yet open windows he can clearly see out of because he thought they were terrorists who'd let the air into his open-windowed house.

- Thirty people stand around a woman talking to her daughter on a cell phone and no one asks her if the people at the girl's school is alive.

- No one knows what's causing the problem but the "experts" say it'll be over at 9:30am the next morning.

- Zooey and the girl wake up and go exploring the old lady's property.

- They decide to just walk outside?

- Zooey and Mark are happy to bring another child into a doomed world? And that's a happy ending?

 

[Meat Tenderizer]

I just finished watching it - what an ordeal.

I knew it'd be bad going into it, given the reviews, but I rationalized my decision based on the fact that it's only 90 minutes long.

I immensely regret my decision.

I can't express in words how astonishingly stupid this film is. It's almost impossible to believe that the man who made the fantastic SIXTH SENSE made this mind-numbingly ridiculous movie.

If I missed the memo and Shyamalan actually intended this film to be a joke, it's not fucking funny.


I'm posting this thread in a Quixotic attempt at some sort of catharsis for the darkness and suffering I've experienced for the past ninety minutes.


And I'm also using this thread to warn my fellow TBBS friends - when this film arrives on DVD - do NOT give in to curiosity.

Unfortunately, I'm not your friend-so I must say I actually enjoyed this film. Just different tastes, I guess.