I watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. After i had finished the movie I stared at the screen for awhile. Not in awe or shock, but in thought. Trapped in thought because i was surpised at how much i liked the film and was pondering of all the reasons i did.
The reviews that i had read about it were in-between and some critically low, but i had only seen a couple positive reviews for the film.
The reason the film works for me so well is because of Shyamalan's use of shock in the movie. There wasn't any fast shutter-frame photography, which is the rage and ads heightened-perception to disturbing scenes and chases. The shocks were all in the way the scenes were played out. So realistic, there were no close ups of the gore-actually alot of it happened off-screen. The scares that it instilled came from the presentation of the characters performances that were affected by the "happening," just really creepy to watch.
The atmosphere was great in the film, and the dialogue while at times was one of the best uses of suspense and sometimes a touch cliche, i felt that overall the function of the dialogue was played to maximum efficiency.
The movie moves at interesting pace. In retrospect you might say that kind of meandered in the middle, but the fact is that it gave you time to think and usually thats not a good thing for a story to do but with this excellent direction you will not notice that the plot points are a little farther apart than most movies in recent history. In the end, you expect some twist or some blatantly insulting diatribe of what really happened and how it all really makes sense, but it never comes, and we are resolved happily and rewarded with our own thoughts.
This was the best thriller/horror film that i have seen in a month. And i watch a couple a week.
