Part 1 of Fun Times with Bad Movies: The Happening

Most movies run the gambit in quality from mediocre to pretty good. Every so often a movie is great, and a few films manage, despite a great deal of effort and money, to be terrible. Once in a few years, a film arrives on screen that manages to stand out, even with other great movies (many critics are saying Boyhood might be one of those films, you can watch it and decide for yourself).

However, as many movie goers familiar with M. Night Shyamalan's recent work know, there are also some movies so bad, so transcendently awful, so magically inscrutable, they manage to jump to the other end of the quality spectrum and become just as entertaining as the excellent movies. Sometimes a film is just so terrible, it becomes good. More than good, it can be great. One of my favorite films is in this category. The same might be true for you as well. This is the first installment in a series that could potentially be very long. 

Note: Some terrible movies are god-awful because the film is lazy or basically engineered to suck. Those, generally, are unwatchable (see Transformers franchise). 

The Happening-currently at a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes

Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel tried their hardest to make this good. The infamous Mr. Shyamalan did as well, I assume. It was to little avail. If you haven't heard of The Happening, it is a adventure-horror flick based around the idea that nature has had enough of pollution. The premise is even a fairly creative one. Plants have begun excreting a pollen (or something) that makes people commit suicide. Could be kinda cool if done well, right? We will really never know. The dialogue is so honky it's funny. Characters speak out of character constantly, state the obvious, and talk to fake trees (below). 

Interestingly, the most fun in watching The Happening comes from the idea that is supposed to inspire the greatest amount of fear: the death sequences. The suicides in The Happening are so absurd it almost seems like creative genius. In one instance, a violinist is hit with the sickness mid-recital and proceeds to attempt to swallow his bow. It's great. 

The Happening is a movie I strongly regret not seeing in the theatre. A friend of mine had the privilege of catching it right as it came out, so the theatre was packed. He related to me the experience of seeing it as one of the best he'd ever had in a theatre. The whole audience, one by one, slowly realized the utter horribleness of what they were watching and united to insult and make-fun of every terrible scene that came on screen. The Happening, it turns out, is a movie that brings people together. 

The Room is owning every discussion of bad movies I've heard recently, and this movie certainly deserves a shot, so watch The Happening. Check out the clip below for a taste. 

Also, watching with the RiffTrax commentary is a great idea. The MST3K people are doing god's work.