Bad Movie Month #15: Killer Klowns from Outer Space

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Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Directed by: Stephen Chiodo
Produced by: Charles Chiodo, Edward Chiodo, Stephen Chiodo
Written by: Charles Chiodo, Stephen Chiodo
Budget: $1,800,000

Starring: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, Royal Dano, Michael Siegel, Peter Licassi, John Vernon

This movie has a theme song about Killer Klowns. The minute it starts you should know what you're in for.

When an alien spaceship resembling a circus tent lands outside the small town of Crescent Cove, its population starts vanishing. It's up to Mike Tobacco (Cramer), his girlfriend Debbie (Snyder) and various other 80s characters to fight against this new, wacky menace.

Let's put this right out there, this movie is pure 80s cheese. The decade has a definite tone for its movies, and Killer Klowns feels like the logical conclusion to ten years of goofy comedy-horror monster movies in the vein of Gremlins and Ghostbusters. It's definitely a part of what I call the "ugly 80s" after all the glam and sparkles wore off and all we had left was frizzy hair and a cocaine problem. It reminded me somewhat of the movies Spielberg produced during the 80s, like Gremlins, with some legitimate creepy stuff against a comedy backdrop. As with almost any horror-comedy the emphasis is on the humor first, scares second.

The Good
Ultimately the premise is elevated by how self-aware the movie is. It knows how dumb the idea would be if it was played completely straight, so the characters regularly bring the absurdity up when trying to explain it to each other. This is one thing that's been consistent across the good-bad movies: the logic inside the film reflects how we feel we would react in that situation. Saying things like, "Yeah, it's crazy, but I have proof that alien clowns are eating people" increases the reality of the movie and shows that the characters are cognizant of the outlandish circumstances.

The script is pretty well done for a movie like this. There are some pretty funny awkward relationship exchanges between some of the characters, and it never feels out of placed or forced. The performances help put this across, as the actors obviously know exactly what kind of film this is. If Cramer or any of the other cast had played it too straight it would have stood out, and not in a good way. While watching this I got the feeling that this was exactly the type of movie WolfCop was trying to imitate.

In addition to the above, the characters address certain plot points. Later in the movie the core five talk briefly over why the aliens look like clowns, and point out that they may have been the origin of the clown aesthetic/idea. In the universe of the movie it makes sense, and to the audience it answers a question that no doubt came up: "Why clowns?"

There's some really good production design in here. This was made in the era before CGI became wide-spread and cheap, so you've got some great use of matte painting backgrounds, exceptional model work, and some really weird set and costume design. The clown prosthetics are really weird looking, and they actually reminded me of the design of Tim Curry's costume in IT, specifically when he goes crazy and has the big, sharp teeth. There are some really goofy uses of clown...tricks(?) as alien tools, like the cotton candy cocoons, shadow puppet monsters, and the animated balloon animals. One twisted clown cliche which actually creeped me out is a dark version of a ventriloquism dummy using a human corpse.

The Bad
While the physical production design is pretty good, there's some other issues which stick out. The sound mixing and levels are inconsistent, as is much of the audio dubbing. Certain effects seemed like they were delayed or lagging behind when they should have been on screen, and there are times where the volume levels don't feel right.

Certain cuts and direction felt cheap, even knowing the crew was doing what they could with what they had. Every time there was a car crash (and there were several) you could very clearly see the car slowing down rapidly before they cut to an interior shot of the driver throwing himself forward onto the steering wheel. I understand why they did it that way, but it still feels slightly clumsy and every time it happens it sticks out from an otherwise fun movie.

I'm not afraid of clowns, but if you are then no doubt you'd consider this a "bad" thing. Most of the clown designs are monster-y enough that I feel most people could get around it, but I'd understand why that would only make it worse for some people.

The Rest
The same crew plans to return for a sequel entitled Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D with Cramer planning to return as a town-drunk version of his character. I'm not sure this is necessary, because sequels to movies this self-aware tend to over-indulge and turn out poorly. However, as of the time of this posting it seems that the sequel might be stuck in production hell and might never see the light of day.

Should You Watch it?
This is classic 80s b-movie fun. If you can handle watching clowns kill people then yeah, give it a shot.

Bad Movie Month #14: Jack and Jill

Why did I do this?

Jack and Jill (2011)

Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Produced by: Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, Todd Garner
Written by: Ben Zook (story), Adam Sandler, Steve Koren (screenplay)
Budget: $79,000,000

Starring: Adam Sandler, Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Katie Holmes

Jack (Sandler) is a successful advertising executive attempting to land the big client for a major account. When his twin sister, Jill (Sandler) visits for Thanksgiving, her wacky demeanor and larger-than-life personality promise a holiday filled with humor, sass, and maybe just a little lesson about what family is all about.

I shouldn't have to say this, but you shouldn't watch Jack and Jill.

Sandler's 2011 film has a reputation as a piece of garbage, and for good reason. This movie doesn't so much come together as stumble from one product placement to the next, cut in between with crude attempts by Sandler to get some laughs out of bodily functions, racism, or Sandler screeching in bad drag.

The movie starts with a series of interviews given by pairs of real-life twins (all played by actual twins, so there's that) who talk about how being biological copy-pastes of each other have affected their lives. These are at least interesting to listen to, and it seems pretty obvious that the movie is going to use it as a bookend, with the last one probably being Jack and Jill giving an account of how being twins made them love each other. Spoilers: Jack and Jill have a single shot at the end, and no dialogue. I guess Sandler couldn't get enough in the budget to earn that last line.

The cast members in this movie couldn't put any less effort into their performances. Sandler plays an everyman, as he likes to do, across from himself as a screeching brick of a woman who doesn't seem to actually have any redeemable qualities. His Jill voice reminds me of Gilbert Gottfried without the self-aware charm, and all of his lines feel like he didn't actually write anything for himself just improvised everything in one take.

The supporting cast is just as bad. Katie Holmes doesn't actually do anything except constantly remind Jack that Jill is his sister and he should be nice. The two child actors are...standard child actors, though they're on the bottom half of acceptable. Nick Swardson is awful, but I haven't ever seen him in anything where he isn't, so that wasn't so big a surprise as his continued career. Finally, throughout there are numerous cameos and minor roles from Sandler's buddies and other celebrities, including Drew Carey, Johnny Depp, Norm Macdonald, Christie Brinkley, and in one of the most unintentionally funny parts of the movie, an angry Jared Fogle.

Al Pacino plays an actual part in the movie as himself, and he does alright. His final lines to Jack as the movie fades to black are about how he needs to burn "it" (meaning the commercial, but more likely the movie itself) to guarantee no one ever sees it. Shaq shows up to lick a loaf of ham (I'm not kidding) and David Spade shows up in drag. The best character is Allen Covert's Otto, playing a homeless man, who seems to know exactly what type of movie he's in.

As far as story goes, there isn't really one. Jill comes to town, makes Jack's life difficult, and in the end they realize that family is cool and they should be nice to one another in that classic sappy Sandler way. There's an arc about Jack trying to land the big Pacino commercial which carries on throughout, but it's so half-heartedly done that it doesn't matter.

One notable thing about the movie is that Jack's job as an advertising executive makes product placement easy. Below is a list of products and companies which appear in the movie, with the bolded names representing ones that play large parts in the plot:

Dunkin Donuts: The big client, with Jack trying to get Al Pacino in a commercial for them. The movie ends with a literal Dunkin Donuts advertisement.
Royal Caribbean Cruise: The family goes on a cruise and the movie stops for about a minute for the captain of the ship to address the camera and elaborate on all of the cruise amenities. I'm not exaggerating, it even looks like it comes with b-roll from a RCC commercial.
Pepto Bismol: We open on a fake Pepto Bismol commercial with Regis Philbin. Sandler and Swardson each take huge gulps from a Pepto Bismol bottle early on.
Craigslist: Used to post a fake Casual Encounters ad for Jill.
Radio Shack
Sony, Sony Vaio
American Airlines (rows and rows of terminal signs)
Hilton Hotels
The Price is Right
Coca Cola (at least four cups in movie theater chair arms, logos facing the camera)
Google
Match.com
eHarmony
Twitter
Maxim
Budweiser
LA Lakers

The LA Lakers scene is particularly weird, because it seems they couldn't actually get the Lakers. Instead they filmed the dialogue scenes on a small sound stage with some stands and green-screened the actual game behind them and combined it with...just game footage.

In general the Jack/Jill effects are mediocre. The movie looks cheap, both in effects, costumes, and directing. The digital inserting for Sandler is fuzzy-edged, as are the green-screened scenes.

And finally, Jill is simply unlikable as a person. She comes into her brother's life, shoves her way into his work, and doesn't ever seem to develop any self-awareness. There's no moment where the siblings sit down and have an actual conversation about any of it; it's either Sandler shouting at himself or Holmes delivering some sugar-coated, generic family garbage about how siblings need to put up with each other, no matter how dysfunctional they are. In the end Jill finds someone who is willing to enable her behavior, and the family

Do not watch Jack and Jill.

Bad Movie Month #13: The Ridiculous Six

The Ridiculous Six...out of Ten
(probably more like a four, actually)

The Ridiculous Six (2015)

Directed by: Frank Coraci
Produce by: Allen Covert, Adam Sandler
Written by: Tim Herlihy, Adam Sandler
Budget: $60,000,000

Starring: Adam Sandler, Will Forte, Taylor Lautner, Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, Terry Crews, Luke Wilson, Nick Nolte, Rob Schneider, Harvey Keitel, Jorge Garcia

In October 2014, Netflix signed a deal with Adam Sandler to produce four movies for the man. This is the first.

In the wild west, White Knife (Sandler) is a legendary white man living with a tribe of indians. When his father appears and is abducted by a violent gang of outlaws, White Knife learns he has five half-brothers and must gather them to get their father back.

During production the film caught some attention due to a number of native extras walking off the shoot due to the portrayals of the Apaches. The official number varies, but most on-set sources say it was around a dozen or so. Make of that what you will, but considering there are Apache characters with names like Never Wears Bra, Smoking Fox, and Beaver Breath, I wouldn't be surprised if that was damage control.

Yeah, before I even get into the rest of the movie, let me say that this one plays up the racism of the west to a ridiculous degree, which would be fine if it was handled like actual satire. I'm hesitant to call this satire, though, because it seems that the script itself is the thing making these names up, not the characters.

Anyway.

The Good
As a western, "Ridiculous Six" hits a number of tropes pretty solidly. The landscapes are, of course, beautiful, the gunplay isn't bad, and the costumes and props don't look cheap, which can be a problem with Sandler movies.

To piggyback off of the above, as a recent Adam Sandler movie it looks good. Some of his...films...have been really cheap, with bad sets and bad costumes. This looks like it had some actual value put into its production and direction. Certain action sequences are pretty good, including Sandler cutting a bullet in half and Luke Wilson handling his whiskey.

This movie has an inexplicably top-notch cast who, for the most part, turn in fine performances. Harvey Keitel is back to playing underground scum, Jorge Garcia does fine as a mumbling mountain-man. Taylor Lautner plays a dimwit, and looks like he's having a blast. Terry Crews does fine, but he's playing western-Terry Crews, so that's not unexpected. What surprised me most was Nick Nolte's understandable English and good performance as the dad of the Six.

There are several...I guess I would call them guest-stars who show up throughout and play pretty minor characters, some of whom I got a real kick out of. The portrayal of Mark Twain in particular was so unexpected I couldn't help but laugh.

Some scenes are laugh-worthy. I won't spoil them because they're really the only thing worth seeing in the movie.

The Bad
Adam Sandler is Adam Sandler, and with that comes the standard problems. Sandler's acting itself is so bland, without any real attempt at emotional delivery for anything outside his Eastwood impression. Rob Schneider obviously only has the job because he's living in Sandler's garage, but he seems to really try and channel his 50 First Dates performance.

As mentioned above, the movie has some really caricaturish portrayals of native americans, particularly the Apache people. Just from watching the movie you can probably guess there wasn't a cultural adviser (or adviser of any sort) on the set. Supposedly Sandler addressed the controversy on the set, but said that it wasn't the proper battlefield for the fight. Whether it was or not, the jokes could have at least been less lazy.

Really, aside from the decidedly not-Sandler scenes the rest of the movie falls somewhere on the spectrum between the usual Sandler fare and poor Sandler fare. Ha ha, the burro has diarrhea! Look at this goofy physical comedy! Didn't understand a joke? We'll keep it going for too long (though not as long as McFarland does in some of his stuff). The movie features Sandler playing someone who has to reconnect with his father and fiance at the same time, and ends with a wedding.

The Rest
I think I pretty much covered most of it. This movie is fairly light on the content outside the goofs and gunfights. Dialogue, when there is any, tends to be expository or useless. It's got the usual Sandler lite-heartwarming ending.

Should You Watch it?
I can definitely see people enjoying this, but I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're a die-hard Adam Sandler fan. If you're a western fan and want something recent, go watch Bone Tomahawk, True Grit, or pretty much any other one to get your fix. It's worth rewatching the others rather than spend two hours on this.

Just avoid A Million Ways to Die in the West, because that one's just as bad, if not worse.

Bad Movie Month #12: Reefer Madness (1936)

#420blazeit

Reefer Madness (1936)

Directed by: Louis J. Gasnier
Produced by: George Hirliman
Written by: Arthur Hoerl (screenplay), Lawrence Mead (story)
Budget: $100,000 (roughly $1,700,000 in 2015, according to US Department of Labor)

Starring: Dorothy Short, Kenneth Craig, Lillian Miles, Dave O'Brien, Thelma White, Warren McCollum, Carleton Young

Young Billy Harper (Craig) and Jimmy Lane (McCollum) fall in with the wrong crowd and get involved with marijuana, their lives take a dark turn. Watch, young viewer, as these young people's health, happiness, and innocence are destroyed forever...by Reefer Madness!

"Reefer Madness" is a morality tale originally produced by a church group in the 1930s as a way to warn kids of the dangers of marijuana use. After achieving little of note for a number of years, the film was bought by well known exploitation film director Dwain Esper, re-cut, and redistributed on the exploitation film circuit for a long while. The film was rediscovered after spending a decade or two in a red-eyed haze, and has been hailed as one of the worst movies ever enjoyed.

It's also in the public domain. You can watch it on Wikipedia if you want.

I'm not going to do a Good, Bad, the Rest section for this one. There really isn't much of a need, partially because this movie is certifiably awful, and partially because it was made in such a different time. Nearly 80 years have passed since Reefer Madness showed how marijuana can turn people into cackling sex demons, and people don't say "swell" anymore or flail to piano music.

And yet, if it hadn't been so goofy, it wouldn't be nearly so enjoyable. From the hilarious vehicular homicide to the infamous "play faster" scene the movie trades one over-the-top scenario for another, all carried out 100% seriously. It even ends with the frame-lecturer pointing at the camera, warning the audience that their children could jump out windows or be the victim of a framed murder.

Finally, there's a good bit of cultural history you can glean from this movie. It's an unironic point of view we don't normally see in film from the time, and it can be fascinating to watch the chain of events play out.

Should You Watch it?
I had a good time, and I was sober when I watched it (not that I've ever used marijuana, obviously). I feel like it would be even better with some friends who can appreciate a little drug-crazed abandon. While I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, it most certainly entertained me.

Bad Movie Month #11: The Lazarus Effect

Introduction to Necromancy, where
everything is horrible.

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Directed by: David Gelb
Produced by: Jason Blum, Luke Dawson, Matt Kaplan, Jimmy Miller, Cody Zwieg
Written by: Luke Dawson, Jeremy Slater

Starring: Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger

"The Lazarus Effect" is a movie about what happens when you dick around with necromancy.

Frank (Duplass) is a researcher working with his team: wife, Zoe (Wilde), techie Niko (Glover), science-guy Clay (Peters) and videographer Eva (Bolger). The team is using grant money to fund secretive experiments designed to assist coma patients and extend how long a person can be cut off from oxygen, but it turns out that the drug, Lazarus, actually brings beings back from the dead.

After an evil corporation buys them out, the team tries one more test, in which Zoe gets electrocuted and dies. Frank injects her with Lazarus, she goes crazy, develops psychic powers, and kills everyone.

"The Lazarus Effect" was produced super-cheap, with the majority of its budget probably spent on the stars and psychic abilities. The movie takes place in three separate, indoor settings with minimal props, costumes, and makeup. Story-wise it's nothing special, and honestly I'm a little surprised this movie was made in the first place, partially because it has a relatively well-known cast and also because I've seen this movie before, but done better.

The Good
The performances are fair, but that wasn't unexpected from this group. I like Duplass well enough in what I've seen him in, and he puts good emotion into his scenes when necessary. I almost forgot it was a cliche when he had to test the serum on his dead fiance. Wilde does pretty well with what she's given. The rest of the crew is similarly invested, though I still couldn't help but see Glover as Troy Barnes from Community, despite the fact that he's actually six months older than Olivia Wilde.

For the first half hour or so the movie has a really interesting premise, and the character reactions to their experiments feel legitimate, for the most part. At times the script is actually pretty good, mostly when the science team is bantering with each other.

Use of psychic abilities in the movie are executed competently, with some fun hidden cuts and other similar effects. There is one actually creepy shot of Wilde looking into a broken mirror and the second reflection of her face (in a shattered piece nearby) shows a different expression. Sure, it's been done before but it's actually the best horror trope in this movie.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the good parts of the first act are quickly thrown aside in the second and third acts in exchange for generic slasher movie tropes, including the now-archaic trope of the black guy dying first. As I watched the movie it traded in the introspective weirdness of bringing someone back from the dead to...crazy psychic person murders everyone. If you've ever seen that setup before, you don't need to see this one.

What scares there are are mostly startles, rather than scares. Things like a dog suddenly barking, doors banging open, and at one point an upside down Wilde shouting at the camera. If you like jump scares, fine, but this movie telegraphs pretty much every one of them. Lights flickering? Better watch the background, because...yup, there she is.

The story is pretty generic, with science crossing some line and the offenders getting wrecked. There's plenty of fake science jargon which could be swapped with any other movie within the genre, but it really lost me when it fell back on the old favorite, "10% of our brain" trope. While the movie tries to head off any criticism by continuing (we don't know what the other 90% is for) it doesn't really matter. The trope is played out.

Another trope is plays fairly straight is the "character wins in her head, but loses in real life" thing from...most horror movies. It's a cop out in most cases, including this one, and I almost would have preferred it ended without Wilde winning. I don't care that she resurrects her team, because...I didn't care that they died/

Finally, the movie is only 83 minutes long and the second half feels fairly rushed. Character deaths happen pretty rapidly and any attempts to think or develop the movie past its current point stop. One by one Wilde kills her friends, and that's the movie. It moves so quickly it almost felt like a montage.

The Rest
The characters fit pretty well into the Cabin in the Woods roles:
The Whore: Olivia Wilde, for flirting with death. She dies first.
The Athlete: Mark Duplass. He's big, intimidating, and headstrong.
The Scholar: Donald Glover, for being one of the only characters on screen to actually do science.
The Fool: Evan Peters, because he has the e-cigarette.
The Virgin: Eva, who is innocent of all of the science mumbo-jumbo. Dies last.

Looks like the Old Ones will be appeased for another year.

Should You Watch it?
Not unless you're an absolute horror junkie, and even then only after you've exhausted everything else. It almost feels cynical in how it hits all of its plot points and how it rushes its second half. If you're a mega fan of Duplass (why?) or Wilde (she's in better stuff) then go ahead, but don't expect to have a very good time.

Bad Movie Month #10: Snakes on a Train

This train is going to hit you!

Snakes on a Train (2006)

Directed by: Peter Mervis
Produced by: David Michael Latt, David Rimawi
Written by: Eric Forsberg
Budget: $1,000,000

Starring: Julia Ruiz, Giovanni Bejerano, Al Galvex

The Asylum is a joke studio which makes mockbusters loosely imitating recent high-budget releases in attempts to make a quick buck from confused audiences. "Sunday School Musical," "Transmorphers," and "Atlantic Rim" are just some of their obvious copies. Asylum films are often notable for their cheap feel, often independent of their admittedly low budgets, atrocious writing, and exceptionally sloppy editing directing.

When Alma (Ruiz) is placed under an ancient Mayan curse, her protector Brujo (Alby Castro) must get her to see a powerful shaman who lives in Los Angeles. They hop a train inhabited by a group of the dullest, worst-acted characters with uninteresting, unfinished subplots. As their journey starts, Alma starts spitting up snakes which get loose and threaten the other passengers. Eventually the curse progresses to the point where Alma turns into a giant snake and eats the train before another shaman's magic can banish her to a distant...nuclear tornado?

This movie doesn't make much sense. Even as a mockbuster it's such a confusing premise and change from the original Snakes on a Plane. While that movie wasn't great cinema by any stretch of the imagination, this movie just drags on and on over its 90 minute runtime.

The Good
The only thing that stands out in this movie is the occasional shot of snakes under someone's skin, or green snake vomit, or the body horror. At certain points there are actually some really good (if not goofy) practical-looking horror effects which actually reminded me of old-school B-horror movies. The problem is that they don't feel like they were intentionally made this way, and were just an attempt to be cheap because all of the CGI budget went to the awful ending.

Props to Julia Ruiz for actually putting snakes in her mouth. I wasn't expecting even that level of effort, but the movie surprised me there.

One good thing about the movie is that it ended after 90 minutes.

The Bad
One bad thing about the movie is that it's 90 minutes long.

Aside from the three good practical effects, the majority of this movie is so badly done that it firmly leaves the "so bad it's good" zone early on and plants itself squarely in the "so bad it's horrible" spot. This starts off with the very first shot, with the awful video quality and cheap-sounding microphone and audio recordings. Shots transition with halfway-fades, where an image will fade onto screen, fade out, and then we'll get a cut to that image after it faded.

Honestly, it's going to be difficult to say anything about this movie that fully encapsulates how bad of a time I had watching it. There's no chemistry between any of the actors, whether it be Alma and Brujo, the two drug-smuggling girls, or the thugs. Whether this is because of the performances or the writing is immaterial because neither are worth mentioning beyond their absence. At once point one of the smugglers is getting sexually assaulted by a federal agent of some sort, and it's uncomfortable...not because I like the characters but because watching people you dislike molest each other is far worse.

Alongside the absurd directing is the shoddy audio work. The ambient noise levels will change between shots taking place in the same abandoned train car (and the color temperatures too, but that's not my current point). Attempts at creating interesting camera angles are just disorienting, with mundane telephone conversations being shot in a weird upside-down bird's-eye view. Even when the camera doesn't get in its own way the action taking place on screen isn't worth paying attention.

Oh, there are fight scenes, but they only feel like they're put in because Snakes on a Plane had some fight scenes. There's a group of...bandits, or something, on the train, and Brujo has to regularly beat them up. The fight scene choreography reminds me of the movies I'd make in high school with my friends, without the self-awareness. At one point a man gets stabbed in the throat, calmly walks over the ladder leading to the ground below, and lowers himself onto it so Brujo can kick him off.

The last twenty minutes or so devolves into something resembling a bad trip which consists solely of the unnamed, undeveloped train car passengers getting bitten, choked, and otherwise killed by the escaped snakes. Each of these shots is complete with either an obviously fake animal or a completely disinterested animal draped over a screaming extra.

The Rest
The movie ends with Alma turning into a giant snake and eating the train. It feels like a turn out of nowhere, and apparently was added because a group of Japanese investors asked if there was a scene where a giant snake ate the train (after seeing the box art) and were disappointed that there wasn't one originally.

This feels like a movie the guys at Funny Or Die would parody in a 10 minute short. Get Dax Shepherd, Maggie Grace, Joshua Harto, and a few others and you've got some look-a-likes with actual skills.

Should You Watch It?
No. The Asylum doesn't deserve your money or attention.

Bad Movie Month #09: The Happening

HEY GUYS BE NICE TO THE PLANET

The Happening (2008)

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by: M. Night Shyamalan, Barry Mendel, Sam Mercer
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Budget: $48,000,000

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley

Elliot Moore (Wahlberg) is an unconvincing, wide-eyed high school science teacher with an equally wide-eyed, unconvincing wife Alma (Deschanel). When a mysterious neurotoxin starts making people kill themselves in droves, the pair takes on their friend Julian's (Leguizamo) daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) as they try to survive this strange...happening.

It's plants, which isn't much of a spoiler.

"The Happening" is not one of Shyamalan's better-remembered films, which isn't saying something considering his track record resembles a black diamond ski slope in quality. Shyamalan has always been open about how much Alfred Hitchcock influenced his own film making, and there's a lot of Hitchcock in this movie, but ultimately not enough to overcome the now-expected underwhelming Shyamalan slump.

Now, I don't outright hate Shyamalan like a lot of people seem to. He's a fine director, and "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" are really good. "Signs" was alright, and even "The Village" has its fans, for some reason. The problem comes when he's in control of most of a movie's production, similar to George Lucas on the prequels, and...man, "The Happening" was bad.

Please note that every time I use the word "happening" I am not trying to make a pun. It's just a side-effect of the cruddy title.

The Good
The movie actually starts out on a good note. Before we're even introduced to our main characters we have several scenes of nobodies killing themselves in various ways. One woman pierces her throat with a hair needle, a bunch of construction workers jump to their death, and a group of people pass around a cop's gun. These scenes are lies, because the minute they stop the movie slides more and more into ridiculous territory.

The construction worker scene at the start of the movie is by far the best scene in the movie. Cornell Womack actually puts in a good performance as a construction man who thinks his buddy's just fallen from the top of a site. Unfortunately he's not the main character.

The Bad
As you might have noticed above, I can't even really talk about this movie's good parts without bringing up how bad the rest of the movie is in comparison. While the early scenes are really well done the entire thing drops after the 23 minute mark, when we start getting information about what's actually happening. You can actually sense the cast giving up when we see the video of the tigers tearing a man's arms off.

The acting is hilariously bad almost entirely across the board. I don't mind Wahlberg when he's playing a meathead, but his performance as science teacher Elliot is so strikingly awful that I almost felt bad for him. In interviews he's mentioned that Shyamalan wanted Wahlberg to play someone different than his typical muscle-bro but he doesn't seem up to the task. His attempts to sound urgent are hard to describe, but it sounds like he's reading all of his lines sarcastically, which I don't think was intentional.

And then there's Dechanel. I feel like a large part of her performance can be chalked up to the fact that Alma has almost zero character development past teary-eyed worry, because she's not normally a bad actress. She was fine in...um...New Girl? She was in Elf, and she did alright in that. There were lines where I would just stare slack-jawed at her delivery, at the dialogue, at the framing. For reference, there is a character in the movie for about ten minutes total who gains more character from a speech about hotdogs than Alma does throughout the entire film.

Shyamalan obviously thinks he's the next Hitchcock, and that wasn't helped by times when people called him the next Spielberg. There's some major similarities between The Happening and Birdemic, and not just in the way that the stories are parallel environmental anvils. Both directors were massively influenced by Hitchcock and other directors of that time, but I feel like Shyamalan was good enough early on that it's gone to his head. It's only recently that his name's stopped being a punchline and people are giving him a lesser Affleck treatment.

Finally, there are scenes in the movie that are so absurd it makes me wonder whether Shyamalan didn't actually intend for this to be a comedy of some sort. Some noteworthy scenes include Mark Wahlberg talking to a plant, a group of people running away from the wind, and the bizarre framing, shots, and pans. There are multiple dialogue exchanges where each line has its own close-up shot without allowing the actor's full face in the shot. The effect is somewhat like shooting a movie through a wide-angle lens without any considering for what that would actually make the movie look like.

The Rest
Here's a drinking game I came up with:

One drink every time:
-Someone says "Event"
-Someone says "happening"
-Someone says "terrorist"

-Drink for the duration of any shot consisting solely of plant life

-Finish your drink any time someone talks to a plant.

Hard Mode: Drink every time Deschanel underacts.

Here is a link to Mark Wahlberg's best performance. Whaaaaat? Nooooooo.

Should You Watch it?
"The Happening" is a study in bad film-making. If you go into it looking for some comedic entertainment or as a look at how a once-adored director can fall so far, it's passable. If you go in expecting a legitimate thriller, turn it off once the train stops. As a drama this movie ends far better if you imagine everyone kills themselves rather than letting love conquer the plants.

If that sounds harsh, I did my job.