10 Most Unintentionally Hilarious Horror Movies

Some trailers give the game away; some play their cards close to their chest. The Happening did both at once. On one hand, in two and a half minutes you learn that the film will comprise mostly of Mark Wahlberg and others getting out of cars and doing their best serious face at an off-screen catastrophe.

On the other hand, you could easily walk into the cinema not knowing that the twist in M Night Shyamalan’s latest is that the big evil threat is… plants! In his most shocking twist yet, the auteur had successfully sold a script in which the Earth’s greenery finally had enough of humankind and decided en masse to release some sort of toxin that made everyone suicidal.

Unsurprisingly, The Happening is a silly, silly film, made all the sillier by how seriously it takes itself. Wahlberg has a keen ear for comedy when he’s allowed to cut loose, but similarly he’s capable of being as wooden as the trees that attempt to orchestrate his demise in this dud. Shyamalan commendably aimed to make a serious ecological point here, but then proceeded to undermine it at every turn by making a stinker of a film.