10 Exact Moments Horror Movies Stop Trying

M. Night Shyamalan’s films can be easily divided into two categories: ones that sustain their premise and survive their twist, and those which do not. Indeed, over half the director’s filmography could have comfortably made it onto this list, but his movie with the most clear-cut moment where it stops trying is Mark Wahlberg vehicle, The Happening.

The North-East US comes under attack from what's a presumed bioweapon, which causes people to commit suicide. Science teacher Elliot Moore, his wife Alma, and a colleague's daughter Jess (Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and Ashlyn Sanchez) find themselves caught in the whirlwind of events surrounding the sudden exposure of millions of people, and struggle to keep themselves safe amid mass suicides. But this isn’t about survival, as much as the mystery of what the neurotoxin is, and who is behind it.

We don’t have to wait long to find out, because in the film’s second act, the gang hitches a ride with a plant nursery owner (Frank Collison) who hypothesises that this airborne toxic event is the work of plants developing a defence mechanism against humanity, releasing gases that stimulate the suicidal part of the brain. And that’s it. The film accepts this explanation, job done.

It’s not merely the ludicrous explanation for the mass suicides that makes this terrible, but the revelation that plants are somehow actively targeting humans. This is first draft writing, not final cut – but if his oeuvre teaches us anything, it’s that Shyamalan doesn’t know the difference.