A young woman on a park bench stabs herself in the jugular in Central Park while, nearby, a group of rooftop construction workers willingly plunge to their deaths from tens of stories up. It's 8:33 in the morning and, with a mass of unexplainable suicides around Central Park, the routing of mankind seems to have begun. Caught up in the mix are Philadelphia science teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) - as of recently suffering from unnamed marital difficulties. Operating on little more than bad vibes they head, along with math instructor friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), out of Philly and into the rural Pennsylvania countryside.

Terrorists? The CIA? Who, if anyone, is responsible for the horrific events going on just to the north? It soon becomes clear that the event is reaching much further than just New York City, with Boston and even Philadelphia being affected as the day wears on. By the time Elliot and his cohorts' train makes an unexpected final stop in Filbert, PA, the event seems to have spread well beyond human means - as smaller and smaller areas become targets the idea of terrorism and government tinkerings lose favor to the thought that mother nature, herself, may be behind the ever-growing number of self-inflicted atrocities. Julian heads off in search of his wife, last heard to be heading towards Princeton, and leaves his daughter Jess under the watchful eye of "uncle" Elliot and "aunt" Alma.

Together, the three encounter all manner of individuals - nutty nursery owners, shaken military men, hot-headed teenagers, and paranoid gun-toting locals - in their feeble quest to get out of the Northeast and away from the ever-menacing event.

M. Night Shyamalan's THE HAPPENING proved an almost confoundingly disappointing film for me to view. Like many I had caught the original script for the film, under the working title THE GREEN EFFECT, when an Acrobat file of it was leaked to the public some time ago. While it certainly could have used a bit of polishing, the project seemed very promising at the time and I looked forward to its eventual release in theaters with an amount of anticipation. Sadly, the film's troubled journey towards production (Shyamalan reportedly shopped the original script around Hollywood for weeks, with no luck, and rewrote it considerably before finding a home for the project at 20th Century Fox) shows markedly in the final product.

The first major problem with Shyamalan's latest outing is that, no matter how creepy the scenes of human ' self-destruction are (and believe me, they are), the "happening" of the title never becomes a truly palpable threat. Originally envisioned as an apocalyptic global catastrophe, the "happening" was downsized for the film, to no good effect, so that it involved only the Northeastern United States. Details of just what is going on are poorly conveyed throughout, particularly during the overly heavy handed conclusion, and, in the worst of B-movie tradition, the need for bogus explanations trumps the sort of ambiguity necessary to make utterly ridiculous scenarios like this one (plants emit a human-specific neurotoxin that reverses our survival instincts) believable and frightening. Even worse, clues to the nature of the "happening" are revealed through gee-wiz lines that would have been much better left unsaid (i.e., Elliot remarking "Another park?" after a woman on a train informs him that the incident in Philadelphia began in, you guessed it, a park).

Another major hurdle for audiences of the film to overcome are the performances - particularly the one given by Mark Wahlberg. From reading the script and seeing the film one can see that the character of Elliot is supposed to be naive and almost child-like, but Wahlberg pushes it too far over the top and just comes off as irritating for the most part. A particularly embarrassing moment sees Elliot desperately struggling with himself for answers to what is going on while spouting utterly inane dialogue in which he refers to himself as, no kidding, a "douche-bag". This sort of poor scripting is echoed in the lines of the parties short-lived teenage members, who refer to unseen and crazy gun-toting bumpkins as "pussies". Other performances fare more or less the same, with John Leguizamo seeming miscast, underwritten, or both.

The revised scripting seems largely at fault for many of THE HAPPENING's problems, most notable among them the non-existent character development. The two leads spend the majority of the film talking in vague ways about their marriage problems with the audience being given absolutely no information about just what those marital problems are. As such, the conflict that comprises the majority of the dramatic content of the film ends up being of little to no interest to those watching it unfold. It's pertinent to note, I think, that the original script included a scene of Alma and Elliot fighting - the fight ends with Alma leaving her wedding ring on a table before heading out for the day. Even more interesting is that this scene is supposed to take place at precisely the same time as the events in Central Park, juxtaposing the breakdown of the Elliot/Alma marriage with the breakdown in human society. This point is furthered at the end of the script, with Elliot and Alma reconciling with each other just as the event comes to an end.

Why that element of the story was eliminated is beyond me - the very best of B-movies survive their shortcomings with subtext, after all. Unfortunately, Elliot and Alma are not the only characters who suffered through the script revision process. Many of the off-beat characters they encounter become little but comic fodder in the film version - the nursery owners are hot-dog obsessed and spy on their neighbors while the military man is an over-the-top buffoon. Comic relief can be useful in a film intended to be as dark and ominous as THE HAPPENING obviously was, but it is utilized so poorly in this case that it only succeeds in pulling the audience further out of a picture already riddled with issues. The religious nut-ball Mrs. Jones was altered considerably as well, losing much of the religiosity and gaining considerably in the area of nut-balliness. Aside from spewing out nonsensical lines to the rest of the cast ("Are you planning to kill me in my sleep?") and being somewhat possessive of her lemonade, the Mrs. Jones of the film is used for cheap shock factor to drum up suspense in the waining final reels.

THE HAPPENING has been receiving a rather harsh critical reception since late last week, leading to more speculation that writer/producer/director Shyamalan may have lost the touch that made his earlier efforts as good as they were (such speculations began with the release of THE VILLAGE and peaked when LADY IN THE WATER, a film I happen to quite enjoy and think may even be one of the director's strongest outings, flunked out at the box office). Having seen what the promising THE GREEN EFFECT became, I can certainly see why. Still, this problematic effort has at least a few positives to offer those who are willing to sit through it.

The violence depicted in the film, much bally-hoo'd by the marketing (It's M. Night Shyamalan's first R rated feature film, y'all!) is handled remarkably well with two exceptions. While certainly the most graphic images the director has ever committed to film, they are captured from a distanced and neutral perspective that would have made them effectively creepy even if a few pints of stage blood hadn't been involved. The exceptions to this would have to be the zoo keeper feeding his limbs to a pride of lions - this is easily the most graphic (and least convincing) effect of the film and seems oddly out of place amidst the other moments of human destruction present - and the shotgun deaths of the teenage tag-alongs. In the script it is implied that these two burn themselves to death after trying to set fire to a field - having them killed by a paranoid hick instead does nothing to further the film and the manner in which it is depicted is in remarkably poor taste.

Another plus side and, possibly, the saving grace of this film for me is the reconciliation of Alma and Elliot in the film's final act. The couple, isolated from one another by a field, put aside their differences and join hands, preferring to die together and in love than separate and not. The scene is effective in spite of its melodramatic nature and is truly one of the high-points of the feature. Like most of the good things about the film, this one is fleeting - just before it fades into the unnecessarily lengthy conclusion Elliot utters something so damningly obvious that it all but ruins the charm of the scene that preceded it.

In spite of these positives, WTFFILM found this Shyamalan effort to be lacking direction, with the "be kind to the environment" angle tacked on to the film's closing reel in such a manner that it should make most audience members groan. The director has called his project a "fun B-movie" - unfortunately it suffers from the very worst of B-movie trappings. The characters are poorly conceived, the performances mediocre, and the scripting sub-standard. With a purported $57,000,000 behind it, THE HAPPENING comes across as little more than 90 or so minutes of expensively unrealized potential. Shyamalan reportedly took on much of the burden of financing himself - one can't help but wonder if his original script produced for less would have turned out any better in the end.

THE HAPPENING features another wonderful score from Shyamalan standby James Newton Howard and a chillingly simple opening credits sequence that's an obvious homage to the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS but offers up too little else to warrant a recommendation. It may prove suitable (and barely that) as last-minute matinee fare, but that's the most I can really muster in support of it. Still, there is something oddly likeable about this generally inane little disaster effort and I can't say that I feel the $5.44 I spent to see it was ill spent.