I watch all of M. Night Shyamalan's films because so many of them have been so good. I caught The Happening last night. It's an average film. It doesn't sink to the depths of The Lady in the Water or soar to the heights of Unbreakable or The Village. It's watchable, which is more than I expected, based on the rotten reaction from Rotten Tomatoes. Without giving away too much, I found its political message depressingly conformist. Far more ominous villains than the boogeymen in environmentalist scare stories are environmentalists themselves. Their certainty, power-lust, and self-righteousness remind one of the real-life villains of the past century. It's often the people ringing the alarm bells, rather than what the alarm bells are ringing for, that's truly frightening.

I saw it last weekend, and was very disappointed. To be honest, I preferred Lady in the Water. Watching the talented Paul Giamatti read a decent script (though the plot was poor) was much better than watching Marky Mark butcher a terrible script. Lady in the Water was even a better horror movie. With a single exception, the 'scary' scenes in The Happening were all comic. And the exception had nothing to do with the main plot.

The oppressive environmentalism underwriting the story was the worst part. Shyamalan used to make brilliant movies that played out deep religious themes. Unbreakable has a messianic theme. The Village deals with original sin. And Signs is a movie about personal redemption. The Happening is a shallow movie about a trendy political cause.

Nevertheless, Shyamalan is still great. He's already given us at least four exceptional movies. That's more than most. Hopefully, he'll make another.

Horror movies are meant to be dark. But I find Shamalamadingdong’s movies to be dark and boring.