The Happening
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan5.017%24%5.4
When a deadly airborne virus threatens to wipe out the northeastern United States, teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma flee from contaminated cities into the countryside in a fight to discover the truth. Is it terrorism, the accidental release of some toxic military bio weapon -- or something even more sinister?
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The Happening Ratings & Reviews
- BryanFebruary 23, 2026Whalberg is terrible, but the movie is otherwise solid and not deserving of the abuse it gets.
- JakeysDecember 28, 2025This movie sucks. It's actually funny how bad it is, and Wahlberg is very lucky this didn't completely kill his acting career. I've seen the claim M. Night intended it to be a satire or something, but it doesn't really seem to be smartly satirising anything, it's just a bunch of really bad dialogue and acting with a flimsy premise. It's like the meme of the guy acting like an "idiot" and then gets called out for his behaviour and says "Jokes on them, I was only pretending" - this is the movie version of that. As an aside, I love Zooey Deschanel but she isn't much better than Wahlberg in this. I'm sure she knew the movie was crap and the lines she was reading were terrible, but then you get an actor of John Leguizamo's calibre and he absolutely sells it anyway. He's the only one making this trash work on any level.
- handban2January 17, 2025Amazing movie one of the best comedies this decade
- tellumAugust 19, 2025This is one of the worst directed movies as there is no excuse to see the performances the actors put out and not see a problem. I can accept the idea that a lot of bad movies can actually look ok when filming scenes in isolation and it isn’t apparent how bad it is when it comes together in editing, but with this one there is no way. It had to be painfully apparent to all involved that this sucked except M Night, this is what he wanted and it should haunt him forever.
- I AMSeptember 15, 2025Looks like the actors just needed a paycheck
- alihoneycuttSeptember 1, 2025There's a deadly contagion that affects people in places that are mostly ignored and very thinly populated. Quick! If you want to survive, everyone head to a WNBA arena!!
- SaturnFoxDieJuly 18, 2025Amazing movie, period. One of the directors best.
- jeyh9November 9, 2025The most inoffensive 1 star possible. There was nothing stand out good or bad. The acting was bad but not outstandingly so the story was bad but not remarkably so if there was a soundtrack it never registered to me. A movie that is better than only the offensively bad simply because it had nothing to even note
- aamillikinOctober 29, 2025Just god awful.
- Rocket976August 31, 2025Decent but could use some sort of explanation
- Kevin WardJuly 3, 2025My kids picked this movie tonight. They seem to gravitate towards M. Night films when given that option. I really did not care for this film when it came out, but I have to say it’s definitely much better than I remember. Honestly, the only things holding me back from a higher score are Wahlberg’s performance and the fact that he and Deschanel have zero chemistry together. Wahlberg actually had more chemistry with the plastic plant, which admittedly was a really funny moment. Entertaining watch and the family liked it too.
The Happening Trivia
The Happening was released on June 11, 2008.
The Happening was directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
The Happening has a runtime of 90m.
The Happening was produced by Deven Khote, Sam Mercer, M. Night Shyamalan, Barry Mendel, Jose L. Rodriguez, John Rusk.
When a deadly airborne virus threatens to wipe out the northeastern United States, teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma flee from contaminated cities into the countryside in a fight to discover the truth. Is it terrorism, the accidental release of some toxic military bio weapon -- or something even more sinister?
The key characters in The Happening are Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), Alma Moore (Zooey Deschanel), Julian (John Leguizamo).
The Happening is rated R.
The Happening is a Thriller, Science Fiction, Drama film.
The Happening has an audience rating of 2.4 out of 10.
The Happening had a budget of $60M.
The Happening has made $163.4M at the box office.