I just got back from watching The Happening with my friend Travis. Thankfully, the movie theater provided us with a refund. Because seriously, I’ve had bowel movements that were more creative than this movie.

How shall I sum this up?

I think that was about as subtle as the point M. Night Shyamalaladingdong was trying to make.

It’s difficult to believe this is the same guy that wrote Signs and The Sixth Sense. I don’t know what M. Night was smoking when he thought This is a great idea for a movie!, but for the sake of the universe whatever it was needs to be criminalized.

The Happening was supposed to be a scary movie, one that would thrill you. Instead, it’s so bad you couldn’t even spoof it. We’re treated to an endless montage of the worst dialogue ever penned coming from characters so flat they disappeared when they turned sideways (and Wahlburg had to have what’s got to be the absolute worst delivered “Oh no” ever put on film). To make up for it, however, there was no plot. The motivating force of the movie was simple: “See everyone who’s not Mark Wahlburg, Zooey Deschanel, or Ashyln Sanchez? They’re going to die.”

Normally, that fact would rank up there as a SPOILER ALERT but unless you’re dumber than a package of mislabeled UPS bubble wrap (which, incidentally, would have written a better script than M. Night), you figure this out pretty much 27 seconds into the movie. Ergo, I haven’t ruined anything for you.

This movie is Shyamalan’s first R-rated movie. I agree with Travis, who said it would have worked better as a PG-13 movie. It’s rated R for gore, and the gore just doesn’t fit. There are movies where gore is appropriate (We Were Soliders, When Harry Met Sally), but The Happening is not one of those films. Instead, it’s distracting. The film is set up just so that M. Night can kill each character in more gruesome ways.

The problem is that for a horror movie to work, you actually have to care about the characters who are at risk of death. That’s where the scary part comes in. You empathize with them and you don’t want them to die. In this film, each death scene is so abrupt and so over the top that it’s closer to a comedy than a horror flick. This sets a dangerous precedent.

The film is also so on-the-nose that it’s pathetic. The Earth is dying and we are the problem. It’s so bad, after the guy gets run over by a lawnmower, you see the real estate sign proudly saying, “You got what you deserved!” Yeah, nothing subtle about that, M. Night! Where’s the skill you had when you weaved the threads of Signs together?

Also, this whole notion that everyone from the Midwest is a militia gun nut? Pathetic. Go back to your progressive cave and spawn a stalk of asparagus or something.

To conclude, the only good part of this movie was The X-Files trailer. And I could have watched that on You Tube for free. If I wanted to see something on the caliber of this movie, I’d watch a compost heap for a few hours. For the first time ever, I asked for my money back after watching a film. The theater probably was not surprised. But if this movie is still showing on Friday, I’ll be surprised.