Movies
The Happening
“But here’s the real shocker, the statement that will blow all of your minds… this is one movie that you will be hoping for a twist ending! When there’s nothing happening for 90-minutes (other than some random deaths), all you can hope for is a finale that sends you out of the theater smiling, instead you’ll walk out perplexed as to what you have just witnessed, which is Shyamalan failing to deliver once again. What’s that I hear? Sounds like the the wind is telling me I should have avoided this one…”
Read a review by The Undead Comic here
Spoilers follow
I’ve never been a huge fan of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies, but all of them at least look fantastic, sound incredible and carry a few solid moments that make the film worth your time. His latest effort, THE HAPPENING, tries to re-invent Shyamalan as a writer-director, only it fits the exact same mold, and this time there’s no major twist that he’s become famous for.
When a series of unusual events begins to draw the attention of the world’s population, high school teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and their family go on the run. Their attempt to avoid becoming victims of these bizarre occurrences develops into a desperate fight for survival as an apocalyptic crisis threatens humanity.
Shyamalan wastes little time is establishing the plot and how severe of a situation everyone is in. The movie opens with two very bizarre occurrences, one depicts a girls suicide on a park bench, while the other features dozens of workers jumping to their death off a building their erecting (shown in the trailer). The scene in the trailer shares little resemblance to the impact of the actual moment in the film. Shyamalan’s HAPPENING is R-rated and it becomes apparent when you literally see workers squashing to their death all around. They lay on the ground mangled and twisted from the dozens of broken bones. The impact of the sequence is off the charts as the sound design and score add so much to an already horrifying moment. Forget the other reviews, things are headed in the right direction, or at least they were…
From here on out the story gets old and our protagonists are on the run from… nothing? There are literally moments in the film where Wahlberg and Deschanel are running through fields while wind chases them. What type of villain is that?! There is a small sense of paranoia delivered throughout the film, but at no point do we actually believe this is happening or could ever happen. Just because Shyamalan fills the movie with devil’s advocates doesn’t make it a second more believable.
One again Shyamalan has proven without a shadow of a doubt that he should NOT be writing his own movies. He’s one of the best when it comes to directing a beautiful film, and integrating masterful sound design and a score, but there is little in this massive scope that carries any weight. In HAPPENING there is no killer, no bad guy and nothing specific to be afraid of, which is why there is zero suspense once the film kicks into high gear. And as shocking as this will sound, THE HAPPENING is a blatant rip-off of the themes from Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO. The lesson of HAPPENING is “fear vs love” and how fear will destroy our world, which is the same as in DARKO.
It also doesn’t help that Mark Wahlberg puts on one of his worst performances of his career, making this reviewer laugh uncontrollably during a few scenes. He speaks as if he’s reading right off cue cards or trying to remember his lines as he says them. There’s nothing that takes you out of a movie more than horrid acting.
But here’s the real shocker, the statement that will blow all of your minds… this is one movie that you will be hoping for a twist ending! When there’s nothing happening for 90-minutes (other than some random deaths), all you can hope for is a finale that sends you out of the theater smiling, instead you’ll walk out perplexed as to what you have just witnessed, which is Shyamalan failing to deliver once again. What’s that I hear? Sounds like the the wind is telling me I should have avoided this one…
This week kicked off with the release of hippo horror movie Hungry at home, and four more horror movies have arrived for at-home viewing as we head into the final weekend of June.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, June 26, 2026!
The Halloween season can no longer be contained to the months of September and October, with “Summerween” becoming a thing in recent years. Essentially, it allows for Halloween to bleed into the warmer Summer months, and the first ever Summerween movie has arrived.
The Asylum released Summerween onto Digital outlets today.
In the film from writer/director Ryan Ebert, “On Summerween, a former circus clown escapes a mental institution to return to his abandoned mansion and hunt the teens partying there.”
Cole Chapleski, Chase Breithoff, Logan Roe, Sophia Sabol, and Clint Morrison star.
Director Ryan Ebert is the man behind a string of recent indie horrors we’ve covered, including Shark Side of the Moon, The Jolly Monkey, Jurassic Reborn, and Predator: Wastelands.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now playing in select theaters.
Check your local listings to find a theater near you.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Producers Tyler Perry and Jason Blum have joined forces for Peacock Original Strung.
The film is now streaming only on Peacock.
“A talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity.”
Malcolm D. Lee (Scary Movie 5, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directs from a script written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers).
Chloe Bailey (“Swarm“), Lynn Whitfield (Jaws: The Revenge), Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens”), Anna Diop (Us), Coco Jones (Vampires vs. the Bronx), Langley Kirkwood (“Banshee”), and Romy Woods star in Peacock’s Strung.
Produced by Diablo Cody, director Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits brought a new coven of witches to the big screen earlier this year, and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Victoria Pedretti (“The Haunting of Hill House”), Alexandra Shipp (Tragedy Girls), Gabrielle Union (Breaking In), and Emma Chamberlain star in Forbidden Fruits, released by IFC and Shudder.
Free Eden employee Apple secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges the group’s ‘girl boss’ ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Diablo Cody said. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Forbidden Fruits may not necessarily forge new terrain in the teen satire space, but Alloway brings so much style and energy to her well-cast single-location stage play adaptation for the Gen Z crowd.”
The film is an adaptation of playwright Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die. Alloway and Houghton co-adapted.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by HUNGRY.
All aboard the swamp tour from hell – this hippo isn’t playing games…
HUNGRY is now available on Digital. Watch it now!
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