'The Happening' goes downhill after chilling start

A series of chilling and bizarre episodes in major American cities leads to mass suicide.

Philadelphia high school teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) heads into the Pennsylvania farmlands with his estranged therapist wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) in the hope they will be safe from the impending danger.

They take mathematics teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his eight-year-old daughter Jess (Sanchez) with them, bound for the train out of the hot zone.

As they head into the countryside, the strangers realise that nothing can stop the invisible killer that seems destined to wipe out the entire human race.

‘The Happening’ will certainly shock and surprise viewers who enjoyed writer-director M Night Shyamalan’s previous paranoia thrillers, though not in a good way.

The opening scenes in Central Park and surrounding areas of New York are genuinely unsettling. However, as soon as he declares what forces are really at work here, bringing about mankind’s day of reckoning, we lose all interest.

Rating: 2/5