| | | Includes Over 1 Hour of Intense Bonus Footage Not Shown in Theaters!
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, English, French, Spanish, Subtitled, Dubbed
From M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director of The Sixth Sense and Signs, comes a gripping thriller about a family on the run from a mysterious and deadly phenomenon. Academy Award Nominee Mark Wahlberg (2006 Best Supporting Actor -- The Departed) stars as Elliot Moore, an ordinary man trying to save his family from a terrifying, invisible killer. As Elliot begins to discover the true nature of what is lurking out there, it soon becomes clear that no one -- and nowhere -- is safe.
"...shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg." Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
"An unapologetic B-movie." William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Editor's Note
In THE HAPPENING, M. Night Shyamalan serves up over-the-top, apocalyptic strangeness. The film opens onto New York City's Central Park with a crowd of people enjoying an idyllic summer day. The carefree scene soon takes a terrifying turn, when out of nowhere, hordes of people begin to commit suicide en masse. People scramble to make sense of the pandemonium, and many believe it is a terrorist attack. It appears that some sort of deadly toxin is being released into the air. Cut to Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) a science teacher in Philadelphia. When he learns of the attack on New York, he meets up with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julians's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They make plans to get out of the city via train, but the train is evacuated in the middle of a small Pennsylvania town. When they learn that the mysterious toxin is spreading its way across the Northeast, they break up into groups, with Elliot, Alma, and Jess running through open farmland in search of safety. They are unsure of where to hide, or what exactly they are hiding from, until Elliot slowly forms a theory about the threat. He fights to keep Alma and Jess free from harm, and the film builds to a bizarre, unsettling climax, with Shyamalan's usual surprise ending.Shyamalan's premise of escaping an unknown, unexplainable attack is a timely one, and is quite chilling in concept. However, while he at times appears to be groping for the frenzied scariness of THE BIRDS, THE HAPPENING's outlandish death scenes and implausible plot line often veer closer to B-movie classics. The film doesn't match the clever creepiness of THE SIXTH SENSE, but for fans of campy horror à la THE EVIL DEAD, it is truly something to behold.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: French, Spanish Dolby Digital Stereo | | Deleted Scenes With Introductions By M. Night Shyamalan | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Featurettes: The Hard Cut, "I Hear You Whispering," Visions Of The Happening - A Making Of, A Day For Night, & Elements Of A Scene | | Gag Reel | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Theatrical Trailers |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | The Happening - DVD Review By: Brian Holcomb - Cinema Blend DVD Reviews Published on: 10/12/2008 12:59 PM | | The writer-director-subgenius once again robs the grave of Rod Serling in The Happening with another 30 minute Twilight Zone story played out in his characteristic s-l-o-w style to cross the feature length finish line. You can just imagine the Serling narration: "The time is the present. The place: the city of brotherly love. The cast of characters: humanity, which now faces judgement from the very environment they took for granted." For no apparent reason and without warning, people all over the world begin to spontaneously commit suicide. ...read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Foxvideo |
| Release Date: 8/6/2009 |
| Running Time: 90 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 2253289 | | UPC: 00024543532897 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"[With] moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg." 06/13/2008Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live." -- Albert Einstein...An alarming prospect, and all the more so because there has been a recent decline in the honeybee population...The quotation appears on a blackboard near the beginning of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening," a movie that I find oddly touching. It is no doubt too thoughtful for the summer action season, but I appreciate the quietly realistic way Shyamalan finds to tell a story about the possible death of man...What I admire about "The Happening" is that its pace and substance allowed me to examine such thoughts, and to ask how I might respond to a wake-up call from nature. Shyamalan allows his characters space and time as they look within themselves. Those they meet on the way are such as they might indeed plausibly meet...I suspect I'll be in the minority in praising this film. It will be described as empty, uneventful, meandering. But for some, it will weave a spell. It is a parable, yes, but it is also simply the story of these people and how their lives and existence have suddenly become problematic. We depend on such a superstructure to maintain us that one or two alterations could leave us stranded and wandering through a field, if we are that lucky. - Roger Ebert
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