If he wants to be credible again, he should go back to the formulas he used for films like Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs.  (I even thought the Village was 3490583450x better than this excuse for a movie or Lady in the Water). I just think the B movie argument is inapplicable in this case because that message was never conveyed in any way to people like myself or Mark Sample before seeing the movie.

And another thing, now that I think about it…It is COMPLETELY unfair and dishonest to have a resume with good movies such as Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, etc. –> have previews for a movie that completely make it out to be a serious, interesting thriller along the same lines as the previous good ones –> and then have the movie itself be complete different bullshit!!! That is so unfair!! Imagine if your favorite rock band, whose first three CDs you absolutely loved, was going to hold a concert.  The concert was advertised as being more of the same good old stuff that you love about the band, and then they came out and played ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ and ‘Old McDonald’ Motown style.  Wouldn’t you be a little pissed?Wouldn’t you feel cheated?? Wouldn’t you want your money back? 

Geez.

Never before have I wanted $9.50/90 minutes of my life back so much.

I can appreciate Shyamalan’s goal to make a B movie — and I can even see some of the shots that recall horror classics. But I still think Shyamalan missed his mark.

The problem with paying tribute to an older “low brow” movie genre (e.g. a Western or horror flick) is that a director can either do a smart, self-aware film that challenges and even makes fun of the genre’s conventions (the Scream movies do this); or the director can do an over-the-top film, over-saturated with elements of the original genre (Quentin Tarantino is good at this).

It’s very difficult to make a straightforward B movie that hits the notes of the original genre without turning into satire or camp. Todd Haynes did a fantastic job with Far from Heaven, a film that doesn’t descend into satire or camp, but remains exactly what the original genre was, a touching melodrama. Shyamalan tried to do it with The Happening and it just didn’t work. There is such a thing as a good B movie. I don’t think The Happening is it. Neither satirical nor campy, it’s just a bad B movie.

When I went into the movie, it was knowing that I was going to see a campy horror movie, except with high production values (like Grindhouse, for example). Unfortunately, the media hyped it up as something else completely and a lot of people went in expecting something else and came out disappointed. 

The movie was for a very specific niche audience, but no one told the rest of the movie going world.

The Fall, Mark, The Fall.  It has healing power.