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'The Happening'

Rating:

BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

June 13, 2008

It's hard to discuss "The Happening" without giving too much away, which is surely how writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (he also produced) wants it. The title is purposefully vague, conveying a nameless dread. And by the film's end, there's still some wiggle room around what, exactly, is happening.

Broadly stated, it's a rash of suicides. The first symptoms are disorientation and a zombified stare, but what follows depends on what's at hand: a pistol, a shard of glass, perhaps a large lawn mower. The spreading horror prompts panicked theories: A terrorist attack? A natural phenomenon? (Have any of these people seen "The Birds?") At any rate, the dwindling survivors go scrambling for cover without knowing exactly from what.

Our heroes are Elliot Moore ( Mark Wahlberg), an amiable high-school science teacher, and his endearingly spacey young wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel). Also on hand are a teacher colleague, Julian ( John Leguizamo, in a strongly sketched performance), and his quiet 8-year-old, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They're an appealing foursome who drive the action as they flee their homes and try to keep their wits.

Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense," "Signs") knows how to create an atmosphere of fear, but his approach here is unusual. His camera seems detached, almost glum, yet his townsfolk are colorful oddballs of an almost Lynchian caliber. Some are quite funny, like the farmer who noshes on a hot dog during a crisis, while others are downright ghastly (Broadway veteran Betty Buckley plays a memorable madwoman). The extra layer of surreality is entertaining, but it keeps the frights from feeling real.

Is that the film's point? At times it borders on metaphor, with shades of 9/11 (a shower of plummeting bodies) and a blatant ecological theme. But it never quite jells. "The Happening" wants to scare us without providing a cause - a trick only Hitchcock has managed.

PLOT A wave of suicides inexplicably plagues the Northeast. (R)

CAST Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo

LENGTH 1:39

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE M. Night Shyamalan mixes "The Birds" with "War of the Worlds," but the premise is too thin to deliver any real chills.