If I had actually invested $7 dollars a person to go see this thing, I'm sure I would have walked out and probably would have requested a refund (something I've only done once in my entire lifetime - for the Rob Schneider film, "The Animal"). I can't rate the movie unless I use a negative scale and it would probably end up somewhere near the top of that. So what's wrong with the movie you ask, let me count the ways - or better yet let's use it as a case study for how not to make a motion picture.
The Happening Really Sucked - BTW - don't pet the lions
Guide to Making a Really Horrible Movie:
- Step 1 - Come up with a concept that isn't very interesting, doesn't make much sense and that most people will find boring.
- Step 2 - Talk some idiot into funding the concept (by whatever means necessary).
- Step 3 - Hire the worst screenwriters that money can buy; either draft some hoodlums from your local Junior High or bring in a team of trained Chimps - you know the ones they used to do those 'movie tickets online' commercials (again not a product placement if I don't get paid) and ask them "to just be themselves" as they write the dialog.
- Step 4 - Completely disregard the need for fancy Hollywood special effects, (we've all seen them before anyway, right?) and get some monster make-up folks to help with hanging and falling bodies and sticking giant hairpins into peoples' necks. We all know that everyone loves going to a haunted hayride - something like that should be in every film that really stands out.
- Step 5 - Hire an ensemble cast of distracted and / or dysfunctional actors and tell them to study the great silent film stars to understand how many different ways facial expressions can be distorted in order to express the depth of emotion called for in the Chimps' script.
- Step 6 - Convince star # 1, John Leguizamo, to do a Bugs Bunny impression to give us the sense of authenticity needed to convince us that he lives somewhere in the northeast United States.
- Step 7 - Give star # 2, Mark Wahlberg large doses of Nyquil in order to help demonstrate frustration with his obviously demented wife, very accurately portrayed by Zooey Deschanel.
- Step 8 - Throw in some controversy by having Mark Walhberg try to pick up some 15 year boy in his class (by telling him how hot he is).
- Step 9 - Provide the leading lady with the proper motivation to understand her role by telling her to study Dustin Hoffman's roles in both Tootsie and Rain Man and combine those together.
- Step 10 - Pick utterly unimpressive location shots, and take long menacing shots of otherwise harmless clouds passing overhead to fill us with dread and terror.
- Step 11 - Ensure early on that the audience is rooting for the mysterious disease instead of all of the main characters, hoping that the plague will wipe them out soon and perhaps wipe out the crew as well.
- Step 12 - Have someone in the movie exclaim the dialog "Cheese & Crackers" to accentuate a sense of realism and horror.
Copyright 2008, Raving Reviews™
