Appropriately opening on Friday the 13th, The Happening is M. Night Shyamalan’s first rated R movie. His previous PG-13 film hits include “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs”. However, he has had major movie misses as well like “Lady in the Water”. Known as “the guy who makes scary movies with a twist,” he has struggled with how he is perceived in Hollywood. You can read more about M. Night Shyamalan in a recent New York Times article Shyamalan’s Hollywood Horror Story, With Twist.

As much as he does not want to be viewed as the guy that makes scary movies or movies with twist endings, his own web site doesn’t reflect that. M. Night Shyamalan’s new web site is supposed to be released today, so far on the home page right is a a creepy door cracked open with light leaking out. By directing Avatar: The Last Airbender, he may get the image change he is seeking.

The Happening synopsis

From director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) comes a lightning-paced, heart-pounding paranoid thriller about a family on the run from an inexplicable and unstoppable event that threatens not only humankind… but the most basic human instinct of them all: survival.

It begins with no clear warning. It seems to come out of nowhere. In a matter of minutes, episodes of strange, chilling deaths that defy reason and boggle the mind in their shocking destructiveness, erupt in major American cities. What is causing this sudden, total breakdown of human behavior? Is it some kind of new terrorist attack, an experiment gone wrong, a diabolical toxic weapon, an out-of-control virus? Is it being transmitted by air, by water… how?

For Philadelphia high school science teacher Elliot Moore (Academy Award® nominee Mark Wahlberg) what matters most is finding a way to escape the mysterious and deadly phenomenon. Though he and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) are in the midst of a marital crisis, they hit the road, first by train, then by car, with Elliot’s math teacher friend Julian (Emmy® Award winner John Leguizamo) and his 8 year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), heading for the Pennsylvania farmlands where they hope they’ll be out of reach of the grisly, ever-growing attacks. Yet it soon becomes clear that no one – and nowhere – is safe. This terrifying, invisible killer cannot be outrun. It is only when Elliot begins to discover the true nature of what is lurking out there – and just what has unleashed this force that threatens the future of humanity – that he discovers a sliver of hope that his fragile family might be able to escape what is happening.

Watch the trailer for the Happening

Watch the red band trailer for The Happening (this one has disturbing scenes)