﻿In today’s video, we will be going through the 2008’s Psychological
Thriller film, The Happening. Spoilers ahead! You have been warned.
Make sure to give this video a thumbs up, comment on what your favorite part was,
and subscribe to our channel for more. At the beginning of the movie, we see two girls,
presumably friends, sitting on a park bench, reading. Then a series of unusual events unfold
as everyone in the busy park starts playing a game of freeze and melt. They might be about
to perform a flash mob; we do not know for sure. But all of them stop abruptly at the same time.
One of the girls is as confused as us, but the other seems to be a part of the flash mob.
She asks what page she was on, takes off her hair stick, maybe to somehow use it to find the
page she was on? No, actually, she instead uses it to stab herself in the neck.
Precisely three blocks away from the park is a construction site.
Suddenly a worker falls from the top of the building. His friends who see this
call the ambulance and hang up the phone when another worker falls from the top.
Then a third, fourth, fifth. It almost seems like a mass suicide prank, but it's not.
Somewhere else, a high school biology teacher named Elliot Moore informs his students about
the sudden disappearance of a large percentage of bees from the environment. He asks the class
for their theories. I personally think it was because of aliens who planned to attack
the humans when they are weakened by the lack of vegetation caused by the absence of bees,
but Elliot’s students think it is plain old global warming and pollution. What boring people! Elliot
is then summoned by the school’s principal, who has also called all the other teachers to
inform them about the strange mass suicides happening throughout New York City.
When the class is over, Elliot gets to know about the evacuation that has been implemented.
Basically, the government wants to send people away from the city until they figure out what
is happening and what they can do to stop what is happening. Smart move on their end;
sometimes, they care about people. Elliot reaches home, where he meets his
wife Alma Moore, who is watching the news. It says the government assumes it is a terrorist attack;
they might have spread some gas that makes people irrational and suicidal.
The Moores plan to take the next train to Philadelphia with Elliot’s friend Julian,
his wife, and his daughter Jess. As Elliot goes to pack his bags for the trip,
Alma gets a call from someone named Joey and hurriedly declines it. Oooh,
we know what that means; someone hasn’t been faithful to their husband.
Now the two are at Grand Central waiting for their train with Julian and Jess.
Alma argues with Elliot for telling Julian about their argument, and Elliot tells Julian about the
fight he just caused, a vicious cycle. But we know that the Moors’ relationship is going down.
They leave on a fully packed train without Julian’s wife, who got stuck in the traffic.
The scene changes to another of traffic in Philadelphia, where we see a police officer
shoot himself dead in the middle of the heavily jammed road. One would think people
around will come to his aid, and they do, but only to take his gun and kill themselves.
This is also assumed to be the effect of the terrorist-inflicted toxin in the air. My two
cents on it? No terrorists, yes aliens. The scene again changes to the train, which is so packed
that Elliot and Alma have to sit separately. Convenient for Alma because she quickly calls
Joey and asks him to stop calling her. According to her, they “only had tiramisu that one time”.
Is that a new slang for hooking up? Everyone on their phone suddenly starts panicking when
they find out that Philadelphia also has been attacked by the aliens- I mean terrorists.
Julian’s wife’s whereabouts are unknown, so his daughter Jess is worried. Suddenly, the train
stops on its tracks, literally. The people get out and see they are not where they were supposed to
stop, but instead, in a small town named Filbert in Philadelphia. No one knows what is happening.
The train’s driver? Train’s pilot? The person in charge of the train tells them that they have
lost all contact with basically everyone outside, so they cannot go further.
The town’s little diner is flooded with customers. Alma is waiting in a long line to
go to the restroom. Elliot gives little Jess his “energy ring” to make her happy. A random woman
shows Elliot a video of a man offering his arm to a lion. The lion bites it off and eventually eats
the whole man. A good conversation starter. These kinds of activities are now happening all
over the northeast states. Everyone in the diner watches the TV when the news reporter claims,
looking at the area affected, the possibility of it being a terrorist attack is less likely.
One word, three syllables, A-Li-En. The diner is dead silent when one man
claims that the mass suicide doesn’t seem to be happening ninety miles from the town.
Not a single person questions him, and all of them run outside in search of a vehicle
to drive ninety miles away. The person could have been bluffing to get to the front of
the washroom line but let's just go with it. Elliot finds a vehicle for them, but Julian wants
to go to save his wife in Princeton. So, he hands his daughter to the two and drives away in another
car. The couple who is giving Elliot and Alma the ride first go to their house to collect supplies.
The man owns a nursery and claims that the suicide toxin is produced by plants.
But he also talks to his plants, wishing them goodbye, so I don't know if they can trust
him. Even Alma thinks he is crazy. Meanwhile, Julian and the group he took a
ride with finally reach Princeton and see several people hanging on tree branches.
A woman, rightfully so, starts to scream, and Julian gives her some math puzzles to
calm her down. Does it work? Kind of, but I wouldn’t use math to calm people.
He then notices a tear in the jeep’s roof through which air can pass in. Soon, they all are affected
by the toxin. The man driving the car hits a tree in front and is thrown out. WEAR YOUR
SEAT BELTS. Julian is fine, he has no injury from the accident, but he is not really fine because
his brain is all scrambled from all the toxins in the air. So he steps out of the car, sits on
the ground, and slits his wrist. Poor Jess. Elliot and the group, unknown to Julian’s fate,
keep on driving but see several dead bodies on the way ahead. So they take another way. However,
a military person named Auster stops them, claiming that everyone in that direction
is infected. They still have two paths they can go, but before they can even start the journey,
more cars come their way from all directions saying that no place is safe.
The large group decides what they have to do now. Auster uses his military position to his advantage
and declares himself the leader of the group. He decides they should stay together and go to
a safe house nearby. The others have no reason to disagree; they do not know what is going on.
Neither does Auster, but someone has to take the initiative.
People who do not have cars make their way to the house while those who own cars go the other
way to collect them. Elliot, Alma, and a few others go straight to the house. On their way,
to my surprise, Alma confesses her ‘friendship’ with Joey to Elliot. But it turns out she did
actually just have a tiramisu with him. And no, it is not slang for hooking up.
In the other group, suddenly, Auster stops in his tracks.
Then everyone else in front of him does the same. Ironic that the leader is the first one to be
infected. He says one or two things about his gun being his ‘best friend’
then shoots himself dead. The others follow the lead, including the crazy plant man and his wife.
Elliot’s group hears the gunshot but does not know what to do.
Elliot, with his science teacher abilities, deduces that the toxin stimulates when people
are in larger groups. So he asks everyone to separate into smaller groups. Two teenage boys
join Elliot, Alma, and Jess. They run away and reach a house in the middle of nowhere.
They get in and stay for a while, but Elliot knows soon other people will start coming there.
They cannot risk being there for long, so they continue walking away from the place.
As they reach afar, Elliot sees other groups approaching the house as he has expected.
Suddenly, they freeze. We know the drill by now. This time, a man runs a lawnmower and lays down
in front of it. People are getting creative with every suicide. The group then walks far away and
reaches another house. Alma claims Jess needs some food and water, so they knock on the door.
The people inside don’t want to let them in because they think the group will bring the poison
in. Guess what Elliot does then. He SINGS a song. He says it is to sound normal so that the people
would let them in, but randomly singing while in a conversation? Really Elliot? The teenage boys
aren’t having it, though. One of them starts cursing the owners and calling them out.
The owner simply brings his rifle out and shoots the guy dead. The man is not
playing. He shoots the other one too. Elliot takes his family and flees as fast as he can.
Then we see the condition of people around the country. Some wear poison masks inside the house,
some stay in the bathtub for some reason, and some people, like always, think it is the
government’s tactic to control the population. I’m not even gonna explain this one...
The news says that the nuclear bases in the northeast might be leaking some gas. However,
no one knows for sure why all this is happening and when it will end. The sun is about to set when
the three reach an old house. It seems deserted from afar, but when Elliot gets near, he sees an
old woman sitting outside. She seems to not know anything happening in the outside world.
Elliot doesn’t speak a single word, but she invites him for supper. There is a ninety
percent chance this woman is a serial killer, but the family has no other choice. As they eat,
the woman tells them she grows her own food and doesn’t keep up with anything from the outside
world. That is because ‘they’ don’t care about her, and she doesn’t care about ‘them’.
Jess tries getting a cookie in front of her, but the woman slaps her hand. Poor Jess. The woman’s
crazy side is showing. She lets them stay in the house for the night but somehow manages to say it
very aggressively. Honestly, they should run. When they are in the room, Elliot notices her
standing in their doorway in her nightgown. She asks Elliot if they plan to steal something.
Elliot, surprised, tells her that they aren’t. Then she asks them if they plan to murder her
in her sleep. HONESTLY, THEY SHOULD RUN! Elliot is just as confused as us, but the woman
doesn’t utter a word and just returns. The night ends, and the family comes out of it alive. Elliot
is looking for the crazy mofo around the house when he finds a porcelain doll lying on her bed.
I swear this woman keeps the body parts of every person she has killed inside that doll.
She startles Elliot from behind him and accuses him of trying to steal.
She aggressively tells him to get out of the house right now and goes out of the house herself.
He follows her and tries to explain everything but sees her acting weird,
which is kind of hard to tell because she has always acted weird, but now she is
acting infected-by-the-suicide-toxin weird. He runs inside and quickly shuts the door. Alma
and Jess are in the outhouse. To Elliot’s horror, the woman starts banging her head on the window,
eventually killing herself. He goes to a room of the house from where he can talk to Alma at
the outhouse with the help of some weird old technology the previous house owner used.
He tells her to stay in the outhouse with Jess because the toxin is now affecting people who
are alone as well. They talk about their first date and at that moment realize how
much they love each other. The two decide, if they die, they are going to die together.
Then they come out of the house and meet in the middle. Alma also brought Jess out,
putting the little girl’s life in danger. But, none of them are infected. Power of love?
The scene cuts to three months later. Jess now lives with Elliot and Alma,
and they love her as their own. The news claim that the toxin was let out by plants in the air,
something a high school teacher had already deduced. The toxin’s spread ended
suddenly at 9 the next morning; no one knows why that happened.
Basically, there is no explanation as to what happened and why it happened. Then we see Alma
taking a pregnancy test that comes out positive. She tells Elliot about the pregnancy happily.
Cut to Luxembourg Gardens, Paris. The park is filled with people when suddenly everyone
stops in their tracks, suggesting that similar events are about to take place there as well.
Absolutely fantastic. Thanks for watching! Make sure to
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