The Happening (2008)

The villain of The Happening is a light breeze, and Mark Wahlberg spends the whole movie trying to outrun it. M. Night Shyamalan plays this completely straight, which is how you get the most unintentionally funny thriller of 2008. Wahlberg plays a science teacher who sounds like he’s reading his lines off cue cards held by someone very far away. He pleads with a houseplant to spare him, then finds out it’s plastic. Zooey Deschanel stares wide-eyed through every scene, and their marriage subplot about a mood ring and a tiramisu is baffling. John Leguizamo brings the only real tension, calming strangers with a math problem. Betty Buckley, as a suspicious old woman in a farmhouse, is the one person who seems to know she’s in a horror movie. It made $163.4 million worldwide on a reported $48 to $60 million and earned a D CinemaScore. A 2.4 because it’s so earnest that it turns into comedy. $5.11 says you glance at the potted plant in your kitchen tonight and apologize to it, just in case.

What works: Betty Buckley’s farmhouse scenes are genuinely creepy, and the opening in Central Park sets up an eerie mystery that hooks you fast.

What doesn’t: The performances are stiff to the point of comedy, the dialogue is clunky, and a threat carried on the wind never builds any suspense.

Who it’s for: Friends who want a so-bad-it’s-good movie night with plenty of pauses for repeating the lines out loud.