In Central Park, ordinary New Yorkers are falling victim to an unseen enemy. Construction workers leap to their deaths from skyscrapers. "The first stage is confused speech," a headmaster tells teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg). "The second stage is loss of direction, the third stage - is fatal." Fleeing by train, Elliot and his family are deserted in rural Pennsylvania, where he realises that a killer toxin attacks only people in groups...
Where Hollywood's horror fiends boil blood in buckets, M. Night Shyamalan prefers a subtler way to scare audiences. The Sixth Sense director has a knack for openings - the shots of suicide jumpers has an eerie echo of footage from 9/11. When Elliot is pushed off the train in the middle of nowhere, he asks why. "Sir, we lost contact," says the train conductor. "With whom?" says Elliot. "Everyone." Quietly chilling.
The Happening is a Film programme that first aired in 2008 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
