The Happening Happens Upon DVD And Blu-Ray

The Happening may not have been so happening at the theater, but maybe it will be in the comfort of your own home. Well, that’ll be for you to decide because Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the apocalyptic horror flick on Blu-ray and DVD October 7th.

In typical M. Night Shyamalan fashion, this film exposes the audience to the most original and unexpected terror and paranoia one could imagine but unlike his past hits, like The Sixth Sense and Signs, The Happening does it in an R-rated manner. Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) join others who survive strings of death plaguing major cities and desperately fight for their lives. The most difficult aspect of this fight? They don’t even know who or what they’re running from. (Perhaps this is what made the film so difficult for moviegoers to digest as well.) The deaths increase and the couple finds themselves puzzled by the deaths which arrived with no warning and continue with no reason.

If the film doesn’t give you enough goose bumps, you’ll have the DVD bonus material to terrify you some more. It boasts a significant amount of material that has been dubbed “too intense for theaters.” The DVD edition will come with behind the scenes material, a featurette called “I Hear You Whispering,” a featurette that details a day in the life of M. Night Shyamalan wittily called “A Day for Night,” a featurette that dissects a scene from the film called “Elements of a Scene,” a making of documentary and deleted scenes. If you get the Blu-ray edition you’ll also get the featurette called “The Hard ‘R’,” as well as a bit that teaches the specifics of shooting on a moving train and another one that focuses on how the crew was able to achieve the wind’s eerie look. Yea, then they include an interview and commentary by the wind as well. Now if this kind of star doesn’t make a movie compelling, I don’t know who will. You see, all this sounds great for someone who was fascinated by the movie, but the extra I’m most looking forward to has to be the gag reel. I wonder if it’ll be as humorous as the unnecessarily gory death scenes and the entire plot for that matter.

For being such a big M. Night fan I’m disappointed to say that I won’t be adding this disc to my library. I spent the $11.25 to see the film in theaters. Even though I ended up getting my money back – due to faulty audio equipment – I still won’t be spending the $29.98 for the DVD or the $39.98 for the Blu-ray version. Instead, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for his newest project, The Last Airbender, due to hit theaters in 2010.