I figured double-featuring this film maudit with The Sixth Sense would mean that at worst, only half of my evening would be wasted. Most people agree this is terrible, but as an established Trap enjoyer, maybe I’d join the sickos calling it a masterpiece? Turns out I’m in an even smaller group: those who thought it was fine. A solidly constructed, terrifically shot thriller showcasing the most idiotic human behavior. Maybe idiocy is the point – this isn’t humanity at its finest, it’s the same dummies who choked the planet into violently defending itself – but there’s no excuse for those two stupid boys knocking at the cabin until they get shotgunned, or for Zooey Deschanel. All told, a slight improvement on Long Weekend (The Happening of the 1970s, which shows up on best horror lists).
Opens with the Cabin in the Woods girl on a park bench as the mass suicides begin in the densest cities and spread into ever less-populous spaces. Marky (whose brother Duddits was in Sixth Sense) is dismissed by Principal Cameron, then he and Zooey take colleague John Leguizamo’s daughter so John can go on a doomed hero mission towards his wife in New Jersey (the garden state, oh no). The three get a ride from hotdog-obsessed plant growers. Marky tries to make everything about himself, but the hotdog husband (Turturro’s evil brother in O Brother) has a good sense of what’s going on, while TV news hosts blame the government. Later they get a meal from an ornery white-haired woman (The Horde’s psychiatrist in Split) who refuses all news from the outside.
“Be scientific, douchebag” – the movie has a healthy sense of humor about itself, Marky talks to a plastic plant like it’s holding him hostage, and of course characters try to run away from the wind. Some disquieting death scenes via gun and glass and lawnmower, multiple oblique 9/11 references. Victims’ language malfunctions right before death – this the same year as Pontypool.
Adam Nayman in Cinema Scope calls it “deeply stupid”:
This idea of needing to split off from the herd to survive is endemic to the apocalypse sub-genre, but it has a greater significance for Shyamalan. Simply put, the guy has an isolation fetish … when Elliot concludes, “We’ve got to get away from other people,” it’s more than a plot point: it’s the author’s rallying cry.