How Effective is ‘The Happening’ as a Thriller?

M. Night Shamayalan is infamous with the thriller genre. Throughout his career he has directed films such as ‘Signs’, ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’. Although these come under different sub-genres, they all fit perfectly as thriller being the second half of this. However, I will analyse his newest film ‘The Happening’ to see how well it fits into this genre. To do this, I shall look at the opening five or so minutes of the film.
The film begins with an opening g title sequence; however this is used well to build tension for the film. It begins with clouds moving in a bright, blue sky. This would signify a sense of calm but the non-diagetic use of tense orchestral music, focussed on strings, does exactly the opposite making the audience feel tense. The scene would also be considered conventional of the genre for taking a normal situation, and make it feel uncomfortable. As the sequence moves on the clouds get much heavier, this is used to signify something bad happening. The tempo of the music speeds up adjacently with the action whilst a crescendo occurs to climax the tension. The camera uses a low-angle, so the audience are looking up at the clouds, and may be used to represent a feel of being powerless. Then suddenly as the sound and footage reaches a climax the screen suddenly becomes black with complete silence. This being completely conventional of a thriller; using silence at vital moments of tension to hook an audience.
The opening scene of the film is set in a park and is used to set normality and calm. The mise-en-scene are people walking their dogs, people jogging, mothers pushing prams, and young women having a conversation on a bench; whom the scene will be based on. However to keep the feeling of tension going, there is still some uneasy feeling violin music being played over the top on the diagetic sounds of the park. The camera pans across the park to set the scene for the audience before focusing more on the two women talking. They are young and one is reading, which represents her being intellectual to the audience. The mode of address between them is intimate, as they are sitting closer together than strangers would, and there body language is at ease. This implies they are friends. When people either stop moving or start moving backwards, it signifies to the audience there is a disturbance and something odd is happening. As a result the audience find themselves starting to ask questions, setting up the hook.
Whilst this happens the music gets louder to make the audience build up their tension. There is a scream ion the distance to confirm that there is something strange going on, however to carry on building tension, the audience do not see where it is from. The woman who is reading tells her friends that she has lost her page in a serious voice. This is the first sign of a problem between the two characters. She then proceeds to slowly pull a chopstick from her hair, treating it as a blade, and stabs herself slowly in the neck. The way in which she talks and slowly does this implies she is in a trance. This scene and how it ends, is vital to hooking an audience and getting them to understand the enigma of the film. This is typical of a thriller, and fits perfectly as a convention.
The next scene starts with builders gathered around socialising, whilst one tells a joke. The audience recognise them as builders as they are represented well, wearing protective headwear as well as a reflective jacket. The mise-en-scene also confirms it as a building yard, with unfinished structures in the background, and well as equipment. The camera makes the audience feel as if they are watching from a bystander’s point of view whilst the joke is being told, to make them feel comfortable and at ease. However the violin music continues throughout in order to put a slight feel of edginess to the audience, who have already been made to feel uncomfortable from the previous scene. As the punch line is delivered to the joke, and the builders laugh, there is a body which hits the floor in the distance. Although it’s in the distance, it is quite explicit, as there is a wet thump sound (non-diagetic) as he hits the floor, and he bounces, implying he fell a fairly large distance. This all fits in with the classification; which in this film is a ‘15’ age rating, so there is a certain level of explicitness expected by the audience. There is then a point of view camera shot as they run over to the body, which continues to make the audience feel part of the scene. The next shot is a low angle shot to focus on the reactions of the builders. However to disturb the audience the body can be seen at the bottom of the screen still shaking and twisted at an unnatural angle. This is a conventional use of disturbance in thrillers, however as this is psychological, the violence is not usually explicit. Several bodies then proceed to drop, and we see a point of view shot of a builder watching people drop of the buildings. They simply step off the building whilst facing forward, suggesting they are in a trance like the woman on the bench.
These first few minutes get the audience asking more questions, and they have now found themselves hooked, and wanting to solve the enigma. There are plenty of uses of conventions throughout, and the breaking of them in example of the explicitness, work in benefit to the film, as they help hook the audience more and make them feel more involved. Of course the main focus of a thriller is the enigma, so the opening sequence is very successful in the chosen genre.
Reflective Comment: This film fits perfectly into it’s genre due to its use of convetional techniques. We’ll try and do the same, as it would help to hook the audience into the film.