The teaser trailer for M Night Shyamalan's The Happening has hit the interwebs and it's...well, it's unusual. You can see it below.
It's not what we were expecting at all. Shyamalan had described it as an environmental story, but we didn't think that meant it was something in the environment causing people to extravagantly top themselves – possible spoiler rumours are that plant toxins are the cause. It's certainly unsettling and stylish, and the brief sequence on the building site shows that Shyamalan can still squeeze something sinister out of any situation.
We do worry that there's a risk of this feeling a touch silly. The line "There's less and less information coming out of the area" bothered us, because it makes no sense. Can information actually be extracted from an area? Or is that a comment on the banality of network news during times of disaster? Making it convincing will of course come down to mood and, when he's on form, Shyamalan is a master of mood. It's only when he lets his own cleverness run away with him that he can trip up himself and his audience.
We might need to watch this one a few more times to get used to it. We certainly want it to be good and like the idea of Shyamalan going back to scary basics. At the very least, it's got us thinking. What do you think of it?