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FOR the world’s dwindling band of M. Night Shyamalan admirers-a group in which I still count myself, though increasingly reluctantly-the best-case scenario for his latest film, The Happening, was that it would represent a return to form after his disastrous previous effort, Lady in the Water. The second-best scenario was that it would turn out to be an enormous box-office dud, a failure so abject and total that Shyamalan would be forced to cede creative control over his next few projects, subordinating his inflated self-image to the rigors of collaboration and the discipline of pleasing someone other than himself.

The first scenario was not to be, but Shyamalan did his part to make the latter a reality. The Happening is an outrageously, laughably awful movie, an instant camp classic if there ever was one: Imagine if Ed Wood had set out to remake Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, and you’ll have a general idea of its level of atrociousness. But the ticket-buying public didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. The reservoirs of Shyamaphilia built up by such crowd-pleasing hits as The Sixth Sense and Signs proved deep enough to deliver The Happening a $30 million opening weekend—no great shakes, but hardly abject failure. Which means in turn that someone, somewhere, will no doubt roll the dice and allow Shyamalan creative control over whatever movie he wants to write and direct next-keeping him, however temporarily, from the sort of reckoning with his own folly that he so desperately needs.

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Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat is a former National Review contributing editor.

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FOR the world’s dwindling band of M. Night Shyamalan admirers-a group in which I still count myself, though increasingly reluctantly-the best-case scenario for his latest film, The Happening, was that it would represent a return to form after his disastrous previous effort, Lady in the Water. The second-best scenario was that it would turn out to be an enormous box-office dud, a failure so abject and total that Shyamalan would be forced to cede creative control over his next few projects, subordinating his inflated self-image to the rigors of collaboration and the discipline of pleasing someone other than himself.

The first scenario was not to be, but Shyamalan did his part to make the latter a reality. The Happening is an outrageously, laughably awful movie, an instant camp classic if there ever was one: Imagine if Ed Wood had set out to remake Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, and you’ll have a general idea of its level of atrociousness. But the ticket-buying public didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. The reservoirs of Shyamaphilia built up by such crowd-pleasing hits as The Sixth Sense and Signs proved deep enough to deliver The Happening a $30 million opening weekend—no great shakes, but hardly abject failure. Which means in turn that someone, somewhere, will no doubt roll the dice and allow Shyamalan creative control over whatever movie he wants to write and direct next-keeping him, however temporarily, from the sort of reckoning with his own folly that he so desperately needs.