Movie review: "The Happening" (2008)

The gist: All I can safely reveal is that it involves chunks of the north-eastern US population dying for no immediately apparent reason. Confronting a taboo on a grand scale = especially shocking.

Selling points: The latest suspense-fest from writer-producer-director M. Night Shyamalan, who future historians might – I stress, *might* – regard as the Hitchcock of our generation. Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel in range-broadening roles.

It's kinda like: John Wyndham's spiffy sci-fi disaster yarns. That is to say, it's driven by characters hypothesising about, coping with and, if they're lucky, adapting to catastrophic circumstances.

Final word: The best M. Night-mare since "Unbreakable".

[Australian cinema release date: Five days ago.]