WARNING: May contain spoilers.

Critics and audiences don't know quite what to make of M. Night Shyamalan's disturbed new movie, The Happening. Audiences have been left clueless and slightly angry, whereas critics have attacked the film for lacking direction. I happen to believe The Happening is Shyamalan's best film and one of its best qualities is in the ambiguity it stubbornly presents to its audience. Whereas all of Shyamalan's other films have ended with an overblown character catharsis disguised as a plot twist (which satisfied most viewers, used to TV-style wrap ups) The Happening provokes your darkest curiosities throughout the first 80 minutes and then finishes its uneasy speculation with a painful shrug.

The fear that the director simulates in this movie is reminiscent of September 11th aftermath. This is made obvious not only from the "terrorist threat" references throughout the film but also from some well-crafted scenes of death by leaping off of tall buildings. Ordinarily, we would associate this type of destruction with a terrorist attack or at least a monster invasion such as in the film student triumph Cloverfield.

What makes The Happening so fascinating in the most grisly sense is the film's new approach to a trite subject like on screen death. Like any great horror flick, the film is still obsessed with death (though to Shyamalan's credit it scares us without the use of excessive gore) but reverses the violence principle so that the worst murders we see are the ones committed by the victim's own hands--indeed, by our own hands.

And the very worst of intelligent human civilization turned into Lemmings is represented in The Happening. Shyamalan no doubt peered into man's unwholesome preoccupation of videotaping his own demise for creative motivation. Some brilliantly choreographed scenes in the film mirrored the worst snuff footage you've ever seen floating around the Internet, including people publicly shooting themselves for no reason and crawling into lion's dens for no apparent purpose other than to be bludgeoned.

The idea of intelligent human beings malfunctioning and committing ritual suicide is one of the most horrific movie themes ever seen on screen and one that I'm surprised hasn't been more exploited by film makers. (No, melodramatic movies about the choice of suicide don't count) The idea is a bit commercialized, as main characters attempt to explain the bizarre series of events by blaming a third party, in this case plants which may be giving off a defensive chemical altering the neurotransmitters in humans' brain. However, The Happening is beautifully shot which makes the ugliness on screen that much more unsettling. At last, a Shyamalan film worthy of Hitchcock comparisons.

Yes, the acting of the film is second rate and Mark Wahlberg appears out of his element though he's asked to carry the movie on his star power; Shyamalan even wrote the part with him in mind. The best thing you can say about The Happening when it comes to acting is that the writer-director wisely resisted casting himself in any supporting role, since his appearance ruined 2006's Lady In The Water. (Well, that along with the preposterous story)

The Happening is not a feel good movie and does not let its audience off the hook with an inspiring message or even a conclusive ending, which is quite the departure from the director's previous films. However, for once, Shyamalan's achievement was not a clever twist at the film's conclusion but the art presented along the journey--harrowing, beautiful and unsettling as death itself. The paranoia and frustration the movie exudes in defense of its making greatly mirrors not only the plants' chemical reaction against extravagant humankind, but also the attitude of our current nation, one as helpless as it is angry. Grade: A-