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Two weeks ago, I wrote about Insidious for this column, claiming its success in its unintentional camp, the likes of which I hadn’t seen in some time. For some reason, when writing that column, I had somehow forgotten about what will probably go down as the campiest film of the 2000s. Its mockability has actually increased in the three years since its release; it hasn’t even really diminished in the public mind, like camp is supposed to do. This isn’t something that you’ll have forgotten about until 20 years later when you turn one of your 1,100 cable channels at 2 a.m. one night; this is something you’ll plan to watch at 2 a.m. on FX 11.

In case you didn’t read the title of this article, I’m talking about The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan’s only comedy. I had faith in Shyamalan a lot longer than most did (I liked Signs more than most and didn’t get AS offended by the final twist as everyone else and even The Village ended up all right. We’re not gonna talk about Lady in the Water, though). (Also, part of my Shyamalan faith is that he always keeps his films centered in the Philadelphia area, my hometown. Philly is a very underused area for films). I had very low expectations for The Happening (which, as we all know, is the best way to go to Shyamalan films), and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be surprised with quality or if I wanted to stab everyone in the theater for not marching up to the projection booth and burning the print (I lied, I just talked about Lady in the Water). Thankfully, The Happening is a strange combination of both.

Mark Wahlberg is a high school teacher whose lesson one day conveniently fits the supposed theme of the film. After lots of people start killing themselves in strange ways and mass panic ensues, he gathers up wife Zooey Deschanel and coworker John Leguizamo (always good to see him) to travel out of the city to more remote areas. As complications ensue, the epidemic gets worse, Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel have to contend with awful dialogue about mood rings and fake plants, not to mention old women who live in counties so remote that they're not on the map (and in my Pennsylvania travels, I have never traveled to a county that was not actually on the map), and finally, yell at others over lemon drinks.

Shyamalan has never seemed to not have an ego on him, and although it’s most evident in his later works, I think The Happening is a result of ego. Shyamalan, because he had previously shown prowess with suspense, twists, plotting, and eliciting good performances out of actors not known for their good acting, assumed that The Happening will just have those. And yeah, the plots of The Sixth Sense and (especially) Unbreakable are borderline wacky, but good filmmaking allows that suspension of disbelief. That’s the best part of The Happening – you cannot suspend disbelief. One would think that if something messed with one’s brain which, basically, makes one kill one’s self, they wouldn’t go about it in the most ridiculous ways possible. I probably wouldn’t climb in a lion’s cage at the zoo; wouldn’t it make more sense for me to bash my head on the cage instead?

It’s not just the large, strange plot holes, either, nor the errors in Pennsylvania geography. It’s things like when Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel have to outrun wind. If they don’t outrun the wind, they’ll be infected. So they have to run faster than storm-level winds.

I’d like you to read that last paragraph again.

And again.

These certainly are strange events, but there’s no justification for them at all. Does Shyamalan want us to think that these characters and their actions are results of the goings-on of the film, but what shows is really just Shyamalan writing oddballs for the sake of oddballs. The only result is comical, not disturbing. The hot dog-loving travelers that Wahlberg and Deschanel travel with sure are strange, but it’s evident that this is based on Shyamalan’s lack of writing skills, not an atmosphere of dread.

And of course, all of this is why The Happening is excellent. It fails terribly in what it intends to do, but succeeds in being hilarious. This isn’t the “oh, look how stupid this is” kind of hilarious, though (well, it is, but not in, like, a Syfy Channel original movie way). The Happening is funny because it really shows the antithesis of what Shyamalan used to be. If, for instance, The Sixth Sense were made now, the heartbreaking Donnie Wahlberg scene in the beginning would be embarrassing. Now, he can’t control his actors’ acting, and everything is incredibly overwrought. The Happening is basically an example of how far the mighty can fall and, really, shows that everyone is fallible.

To Shyamalan’s credit, though, The Happening is actually pretty entertaining. As an adventure, the plot advances quickly, and really, it’s fun to see what impossible things happen next. I do like The Happening. It fails at what it tries to do, but succeeds in unpredictable ways. Plus, Mark Wahlberg talks to a fake plant. I dislike the phrase, but, yeah: The Happening is so bad it’s good.