Things That Bang

Keeping the message simple often has a far more dramatic effect than trying to create an out of the box thriller. Shyamalan played on American homegrown terror in the The Happening whereas the movie The Ruins brought terror to an obscure Mayan temple where naive ignorant American tourists found themselves dealing with a horror unheard of by the outside world.

Shyamalan could take a few lessons from Carter Smith. The trauma suffered by the victims in The Ruins was far more palpable than by those in The Happening.

While Shyamalan's movies tend to fizzle somewhere in the middle, The Ruins kept a tight rein on the suspense right till the end. There was no hidden subtext in The Ruins unlike Shyamalan who continues to harp on the post-9/11 effects on American psyche.

The ending of Carter Smith's movie was tinged with dry humor, reflecting touristy ignorance whereas Shyamalan's movie ending was oversimplified and illogical, given the human need to take all kinds of preventive measures when faced with an extreme situation which may cause total annihilation of human existence.

The Ruins and The Happening are both about nature turning against man but that's where the similarities between the two movies end.