Lady in the Water is pretty boring, but it is what it is.

The Village literally made me angry, it was so bad. Maybe it's just cuz I was such a huge fan of M. Night up until that flick, but I found it to be shamelessly manipulative, a film that sets rules into place and then breaks them willy-nilly with the twists. Characters speak in an older form of English... and then we find out they were from the city in present-day, and just chose to change the entire way they speak. They go to great lengths to create this ruse... but then quickly tell a young girl so that she won't be afraid on her journey into the woods for medicine... which one of the elders who knew about the truth of the monsters clearly could have insisted on doing. A character is retarded... but acts incredibly smart at a key point in the film in order to try and squeeze an extra scare or two out of the audience. The end is interesting for a minute... and then resorts to a long didactic monologue in order to explain to the audience what was going on, in case the images on screen weren't quite enough. There's less than zero subtlety in this film, everything is delivered with the heaviest of hands.

I hated nearly everything about The Village. It was beautifully shot, had a nice score... but it was so incredibly bad. I have trouble believing I'd hate The Happening more than I hated The Village.

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