Predictive Programming in Movies: The Happening (2008)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/

To read a decent synopsis, go here.

Newsreader:"[...]our brains come equipped with a self-preservation mechanism to stop us from harmful actions. This is controlled by a combination of electro-chemical signals in the brain. The blocking of neurotransmitters by certain toxins has been proven to cause hallucinations, asphyxiation and paralysis. This new neurotoxin is basically flipping the preservation switch; blocking neurotransmitters in a specific order causing specific self-damaging and catastrophic effects.
Alma:"It makes you kill yourself."

Botanist:"[...] plants have the ability to target specific threats. Tobacco plants when attacked by heliophilous caterpillars will send out a chemical attracting wasps to kill just those caterpillars. We don't know how plants obtain these abilities. They just evolved, very rapidly."
Alma: Which species, do you think, is doing it, if you think it's true?
Botanist: Plants have the ability to communicate with other species of plants. Trees can communicate with bushes, bushes with grass and everything in between."

Hence it is suggested that the plant kingdom be the prime suspect in the sudden and mysterious surge of infectious suicidal behavior overwhelming the Northeastern part of the US.

Elliot: "What if they are targeting us as threats? This part of the field may not have been set off. Something in this field may release a chemical in the air when there are too many of us together."
A science-teacher present in the group, Elliot (Mark Wahlberg), comes up with a viable reason as to why clusters of people fall victim to the elusive and etheric threat. He argues that larger groups of people stand to succumb while smaller groups, if indeed small enough, might make it through unscathed.

The viewer, as an inherently social creature, is subconsciously instilled with the uneasy feeling to avoid seeking refuge to large clusters of people during future times of calamity. Rather it is suggested that people stick together in small groups only, lest succumbing to the consequences of whatever terror attack.

The notion for the need to remain in small bands in order to safeguard survival is further reinforced when the protagonist group witness two groups of people coming together and in a state of dismay observe the characteristic collective suicidal behavior kicking in.

It may be of interest to note that with the exception of military run quarantine camps, the emphasis on the need to stick to small groups of people during times of calamity was also featured in the movie called Children of Men, but was also present in all the viral movies (such as 28 Weeks Later) in which the fear for infection 'naturally' leads to people becoming alienated for one and other.

It would feel to me that the reason for incorporating this theatrical given is that any effective resistive effort against whoever is responsible for whatever attacks is more likely to be possible if people collaborate in larger groups or smaller groups that at least are in close communicative contact with one and other. In addition, the virtue of larger groups also extends to trying to mitigate more effectively and more rapidly the damaging consequences of an attack on society. With the nowadays prevalent high levels of dependency of people on each other, the pooling together of resources and brainpower seems to confer self-evident benefits for coping with any kind of calamity or crisis. It is also important to maintain communicability between separated groups as much as possible so as to be able to share advancements and progress among scattered groups. Movies such as this one seem to favor the antithesis to this survival beneficial directive, a direction which carries the least survival prospects in general.

Josh: "Why is this happening?"
Elliot:"I don't know for sure Josh. I read this article about the coast of Australia. It said they have found large quantities of primordial bacteria. It hadn't been around for billions of years. It just appeared in the water. It's toxic to humans, fishermen who come into contact with it are dying. It feels kinda similar to that. With the bees disappearing, I don't know, it feels like a pattern. [...]
Josh: "I don't believe it's nature."
Elliot: "It may not be, there could be some other explanation. I don't know."

Again, the supposed or potential hostility of the fauna towards humans is stressed once again. This time however an actual case of hostility of nature is now brought up by Elliot, thus reinforcing the idea of plants out to kill humans.

While trying to escape the clutches of the threat, the protagonist group come across a house that has been set up to deter strangers. The two brash young kids of the group try to seek entry into the house by force rather than diplomacy and are, without much deliberation, killed in cold blood by the inhabitants of the house.

This may serve to help create a mental barrier for people who are on the run, from whatever (terror) calamity at hand, to try and seek refuge or aid with unfamiliar people living on unfamiliar terrain. In other words, the viewer is once again urged to stick to his or her own immediate companions and rely less on the potential help from strangers.

It is soon discovered, although not addressed explicitly by the main protagonist, that having small groups of people is not a sufficient condition to warrant survival. It is discovered that emotions of anger also seem to trigger suicidal behavior.

So now the overall message to the viewer is to try to remain emotionally reserved during times of calamity and stay together only in small groups in order to have a chance at survival.

Indeed, not long after the old woman succumbs to her fate she brought upon herself by sheer anger and misadventure, the protagonists meet in a harmonious and tranquil fashion and triumphantly survive the suggested wrath of nature.

Notice the number on the school-bus. This could easily be regarded as a year number. If so the movie suddenly becomes all the more ominous.

Scientist: "Traces of the neurotoxin have been found in some plants and trees. Now most environmentalists feel that this event is like a tide in the ocean but instead of algae killing fish this happened on land. Plants and trees just cannot pick up and move when they are threatened by other species. Plants have only one option: to rapidly evolve their chemistry.[...]"
Interviewer: "Why did it start and ended so suddenly?"
Scientist: "This was an act of nature and we'll never fully understand it. [...] There has been much speculation as to why this happened in the Northeast only. How do you explain that? Well I believe, and this is just my opinion, that this was a prelude; a warning like the first spot of a rash. We have become a threat to this planet. I don't think anybody will argue with that. And this is a warning. A warning? Do you think the skeptics would believe that, if it had occurred anywhere else? That's why most people believe it was the government. If it had happened in one other place, anywhere else, we could all believe what you're saying."

...and then the happening blows over to Europe. This act of transatlantic disaster migration automatically jettisons the generally held notion that the American government were to be behind the attack, which would then also be a false flag attack. Thus the idea that after all it was nature, or the plant kingdom to be precise, that was behind the attacks is at once vindicated, at least to the gullible viewer it would be.

Movies like The Happening hammer on the notion that, if sufficiently provoked, nature has the capability to release anti-human weaponry upon the human world. Though not quite as fantastical and extreme as portrayed in this movie this idea unfortunately is not a new one. After all, it did not take too long after the discovery of the AIDS virus that it was postulated that this new and mysterious but nonetheless presumed deadly virus was somehow an act of zoonotic primate-to-human transmission (infection). As such, the AIDS epidemic could interpreted as a similar act of the wrath of nature. At least it may be perceived as such to the uncritical and easily deceived mind accepting anything mainstream science and politicians tell it to accept. If you do have a critical mind then you may very well be already aware of the likelihood of the human rather than natural origin of AIDS.[1][2][3]

I believe that the function of movies like this is to warm the viewer to the idea that the wrath of nature is something that may one day become a reality. The reason why this idea is important enough to make predictive movies about is, I believe, the following. Suppose our deepest fears become a reality and the world economy collapses in the near future. Most people will end up unemployed and will in no time be struggling to survive. Food and fuel shortage will soon become commonplace. Ethical conduct and moral decency will wither away with the outlook most people will have on survival. Chaos in the form of looting and riots, especially in the city, is then likely to break out. Through all this onslaught on civilized society, the general level of hygiene will plummet.

Now this would be an ideal opportunity for our leaders to sneak a devastating biological agent into the surroundings of a large city. The authorities can then simply blame ensuing waves of human carnage on poor standards of hygiene. They can even brush off the emergence of a lethal epidemic as an act of revenge by a plagued and taunted nature. In addition, the media may even step in by making convenient intertextual references to this movie, stating that 'we', as great parasitic wasters of planet resources, brought on the wrath of nature ourselves. Thus movies like this would then indirectly contribute to misdirect attention from the real but hidden culprits carrying out their stealth depopulation programs.[4][5][6]

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