M. Night Shyamalan released a movie in 2008, titled 'The Happening'.

In his story an invisible force, characterized as the wind moving over plant life, is breathed in by people and they go crazy and suicidal. The movie focuses on some key points that are interesting. Is there a pattern for who is susceptible to the forces, and what can you do about it. The former is hinted at by the introduction of colors and the link to moods, the implication seems to be the type of person you are, morally perhaps, is an indicator of how you will fare in the death wind. The latter is left unanswered, as a warning really, that you can't mess with nature. In this piece of science fiction, nature created a way to cull the human population down, read into why as you want.

Now then, 'Bird Box' is essentially the same; save a few points which are interesting maybe. The death wind pollon is replaced by some creatures of some kind, one character claims they could be demons. It will never be confirmed in the run time, but the indication that you 'see' the creature and then you go crazy and kill yourself.

The second novel aspect is the split timeline, at first from a later point in the disaster (I'll call this after); then as flash backs at the precipice of the calamity (I'll call this before). The after pieces are awful, simply put. This point in the timeline is years past the onset of the creatures. The case here is weak, the walk around the wilderness is lame.

The before point in the timeline is the better part in my opinion; more akin to 'The Happening' and shows the interesting parts of a story such as this. Which is clearly, the struggle to find out what is going on, and then the observational study of how people would cope with a novel black swan event that is killing most of the world. So the clash of the timelines is what makes this film not work. The journey of the group is far more interesting than the aftermath.

Now then, why does 'The Happening' sit at as an average film with a rating of 5/10 and this is above average with 6.6/10. Is marketing? Is there something that works better here? I could be the group of characters works better than just two characters and a kid like in the happening. And yet half of this film is almost the same setup, with Sandra and two kinds who are blindfolded in the wilds. On contrast, the casting in 'The Happening' was very poor.

The story takes a lot from Darabont's 'The Mist', which is the same kind of horror movie though one that I think is very well-made and at the top of the pile for survival horror.

5/10 an average production with some interesting things but the afterwards timeline is very poorly written and nonsensical. I gave 'The Happening' a 6/10 as above average for the originality but it had a lot of shortcomings.