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M. Night Shyamalan's new movie "The Happening" has too many similarities with this short film I made in Scotland during the summer of 2007. It won 'best picture' and 'best cinematography' in the course that summer. You can see it here on my site.

The happening is a horror/thriller/disaster movie, and it's about people killing themselves for some reason all over the world. Now here's the spoiler: apparently (get it? a parent) these people killing themselves is a chemical or spore in a plant that spreads throughout people and that's what makes them kill themselves.

In my movie instead of a plant, it's a parasite that grows in your brain and at full growth takes over your brain and makes you kill yourself.

one thing that struck me was when i made my movie, a goal i had was to give it a sort of traditional kind of feeling like "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)".

Mr. M. Night mentioned a similar thing, that he wanted to make this a more traditional horror and used "The Invasion Of the Body Snatchers" example.

I guess it just kinda surprised me, and saddened me at the same time, because i tend to hate M. Night's movies, there are a few good or okay one's. But i hope he doesn't make a ridicule out of an idea i made and thought had potential. The thing about M. Night is that he has potential ideas, but they aren't at all engaging or captivating, and the conclusions of his movies are just like a 180 degree twist that when you are presented with it you find yourself facing back at the rest of the movie and realize how pointless all that build up was.

anyways. watch my movie so that you can understand the similarities between this and the Happening when you watch it.

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27 Comments

Jun. 9, 2008 | 4:34 PM thebeanhead says:

that thief!!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 4:36 PM supyohos123 says:

The Sixth Sense had a good twist though.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:12 PM AlmightyHans responds:

was his only good movie really. Unbreakable was okay.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:00 PM FrozenFire says:

That sucks dude. I wanted to see that movie, because I remember watching a film (I believe Japanese) where people start suiciding. Im going to check out your film and see the similarities, but it really seems like M.Night did not pop out this Gem all his own. (If I can call it a Gem, I won't know until I see it)

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:05 PM Psycho says:

Edit your flash movie and add "Copyright ----" somewhere, then contact the author of that movie, and claim he is being illegalz.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:18 PM Hoeloe says:

It's not illegal if you didn't copyright it. It's quite possible to be a coincidence, I mean, it's not really a complex idea, anyone could come up with it... even me!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:13 PM AlmightyHans responds:

HVH Productions IS copyrighted, and it was filmed under that name.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:30 PM Egoraptor says:

Haha that was cool you never showed me that.

I think the idea is kind of a simple one and his execution is probably going to be really different than yours. I know you're not accusing him seriously, if you are you shouldn't. I had an idea a long time ago about Earth being abandoned and attacked in order to make way for life in space stations and other planets and months later Titan AE came out and I was like wooooah.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:15 PM AlmightyHans responds:

yeah i'm not seriously considering that he saw my video and directly copied it. I just find it odd how the preproduction took place later in the same month i aired it and put it on the web. the teacher at my school also had some connection with him and i dunno, maybe he was inspired from it and such. point is, i don't really care i just felt like pointing it out.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:33 PM supyohos123 says:

Speaking of Titan AE, I hope Don Bluth is able to make that Dragon's Lair movie before he dies.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:16 PM AlmightyHans responds:

actually Don Bluth came to our school for a speech with his partner and aid they've been working on one for a long time. it was great meeting those guys in person.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:37 PM shabbo says:

.......................,-'´ . . . _,,,,,';:-,................ (you fat basterd)
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..................,/ . . .¯'\, º ,/.'-~°,' .¯`'-,.........
................../ . . . . . .¯,_ ~--~',, . . .'\...........
.................| . . . . . . . . ¯¨¨¨¨¯,/ . . . .| .........
.................| . . . . . . . , . . . .`'-, . . . |..........
................/\ . . . . . . ."-,,,-'~-~' . . . '|..........
.............,/'`\,`'-, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /\..........

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:40 PM luka says:

Coincidence?! I think YES! Sorry pal. Things like these happen all the time. I wanted to create a platformer where you'd jump from planet to planet and the gravitation would change as you jump on each planet. Along came Super Mario Galaxy. I wanted to make an epic game set in high school where your mother would leave you and you'd do be able to do all the fun stuff and complete missions. Along came Bully.

I hate when that happens. Execution is the key however. Cheers. <3

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:17 PM AlmightyHans responds:

yeah i don't seriousely think he directly stole my shit or anything. i just felt like pointing this out.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:51 PM Lasse says:

why does that m night fjasdhfjkdhaksjfh keep making movies, his only good one was sixth sense, the others were shit

Jun. 9, 2008 | 5:52 PM MRat says:

lmfao people took this seriously.

Best M. Night movie - Unbreakable. I can't believe how poorly they mismarketed that movie. They turned a dark gritty superhero flick into a a cheap, bad, thriller with the simple act of making shitty trailers.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:17 PM AlmightyHans responds:

exactly, that's why i say that movie is "okay" because it could have been great.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 6:19 PM Radioactive24 says:

Most of his movie plots are stolen, apparently.

The Village is almost exactly like some book from the 90's called "Running Out Of Time" or something like that.

And by almost exactly, I mean change some names, the time period they're acting, why the girl's leaving, and what's keeping them from leaving. Really.

Jun. 9, 2008 | 7:25 PM squidly says:

Now you know how I feel when Age of War got front-paged and was #1 for a bit, it was my idea to begin with!
I have picture proof of nthe game layout and everything!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:20 PM Chad-T says:

MARC M FOR LIFE! APPARENT!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 8:38 PM RubberNinja says:

Quickly, contact SqueakyToad. I smell another conspiracy!!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 9:25 PM ZekeySpaceyLizard says:

you honestly think he stole your idea?

Jun. 9, 2008 | 9:34 PM AlmightyHans responds:

no XD

Jun. 9, 2008 | 9:28 PM Emanhattan says:

I never liked syamalalalalamalan. all his movies en up in a twist. AND SIGNS was horrible. kudos to you for reveqaling this info

Jun. 9, 2008 | 10:20 PM phoenixassassin says:

Damn dude that sucks!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 10:31 PM leob123 says:

he only tried to avoid the lawsuit by making it about plants and not bugs

Jun. 10, 2008 | 1:12 AM AlmightyHans responds:

EXACTLY!

Jun. 9, 2008 | 11:42 PM Emanhattan says:

I feel shame for the guy that made that family guy thing up there.

Jun. 10, 2008 | 1:12 AM AlmightyHans responds:

nehehehehehhehehe... boobs

Jun. 9, 2008 | 11:49 PM lumpydog says:

What a twist!

Jun. 10, 2008 | 2:38 AM lookforiamcasey says:

What a tweest!

Jun. 10, 2008 | 5:51 AM BritishMoose says:

Coincidentally, Unbreakable was on TV last night. Decent direction but the script was TERRIBLE.

Jun. 10, 2008 | 7:29 AM Bug says:

mnightshangleman

Jun. 10, 2008 | 3:13 PM AlmightyHans responds:

exactly

Jun. 10, 2008 | 7:58 AM K111 says:

in all this mayham going on in the world, i dont know whats right or wrong anymore

Jun. 10, 2008 | 11:27 AM jtm17 says:

I Tell You Which Movie is going to be shit....
Dragon Ball Movie....
So Many Things...Such Little Time.....
Goku Goes to fucking school!!!!
What The Fuck!!!!!!
and i saw the movie Is It That Close to the real thing????

Cheers

Jun. 10, 2008 | 3:21 PM AlmightyHans responds:

see what happened to the dragon ball movie is the result of fucking idiots always demanding things to be "MORE REALISTIC". I have no problem with realism, in fact i adore it when it's done right and and the approach is used for the right things, but things like Batman, James Bond, and now Dragonball... people just don't understand the difference between something believable and realistic. you can have fantastical situations, but if what is going on is executed well, the story is believable, therefore makes you more attached to the characters. making things "realistic" is a cheap way of trying to get people to feel more attached to the movie. to me one movie that makes a situation believable in a fantastical setting is Speed racer. As much as you might know he's going to win, the movie makes you still feel enough for the character to cheer him on. A movie that makes it so fantastical you just don't care about what happens to the character anymore is Indiana Jones 4. if the guy at the beginning of the movie survived a nuclear explosion by crawling into a kitchen fridge, of course he's going to survive any other perils he gets himself into.

Now we've hit both extremes, and the pendulum of extremes in movie will now start swinging back and forth from one extreme to another. like everything else humans do.

p.s. and on a side note, just because batman DOESN'T have super powers doesn't mean a more realistic approach is the thing to do. In fact, BECAUSE he doesn't have super powers makes it more ridiculous to give him a realistic approach. Because a powerless man couldn't solve 90% of the problems he solves. basically you're giving a human the power to solve superhuman problems. that's more unrealistic than a super human solving super problems. Also, the lack of powers in the batman comics was added up for the incredibly colorful characters it had, if you're going to dumb them down (eg. making scare crow some dude with a potato sack over his face, or making the joker just paint his face instead of being disfigured in a way that makes him look like a clown) it takes the magic away from batman. you're changing the essence of batman instead of making a new perspective, there's a difference between changing batman and a new perspective. a new perspective still needs to feel like batman.

anyways, enough geek talk. these are just my opinions.

Updated: Jun. 10, 2008, 3:30 PM