New The Happening trailer

This domestic trailer for The Happening (I actually didn’t realize the first one was an international version) works a little less well, I think, than the previous installment. This one focuses more on Mark Wahlberg and his immediate group of friends and family and how they are impacted by and react to the strange events unfolding around them.

While that is going to be more “involving” for the audience in that it gives them something to connect to emotionally, it does so at the expense of a lot of the atmosphere that the earlier version had going for it.

It’s still pretty good, but it sells the movie as more of a traditional thriller (especially with the pounding soundtrack in the last 45 seconds or so) and less as a terror-laden mystery, which I suspect is closer to the movie’s actual tone.

It also looks like Shyamalan is returning to the “there’s something out there” genre and abandoning some of the pretentiousness that marked The Village and Lady in the Water.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QlcJwZwDF4[/youtube]