This is a review of the motion picture score for The Happening by James Newton Howard.

“This score screams “I have heard it all before and better”, and it’s a nightmare I’m sure James is trying to wake up from”

What is happening with The Happening? Or maybe more importantly, what has happened to M.Night Shyamalan and how has James Newton Howard got dragged into this mess? I’ve been following this “drama” all over the net, and it is pretty clear that The Happening was a dud. Pretty much everyone hates it. No one can hate James Newton Howard though, which was just hired to do a job and he usually does this so well so there’s nothing to worry about. People have said to me that the score is pretty much the best part of the movie which is quite promising. This is the track list to The Happening:

Track List

1. Main Titles
2. Evacuating Philadelphia
3. Vice Principle
4. Central Park
5. We Lost Contact
6. You Can’t Just Leave Us Here
7. Rittenhouse Square
8. Five Miles Back
9. Princeton
10. Jess Comforts Elliot
11. My Firearm Is My Friend
12. Abandoned House
13. Shotgun
14. You Eyein’ My Lemon Drink?
15. Mrs. Jones
16. Voices
17. Be With You
18. End Title Suite

Failed Ambience

18 tracks is pretty decent with a total play time of 50 minutes. I’m going to get right to the chase and say that this isn’t the most exciting soundtrack ever and neither is the movie, if the moviegoers are to be believed. I see what James is trying to do here, but it isn’t exactly working. He is trying to be Mark Isham and go for the ambient sound while mixing it with a little Marco Beltrami to try to get out of the “ambient prison”. It doesn’t work however as he uses the most boring string sound ever and I swear it put me to sleep a couple of times. It isn’t scary to listen to, or sad, or happy, it’s in limbo and that is where this score fails.

Nightmares

I think the mistake was done when M.Night Shyamalan or some movie exec called James Newton Howard and asked if he could compose for this movie. I’m all for trying new things, but this isn’t James, and I know it’s not all James Newton Howard’s fault. Sometimes you get into these situations and you try to hard, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t get out. James Newton Howard must have felt trapped using those strings that has no sense of creativity about them. This score screams “I have heard it all before and better”, and it’s a nightmare I’m sure James is trying to wake up from. I was really disappointed listening to this soundtrack because I really like James Newton Howard who does some tremendous stuff, but this time he fell down and he fell hard. I think I have heard every James Newton Howard score and this is one of his worst of all times. Dante’s Peak was pretty bad, as was Dreamcatcher, and this falls somewhere in between. Listen to The Happening by James Newton Howard below:

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