Different people want different things from a holiday movie. Some want a cozy story that’s expressly about the spirit of the holiday and what it represents. Others want to stick with their usual favorite genre, but spiced up with a holiday backdrop, whether that means a Santa-themed horror slasher, a Hanukkah comedy, or a Kwanzaa romance. For some of us, though, the perfect holiday movie is anything that unites the family for a few hours, a distraction everyone can agree on and enjoy together. So here’s my argument for M. Night Shyamalan’s 2008 disaster The Happening as the perfect uniter.

Let’s be clear: The Happening isn’t one of those “Well, it’s set during Christmas!” movies that smart-ass cinema fans keep trying to sneak into the Christmas canon, like Die Hard or Batman Returns. It isn’t even a cozy winter-wonderland movie: It’s a sunny summertime story. And it isn’t a “lost gem” that was unfairly derided in its day, then rediscovered as a cult classic. The Happening is a terrible movie. But it’s hilariously terrible — one of the best “I can’t believe they thought this was a good idea” viewing experiences of the modern era. And it’s a movie tailor-made for collective watching, for a lot of reasons.

High school science teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) are already going through some kind of struggle as a couple even before people in New York City suddenly start killing themselves en masse, via any means available. “There appears to be an event happening,” intones one of Elliot’s co-workers, in the first of many, many awkwardly written, ponderously delivered lines. With rumors circulating that some kind of bioterrorist attack is taking place, Elliot and Alma, along with........

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