Something mysterious drives people to take their own lives. To escape this deadly phenomenon, Elliot Moore, a science teacher at a Philadelphia high school, moves away from the city and into the Pennsylvania countryside with his wife Alma and a little girl orphaned by her parents. But nowhere appears safe.
The director of The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water directs an "ecological" thriller, an eco-vengeance reminiscent of the atmospheres of Hitchcock's classics (especially "The Birds" for its fear of the natural environment), science fiction masterpieces such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (because of the plant menace and people suddenly deprived of their will) and all the catastrophic science fiction of the 1950s. While the murders represent the purely horror part that will not disappoint lovers of the genre.
Shyamalan's characters are grappling with a hostile and anomalous world in which nature aims to destroy the human race. In contrast to other films, they isolate themselves in order to survive: their own home, town or country poses a danger.
It is a discouraging film, sustained by good levels of tension and weighed down by cold colors and morbid atmospheres that convey eeriness.
Even the flaws (which mainly concern the construction of the characters, the way they interact with each other, and a somewhat too obvious ending) contribute in cloaking this film with a certain charm.
