Overall, I’d say I’m a fairly stable person. I don’t have too many emotional problems. I’m relatively well adjusted. I’m a functioning member of society. I have family and friends who love me. Still, there was one dark day where I actually considered suicide. I was walking out of a movie theatre, shoulders slumped, head hung low. I had just seen… The Happening.

It wasn’t so much the terribly wooden script that made me consider eating the big dirt sandwich. It wasn’t the agonising acting, convenient plot points or the carelessly blocked out scenes. It wasn’t even the schlock FX or all those ridiculous images of people running from the wind. No, the cause of such deep emotional pain can be boiled down to two and a half words: M. Night Shyamalan. Could the helmsman of this steaming pile of Scrunt faeces possible be the same man who made us see dead people in The Sixth Sense? It was as if the 19th Century Composer Frédéric Chopin had lived long enough to record “Hit Me Baby One More Time” or that song from Titanic.

Of course nobody can pretend we didn’t see it coming. The aptly named Signs was the first sign that things weren’t going well in that Indian head of his. It was a steady decline from there but it wasn’t until the 2006 release of Lady in the Water when people really felt this once-Hitchcockian auteur had lost it. I however, remained hopeful. OK, I thought, so Lady in the Water made me want to cut out my eyes, but it was his personal film. Everyone makes a personal film. But he’ll be back. He’ll come back bigger and stronger and the film world will rejoice! And then, The Happening happened.

How could a writer/director who had started out so strongly have ended up… here, in the beaked Sarlacc Pit of failure? Of course he’s not alone down there. He shares the space with other fallen filmmakers like Kevin Smith, George Lucas, George Romero, and arguably (and I expect this may cause some debate) Tim Burton. So what is it then that brings men down from such great heights? Is it the pressure of debuting with such greatness that leaves them no place to go but down? Is it the twisted force of Hollywood that corrupts them? Is it plain old senility? Or is it something much more… sinister?

I didn’t kill myself that day. Instead I put down the noose and tried to think things out. Was it possible that this somehow wasn’t Shyamalan’s fault? Was he the victim of a vicious Hollywood curse like so many filmmakers who came before him, and many who will come to pass? As it turned out, the answers I was looking for had something to do with a centuries old sex demon. Stay with me….

According to medieval legend, an Incubus was a creature who took the form of a human man to seduce women. It could be recognised by its seemingly supernatural charm and an unusually cold penis. Of course, there are variations of the Incubus legend all over the world. In the Chiloé Province in Chile a deformed dwarf who goes by the name of El Trauco would ride secretly on the backs of firm-breasted women. Once inside their homes he seduced them in order to spawn.

In Hungary, a tiny demon called Lidérc hatched from the egg of a black hen. Called Ordögszerető in Hungarian, the Lidérc would sneak into the homes of women through chimneys or keyholes, take the form of a dead lover and have intercourse with the occupant. It’s common even today for children in Hungary to stomp on eggs taken from a black hen, or leave the eggs on doorsteps to cause mischief. In Brazil and the rainforests of the Amazon Basin, the Boto river dolphin was believed to have shapeshifting powers. It could turn into a very charming and beautiful man called Encantado, or “the enchanted one.” Encantado seduced women, led them back to the river and retook dolphin form before impregnating them. Young women of the region knew to be wary of any man wearing a hat. According to legend, Encantado always wore a hat to cover up his blowhole.

Now this may seem like an unusual segue. What does Ordögszerető have to do with Shyamalan, Lucas, et al? Firstly, seeing a bad film isn’t unlike being the victim of sex crime: You feel dirty, violated and the first thing you want to do is take a shower. But more importantly, most cultures created a sex demon in order to explain away promiscuity, unwanted pregnancy and genuinely deviant behavior. The people agreed to believe in a myth to protect their morals. That’s what we need today. Not another sex demon of course – our 21st Century morals are well and truly corrupted.

But what if there was another kind of demon out there? A film-demon. A shape shifting body snatcher who takes over the bodies and minds of gifted young filmmaker and, for its own evil purposes, makes them believe that an extravagant musical number would work well at the beginning of Return of the Jedi. The Hollywood body snatcher delights in upsetting fans. It gets off on our collective disappointment.

Surely M. Night Shyamalan is a victim of such a creature. As are all the filmmakers we’ve come to love, and then hate. We have to believe that somewhere deep down Shyamalan is fighting to take back his body, that George Lucas is using every Jedi mind trick he can muster to seize control of his pudgy mind. If we can agree to believe in the myth of the Hollywood body snatchers then we can all sleep a lot better at night.

And I won’t have to kill myself.

And in a sub-conscious way I think we do believe. Because no matter how many C.G. lizards are thrown our way, no matter how many mood-ring wearing performances, re-imagined Oompa Loompas or tired pop-culture references… we still line up for their next film. I’ll be first in line to see Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, and Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland. Hell, when Georgie-boy makes the special-special-edition of his Star Wars Saga, I’ll go see that too.

Such is the curse of the film-geek!

I hate you M. Night Shyamalan. But I love you too.