I'm also having the same problem with "The Happening". I've been watching Blu-rays for months on my Dell XPS 1730--an outstanding piece of technology--and suddenly I get "The Happening" from Netflix and it won't play, the same exact symptoms as described above.
I actually thought it was something wrong with the disc, so I reported the first copy that was sent out to me as damaged and got a second copy. And now it's clear to me that it's not something wrong with the disc, but with PowerDVD.
The link provided above looks like patches for PowerDVD 7. I'm running PowerDVD 8, build 8.0.1830.50.
I'd really like to feel that I can rely on this $100 piece of software to play blurays on my system, as advertised.
Not being able to play blurays constitutes a breech of contract, if I'm not mistaken.