The Visit
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn
Horror/Thriller - 94 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 9 Sep 2015
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn
Horror/Thriller - 94 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 9 Sep 2015
There are plenty of directors out there making films the American movie-going public does not like. We don’t hear much about the directors of those duds; we probably don’t even know their names. For some reason, the same demographic relishes piling on insults and mockery upon M. Night Shyamalan, a man responsible for both great and terrible films. Do audiences deride Shyamalan because they recognize a fallen formerly great artist? Are they just following the crowd and rolling their eyes because that is what people who know about current American cinema are expected to do? My own opinion is Shyamalan painted himself into a narrative corner. He is the epitome of the twist-ending director; his name was engraved next to Hitchcock’s after the successes of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. When Shyamalan ditched the twist-ending for big budget Hollywood bilge, I believe he also lost his following.
Folks yearning to re-experience the once in a lifetime shock of The Sixth Sense’s final minutes felt personally betrayed by The Last Airbender and After Earth. Shyamalan got the message and returns to theaters with his own screenplay and personally financed suspense story. The Visit does not break any new ground, but it firmly breaks Shyamalan’s obnoxious mega-budget studio phase, or at least interrupts it. Shyamalan partnered with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Pictures for distribution. Blumhouse kicks out about a dozen low budget horror films a year; these are the guys behind the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and Sinister franchises. Even though Universal is the big money behind the deal, this is Shyamalan’s way of showing us he is coming back to quick turn indies and ignoring three year behemoths.
Folks yearning to re-experience the once in a lifetime shock of The Sixth Sense’s final minutes felt personally betrayed by The Last Airbender and After Earth. Shyamalan got the message and returns to theaters with his own screenplay and personally financed suspense story. The Visit does not break any new ground, but it firmly breaks Shyamalan’s obnoxious mega-budget studio phase, or at least interrupts it. Shyamalan partnered with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Pictures for distribution. Blumhouse kicks out about a dozen low budget horror films a year; these are the guys behind the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and Sinister franchises. Even though Universal is the big money behind the deal, this is Shyamalan’s way of showing us he is coming back to quick turn indies and ignoring three year behemoths.
Shyamalan molded The Visit with one hand tied behind his back for two reasons: there are children involved (so nothing too nasty) and he was aiming for a PG-13 rating. There is relatively little blood, no gore, no decapitations, etc… Taking up these spaces are humor provided by 12-year-old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), some sub-standard jump scares, and an overall feeling of unease and eerie uncertainty. Something is just not quite right on this rural farm in nowhere Pennsylvania. The two kids, Tyler and 15-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge), are not sleuths solving the mystery of the oddball grandparents, they are amateur documentarians filming their first ever meeting with their long lost Nana and Pop Pop.
Becca and Tyler’s mom took off from home 20-some years ago and hasn’t spoken to her parents since. Interested in getting to know their grandchildren, Becca and Tyler are shipped off to the farm for a week of no cellphone signal and patchy internet connectivity. Plus, Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie, 2014’s Inherent Vice) says bedtime is 9:30 and suggests it would be prudent for the two of them to stay in their room lest they run into something unpleasant in the dark and creaky house. What could be so disturbing out in the sticks? Well, Nana (Deanna Dunagan) appears to have a couple of screws loose, which Pop Pop affectionately explains away as ‘sundowning’; getting forgetful and confused at night. If only. Pop Pop is no paragon of mental acuity either.
Taken separately, the indicators alluding to something being ‘off’ with their grandparents are easily explained away by just getting older. There are incontinence issues, paranoia about being followed, and laughing at a blank wall as if the funniest show ever was on TV. Put it all together, and no wonder Becca and Tyler are alarmed, disoriented, and ready to wield their omnipresent video cameras to record the nuttiness. Shyamalan made an intriguing decision to film The Visit documentary style. The kids carry around two handheld cameras serving as our jittery eyes and ears. They frequently interview each other and their grandparents while leaving the cameras on to record anywhere and everywhere. Nana and Pop Pop don’t do social media; it’s surprising they acclimate to the cameras as readily as they do.
The kid actors, both Australian, are very effective in their assigned roles. Olivia DeJonge as Becca is more responsible, extremely intelligent, and shows quite a bit of elder sibling understanding when her OCD little brother approaches a situation which may trigger an anxiety attack. Tyler (the kid from 2014’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) is the goofball. He cracks jokes and raps under his hip-hop moniker, T-Diamond Stylus. His rhymes are on the leading edge of 12-year-old ability and he introduced this reviewer to new slang I am now too old to understand without looking up including “Swerve, girl” and “throwing some shade”.
The Visit is not a return to greatness for M. Night Shyamalan, but it is a breath of fresh air for his recent filmography. Also, the studio is back to putting his name on his own movie poster. Remember, Sony Pictures considered Shyamalan so toxic, they did their best to hide his involvement in After Earth. Shyamalan knows suspense and realizes the scary thing is always just off screen or around the next corner. He cheats every now and then with far too loud and obnoxious jump scares, but he only inflicts them upon us a few times. Perhaps The Visit is the first sign of an intent to return to his thriller, twist-ending roots; stories that don’t require a truckload of money to scare us, just creepy grandparents, scratching noises at your bedroom door, and an off limits basement.
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