The Visit review: Totally uncomfortable viewing from the genre director M. Night Shyamalan, who returns to form.
The Visit review
The Visit marks the return of M. Night Shyamalan. The offering is a humble one from the director of The Sixth Sense, Signs and the brilliant Unbreakable. Following some pretty scathing reviews and commercial reception for his recent movies The Last Airbender, The Happening and the disaster that was After Earth, Shyamalan scales things down for this new low-budget horror, for which he teams with producer Jason Blum for a largely self-financed affair.
The Visit revolves around 15-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge), and her 13-year-old brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) who are off to spend a week with their grandparents, who they have never met, to give their mother (Kathryn Hahn) some much needed alone time with her new boyfriend. Isolated in a house in the middle of the country, and cut-off from luxuries like wi-fi and mobile phone signals, the siblings start to see some odd happenings in regards to their newly-found relatives, particularly after night-fall when the two are banished to their room.
The Visit review
Shyamalan will tell you that The Visit isn’t found-footage, and we’ve read in some interviews conducted that he absolutely denies that the movie is found-footage in any way. Let us tell you; this is a found footage movie. It annoyed me like every found footage movie does, and the typical slow-pacing found in pretty much every found-footage movie is evident in the film’s first third. The set-up for it all is simple. Becca is putting together a movie to try to heal old wounds between her mother and her parents in the hope that a bond can be re-formed, and the family can be united once again. Young brother Tyler also has a camera, a seemingly top-of-the-range Canon SLR to help with the proceedings, and to keep the plot device going throughout. The issues observed in the first act of the film, disappear as we settle into the second, and we’re back in old-Shyamalan territory. The director’s wish to go back to basics and retain some of what made him such a watchable filmmaker is granted, and there are some very uncomfortable scenes that we encounter as the plot eerily unfolds.
The Visit review
The two young leads are excellent and Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagan, who play the two grandparents, are off the charts and hugely entertaining throughout. This is Shyamalan at his best. Inventive, engrossing, totally uncomfortable viewing that has jump-scares, gut-wrenching gross-out moments and yes, a decent twist near the end.
Quite probably the director’s best movie since Signs (though we do have a soft spot for The Village). Shyamalan has successfully hit the reset button and delivered a horror/ comedy movie that will have you laughing one minute, and watching the screen through your fingers the next.
Welcome back Night. We’ve missed you.
The Visit review by Paul Heath, September 2015.
The Visit is released in cinemas in the US and the UK on Friday 11th September, 2015.
