Despite all the hard-hitting jump scares and bizarre, laugh-out-loud moments, there are scenes throughout M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit that remind us what a humane writer and director he is.
Even though his best works – The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs – are mostly remembered for their scenes of elongated tension, there has in all of his films to date been a very human center.
The Visit is maybe not as heart-breaking as The Sixth Sense, subtly questioning humanity and destiny in Unbreakable, or as tender as Signs, but the film provides more shocks and laughs per minute than either of those films.
Shyamalan doesn’t seem to be trying to reinvent the wheel with this film. At its highest aspirations, Shyamalan has created a movie that works well as both a horror and comedy film that is about the relationship between generations.
At its lowest aspirations, The Visit is a supremely effective found-footage horror film. It surpasses any of the Paranormal Activity movies I’ve seen (though, to be fair, I’ve only seen the first three, which is moe than enough for me).
The movie follows Becca (Olivia DeJonge) – a teenage budding documentarian – and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) – a tween wannabe rapper – visiting their grandparents for the first time. The hook is that Becca is documenting her trip to show her mother who hasn’t seen her parents in probably over a decade.
Mercifully, these young actors have enough personality to carry the movie, but know to hold back enough to avoid becoming obnoxious movie children. Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie play Nana and Pop Pop, respectively. Both seem fine by day.
Sure Pop Pop is reserved and quiet and yes, Nana seems to do nothing other than bake, but they’re kind enough. Then the sun goes down and things get weird. Nana moves about the house like a woman possessed.
Pop Pop will frequently zone out and make his way over to the shed on the edge of their farmhouse’s permiter. Dunagan and McRobbie carry their scenes with grace and subtlety, even when the script demands that they do scenes that are loud and, sometimes, very literally in your face.
Shyamalan allows tension to build until it snaps and Nana and Pop Pop go full-on gonzo. The last twenty minutes (or so) of this movie are tense, funny and frightening.
The theater in which I saw this movie was up in arms with screams and laughs by the time the last twenty minutes rolled around. I found myself getting caught up in the waves of guttural reactions.
The film even includes a very sweet dénouement that reminds the audience, that despite all of its screams and gags, Shyamalan still is swinging for the emotional fences even when that isn’t what necessarily gets people into theaters for these kinds of movies.
Some critics have complained about this tag, but I will always appreciate a filmmaker who tries to implement layers into a film rather than stop at “good enough”. If you are a horror buff, there should be enough in The Visit that sets it apart from the average found-footage fare.
Conversely, if you aren’t a horror fan I would still say there is enough comedy there to make it an enjoyable experience. The acting is on point, the directing and writing is lean and mean, and the end product is undeniably effective.
The Visit may not be the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, but it is definitely the most fun I’ve had in a theater in a very long time.
Brian Laughran
Editor-in-Chief