Review of The Visit (2015) by Patrick L — 29 Feb 2016

"M. Night's first horror movie in seven years is not the comeback I was hoping for".

Movie Review: The Visit.

Date Viewed: September 11 2015.

Written and Directed By M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, The Village,.

Signs, The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth).

Starring: Kathryn Hahn, Ed Oxenbould, Olivia DeJonge, Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie.

M. Night, I'm so happy you're back to your old small horror movie roots but your latest thriller "The Visit" is not the comeback movie I was hoping for. It is yet another found footage flick from producer Jason Blum but this time it has more gross-out scenes than jump-out-of-your-seat scenes. I considered M. Night Shyamalan's filmmaking career to be a lost cause after he made four awful movies in a row, "Lady in the Water",.

"The Happening", "The Last Airbender" and "After Earth".

"The Visit" is an improvement over his last four movies but that's not saying much. For his latest thriller, M. Night mixed scares and laughs together but he only created this strange misfire. I admire what he was trying to accomplish here but the result is another disappointment for the once respected filmmaker.

The movie is about two young children visiting their grandparents, John & Doris Jamison (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) for a whole week while their mother (Kathryn Hahn) goes on a cruise with her new boyfriend. The two kids, Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) have never met their grandparents before and they intend to make a documentary about their visit. Their mother, Paula hasn't seen them for 15 years. She left them after she had an affair with her high-school teacher. He has since left her and Paula tells her kids little about what started the estranged relationship between her and her parents in the first place.

Once the kids get settled in at their grandparents' farmhouse, Rebecca interviews them about their experiences living in the farm. The trip is so far not so bad for the kids but soon the grandparents develop strange behavior. Rebecca discovers grandmother, Doris vomiting all over the floor and Tyler goes to the farm and finds a stack of dirty diapers. The kids decide to film their disturbing behavior with a camera which leaves Doris attempting to break into the grandkids' bedroom with a large knife but she is unsuccessful.

When Rebecca and Tyler show their mother the camera footage, Paula panics and she reveals the movie's big twist which I won't give away. Shyamalan is known for having big twists in his movies but this one didn't surprise me at all. Some of John and Doris' disturbing behavior is supposed to be funny but the humor just doesn't work at all. The young actors are fine in their roles but I was conflicted with the story. "The Visit" is so odd and strange, it became one of those rare horror movies to leave a weird taste in my mouth.

M. Night Shyamalan, I know you have another good movie in you, all you have to do is get out of your land of strange and personal ideas and write a script that is clever and intelligent. "The Visit" just doesn't cut it for me.