Review of The Visit (2015) by Dallin C — 17 Nov 2015

The Visit is for sure a return to form for M. Night Syamalan. It is his best movie since The Village. Now I've always really liked him. Even his later movies like Lady in The Water I enjoyed and The Happening I thought was just a fun, silly B horror movie. The Visit is just a very strong movie throughout. Shyamalan found the perfect balance between funny and scary. This time we are laughing with him, not at him.

The story is very interesting and told in a very good way. I thought the found footage aspect worked really well in this movie. A lot of found footage movies you're just left wondering why people would be filming everything. Here the young girl is an aspiring filmmaker and is wanting to document the visit to their grandparents. I thought the execution was done very well.

The movie does deliver on the scares. There are many unsettling and truly scary moments. There are jump scares, but the movie doesn't rely on the jump scares. They're not cheap jump scares either. The scenes at night all deliver, my heart beat always picked up when the sun went down. There are also some good scares during the day. The first big scare happens during a game of hide and seek between the two kids and it was actually kind of terrifying.

There is also great comic relief. The young boy is fantastic he eases the tension a lot and almost everything he says in laugh out loud funny. He was a very important part of the movie.

The acting is very good from everyone. The grandparents are very good, very convincing, The two kids are fantastic, both giving really strong performances and especially in the more dramatic scenes, they really delivered.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. The last act of the movie is very good and very entertaining. I loved watching this movie, I love that M. Night Shyamalan is back! Go see The Visit!