The Visit: A Trip to See Granny

Hello everybody! For this week’s New Movie Show, we have the rather insane M. Night Shyamalan creation The Visit.

THE VISIT

DIRECTED BY: M. Night Shyamalan

STARRING: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn

GENRE: Found Footage, Horror, Comedy

YEAR: 2015

COUNTRY:  United States

Two children are sent to their grandparents house to spend a week with their grandparents while their single mom goes on a relaxing vacation with her boyfriend. One of the kids, Becca, decides to film a documentary about her grandparents in order to help her mom reconnect with her parents and also find out some things about her parents as well. While filming the documentary, however, Becca and her little brother, Tyler, discover a dark secret about their grandparents.

I do want to make a disclosure right now, I don’t think there is a single Shyamalan film that I like…at all. So this makes The Visit a diamond in the rough. Shyamalan’s signature twist actually worked this time and didn’t seem like complete garbage, as it made the climax even more real and frightening. Great job Shyamalan. I would also like to acknowledge that The Visit is actually relatively funny in a demented kind of way. This helps alleviate some of the tension and add to a more rewarding experience. The characters help out a bunch as well, as each one is individually drawn out so we receive fully fledged characters with the Shyamalan charm.

Now you may be wondering, is The Visit actually a horror film? While the line between horror and comedy crosses ever so often throughout the film, I have found that it has more horror elements to attribute it’s success to. It actually reminds me of the same demented humor the Evil Dead series brought tot the screen ever so many years ago. The tone is all over the place with Shyamalan even admitting that he had trouble keeping the tone throughout editing. While this can cause many people to be turned off by the film and to put it bluntly, not even the slightest bit terrified, I felt that it works to Shyamalan’s style.

PROS:

• Actual scares.
• What a twist! Climax actually works.
• Dark humor.
• Drawn out characters.

CONS:

• Over-loaded with comedy.
• Tone.

SCORE: 6.5 / 10

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