Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie and Kathryn Hahn
USA, 2015
I’ve been meaning to watch M. Night Shyamalan’s THE VISIT ever since it first came out and only just now got around to it. At the time, his career had had a couple critical and box office failures, and THE VISIT was viewed as kind of a smaller return to form for him. And what a return it is!
I started it up thinking, hey, it’s PG-13, it’s Shyamalan, it’ll be a nice scary movie with a twist but it won’t be THAT scary. I can relax. I was kinda right – there’s a twist, for sure, but relaxing? Naw. This was pretty freaky.
The story concerns a couple kids (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) going to stay with their grandparents (Deanna Dunagen and Peter McRobbie). Their grandparents have been estranged from their mother (Kathryn Hahn) their entire lives, so they’ve never met. The older sister hopes this can be an in road to getting her family back together and repairing the wounds of her mother’s past. To this end, she’s brought her camera along for a little amateur documentary-making.
That’s where we get out main narrative device – this is Shyamalan’s dip into the found footage genre, and for the most part it is successful. He keeps things pretty meta, which helps to cover up any of the awkward questions we might have like “Why would you keep filming this?” that often pop up in lesser attempts. Turns out the guy knows his shit. Go figure.
I guess I don’t really know what else to say except that M. Night Shyamalan really nails it here. Good job!
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