âThe Visitâ tells the story of two children who visit their estranged grandparents for a week. Becca (Olivia DeJonge) is an aspiring documentarian who enlists her brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) to help record their week long trip for her first feature-length documentary.
The entire film is presented through the viewpoint of their two cameras.
Now for the hard part: M. Night Shyamalan has directed a well-made found footage scary movie.
Two years ago Iâd think that sentence was a joke. It bears explaining the level of disrespect Iâve leveled at Shyamalan in recent years.
The mind behind âUnbreakable,â âSignsâ and âThe Sixth Senseâ seemingly could do no wrong until he started to fall into a problem that all famous directors face, people stopped telling him no.
Without funding or creative restrictions his works became caricatures of his earlier films. The idea of a surprise twist became synonymous with Shyamalan due to sloppy writing and iffy directing.
Please keep this in mind while I say the following: Shyamalanâs âThe Visitâ is such a finely crafted film I think heâs properly redeemed himself.
This breath of fresh air is wonderful after the embarrassingly bad âAfter Earth,â a movie so destined to failâadmittedly due in no small part to influence from Will Smithâs demand for re-writesâthe producers were afraid to put Shyamalanâs name in the trailers because they felt his name might hurt sales.
Scary movies are all but dead to me after Eli Roth and the Saw franchise changed horror from something psychological and powerful into torture porn obsessed with getting screams of discomfort from gore instead of good writing.
âThe Visitâ doesnât present anything new to the world of cinema, but it is so a finely crafted movie I cannot recommend anything short of seeing it in a theater. With a crowd of terrified people youâll have a blast, watching it in an empty room with your hand down your pants and your laptop on reddit wonât do it justice.
If youâre tired of movies being carried by bad child actors, âThe Visitâ will renew your faith in younger thespians. I sincerely compare the talents of DeJonge and Oxenbould to that of a young Haley Joel Osmont when he first hit the scene in âThe Sixth Sense,â they definitely have the chops.
Finally, if you have seen several of Shyamalanâs movies before you will notice him having a conversation with you, the educated viewer, as the film goes on. Certain lines of dialog subtly reference his good movies, heâll use a trope or set piece that youâve come to expect from him then absolutely turn it on its head.
There are many moments in âThe Visitâ where it nearly heads in a horrible direction, only to turn on a dime and become amazing, almost as an intentional middle finger from Shyamalan saying, âYeah, you thought Iâd screw this one up, didnât you? How dare you doubt me.â
See this movie. See it now. See it in theaters. Donât let torture porn be the only films that make money this Halloween season.