The Visit (M. Night Shyamalan)

[TGM]

THE VISIT

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

imdb

[TGM]

When talking about M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, the reason this movie is so entertaining is because it's so unintentionally hilarious. The key word there being unintentional. As in, they tried to make a legit straight horror flick, but failed spectacularly at it. However, if that movie was fully aware of how ridiculous it was, a lot of the entertainment value would be lost, as that entertainment value, the "comedy" in the movie, would suddenly not work the same anymore.

For another example, imagine if, say, The Room, was aware of itself. In fact, Tommy Wiseau has since tried making movie that attempted to recreate The Room's, er, "comedy", only this time he was actively trying to create that bizarre comedy that only worked 'cause he failed so spectacularly at playing it straight. And sure enough, in those subsequent movies of his, that same brand of unintentional comedy, now fully intentional, just doesn't work anymore.

All of this to explain to you why M. Night Shyamalan's new movie The Visit ultimately doesn't work.

[Dukefrukem]

MC. Shyamalan is back.

[Dukefrukem]

Totally disagree that the humor was unintentional. It's so made to be laughed at. And that kid actor steals the show.

The only thing I disliked was the in your face backstories coming to fruition late in the movie. (looking in the mirror, tackling on the football field)

[TGM]

Totally disagree that the humor was unintentional. It's so made to be laughed at. And that kid actor steals the show.

The only thing I disliked was the in your face backstories coming to fruition late in the movie. (looking in the mirror, tackling on the football field)

Er, re-read my post, didn't say it was unintentional in this movie.

[Dukefrukem]

Er, re-read my post, didn't say it was unintentional in this movie.

Gotcha. My bad.

[transmogrifier]

This was terrible. I did all the hard work of skipping The Airbender and After Earth, and this is my reward? Tedious found footage concept, flat characters, no scares, failed humor...there is nothing here. I prefer The Happening, because at least that is bat-shit crazy awful. This is just a vacuum.

[Dukefrukem]

This was terrible. I did all the hard work of skipping The Airbender and After Earth, and this is my reward? Tedious found footage concept, flat characters, no scares, failed humor...there is nothing here. I prefer The Happening, because at least that is bat-shit crazy awful. This is just a vacuum.

Baby steps. It's much better than Air Bender, After Earth, the Happening and Lady in the Water... so it's his best since the Village... which is crazy how long ago that was. Devil was actually decent as well as he wrote it but didn't direct it.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I thought this was his best since Signs! What a surprise. It plays very much like commentary/mix-tape of his prior films, not just with the fresh-faced Moppets. It's like Existenz or Ghosts of Mars (films I both enjoyed). The climax repeats the past-comes-back redemptions of Signs but with an understanding of the absurdity (the boy's suffering is a joke, his revenge complete with his hip-hop derived braggadocio). It offers another Village-style forbidden shed - one that's full of crap, go figure. The grandparents' stories of creatures plays like a riff on the arcana of The Lady in the Water. And the combination of humor and horror smoothed together much more effectively than The Happening.

But even without that spot-the-parallel stuff, the film holds interest. The camera work rarely annoys, the one or two jump-scares actually land. And so many moments hit that sweet spot of where they inspire uneasy giggles of disbelief; the shotgun in the mouth, the buttcheek. I honestly can't say why the boy's rapping and the girl's faux-film-student crap didn't annoy me. Maybe because the boy clearly loved rhyming (it didn't feel like just a pose) and the girl's vocab did feel like someone who absorbed a Bordwell textbook and understanding maybe a fifth of it - her comment on "organic swinging" was kind of adorable.

Additionally, the twist here is a nice surprise that doesn't go for earth-shattering reversal. It's more grim surprise.

It was great fun seeing this with a crowd. They were laughing at a lot of the goofier scares early on but completely silent and engaged during the suspense at the end. One guy coming out of the theater said, "Man, I'm so mixed up, it was funny but scary and then really nice at the end."

Damn, I wish you guys liked it more. :/

[transmogrifier]

It is close to the worst of the 140 odd films I've seen this year, unfortunately.

[Dead & Messed Up]

140 films? Good God, man.

[transmogrifier]

140 films? Good God, man.

Not new releases, obv.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Not new releases, obv.

Still, that's a like a movie every other day. I don't know if I should shake your hand or shake you silly.

[transmogrifier]

And I haven't seen one in the last month. I do get 20 weeks paid vacation a year, so that helps....

[Irish]

Voted nay, but with loads of regrets.

Three quarters of this is brilliant. It's easily Shyamalan's best in the last decade, if not longer. The level of technical skill here is dazzling. He gets a lot of mileage and some really nice set ups out of the restrictive found footage format (even though he sorta cheats at the end). The humor is spot-on and very funny. There's a decent amount of pathos at work from what is, admittedly, slim material. The actors are all good and the two kids are ace.

But it's also M Knight so I spent most of the run waiting for our favorite director to shit the bed. Maybe he doesn't go as far as he has in the past -- I was half expecting Grandma and Grandpa to turn out to be space aliens or sentient plants -- but he comes close.

My problem is exactly at the reveal, and for about 20 minutes.

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Show Spoiler

When the movie started I thought, "What kind of person puts their kids on a train to visit people those kids have never met?" Like, hey, Mom has been estranged from her parents for 15 years and the relationship ended so badly that she still can't talk about it, but she will cheerily send her kids to stay with them? Okaaaay. I shrugged it off because if that's what the movie needs to do to get going, then that's fine. I'll buy in. Suspension of disbelief and all that. But then the reveal happens, and it underlines the whole problem.

This movie's premise is built around the two kids having no idea what their own grandparents look like. It's necessary for the antagonists to be psychopaths, but psychopaths who carefully removed all references to their victims, and their victim's daughter, from the house they occupy. It requires all four characters, strangers to each other, to never casually mention their common bond -- the mother -- for an entire week.

Parts of that I can buy, but all of it? It seems way too contrived.

I hated that 20 minutes, because it's so forced. Everybody stops acting like interesting people and starts behaving like movie characters. Yes, in the grand tradition of horror movies, the sister is gonna leave her 13 year old brother with two wackos to sneak into the basement. Seriously? That entire scene is a form of visual exposition and it's ridiculous.

How do you think the production meetings went? "Uh, so, Night. I read the script and wanted to double check. You want an old man to pull down his pants and take off a diaper on screen?" "Yes!" "And you want him to do that in front of a 13 year old boy?" "Yes!" "Uh. Okay. Just checking."

I half wish Shyamalan had the stones to play this one straight. Outside a few creeps and scares (which are admittedly well done), this really isn't much of a horror movie. Much more interesting to me was every single character, especially because the script sets up a couple of subplots (or really, subthemes) so nicely and then ties them together.

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Once the movie snap backs into place, it's good again. (And the end credit crawl is just a funny bonus).

[Grouchy]

Had a big idiotic grin on my face for the entire duration of this movie. No way that's bad.

I was pleasantly surprised by the shifts in tone, by the way. I liked that the ending was more sentimental than Horror.

[megladon8]

This was complete and utter garbage.

The worst I have seen from Shyamalan thus far.

Do not understand it's fan base at all.

Writing is horrid through and through. Just awful stuff.

[Peng]

Turns out I probably didn't watch this all the way through back in 2015 but in bits and pieces, which judged by half-a-star drop would be the best approach to go. Shyamalan's formal craft means he manages to utilize the found-footage style for some effective set-pieces (hide-and-seek, oven cleaning), but that style still seems mighty restraining on what he could achieve with this material, and without his full directorial signature in between we're left with these kids' characters and performances. The closing credit almost makes me want the grandpa to shove [redacted] into the boy's face again. 5/10