M. Knight Shyamalan is an interesting character in Hollywood. The director hit the big time with the ghostly tale The Sixth Sense ingraining the phrase “I see dead people” into pop culture. The film was nominated for two Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture, which is rare for a horror film. Shyamalan followed that up with one of the best super hero films of all time in Unbreakable and hit box office gold with the alien invasion thriller Signs. The guy was on the top of the world.
Then somewhere around The Village, M. Knight took a wrong turn. Audiences started to complain about Shyamalan’s trademark twists becoming forced and silly. Speaking of silliness, Shyamalan’s next misfire was the stupid Lady in the Water and dropped the ball again with killer trees in The Happening. Throw in The Last Airbender and the collaborative Smith Family film debacle After Earth and M. Knight Shyamalan has become box office poison for ticket buyers.
The fall from grace has been so spectacular, studios have begun hiding the directors name in the marketing campaigns including the new horror thriller The Visit both written and directed by Shyamalan. The much maligned director does something smart right off the bat in his new film. He gets back to basics with a simple creepy thriller that messes with your mind. The style of The Visit isn’t ‘Found Footage’, but more of a mockumentary film similar to District 9 and Chronicle. This gives the audience a POV look at the mysterious action taking place in The Visit while avoiding the nasty shaky cam.
The thriller circles around two siblings Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) who are sent to spend a week with their estranged grandparents who they have never met. It doesn’t take long for the kids to realize there’s something wrong with Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie). The Visit plays like an episode of Goosebumps to the extreme. There are some kiddie comedy elements to The Visit, but for the most part Shyamalan pushes the PG-13 rating to the limit with this film. There are some good scares and tense moments as the camera captures the nightmarish vacation memories with the grandparents. Plus there is a moment in the film involving a diaper that will have the whole audience cringing in disgust.
By doing what brought him to the dance in the first place, Shyamalan now has finally broken his streak of awful movies. The Visit is no where close to the level of the director’s earlier work, but it’s a decent start to at least getting his career out of the creative funky mud he was stuck in. Shyamalan still has a long way to go to repair his career, but The Visit is a fun little horror film at times with an eerie vibe that manages to keep you guessing. Sometimes the simple scares are the best and I’ll take what I can get this time of year in the Movie Dead Zone of September.
Overall, I give The Visit 2.75 out of 4 stars.
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