Cast: There's aren't many recognizable faces. Olivia DeJonge and Ex Oxenbould play the kids. Kathryn Hahn plays the mom. Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie play the grandparents.
Plot: Two kids, one an aspiring filmmaker (DeJonge), the other a free styling rapper (Oxenbould), go to visit their estranged grandparents for a week while their mother goes on a cruise. It doesn't take long before strange things start to happen.
Thoughts:
It's really hard to like a movie when you hate the lead characters as much as I did. Both of the kids were insufferable. The girl was pretentious. Shaymalan used her desire to be a filmmaker as the conceit for the found footage style. That doesn't necessitate how annoying she was about it. I get it. She's a film nerd. That doesn't mean every other line has to read like she just read a book of film snob references. The boy wasn't much better. He got numerous opportunities to show off his free styling rhymes. He got a couple other quirks like being a germaphobe [when it's convenient for the story]. They both annoyed me to no end and killed the stakes of the movie.
I love the found footage style when it's done well. When there's a need for it or something is added to the movie by the use of it, I'm a big fan. Even if it's not required in the strictest sense, I like it as long as it's used plausibly. This movie bends over backwards to give a reason for the structure, which - whatever - it at least explains it and shoots it well enough. And, saying that this is a movie made by a teenager really forgives just about any amateurism in Shaymalan's work, so that's a nifty cover-up.
The movie has an odd number of attempts at humor that I'm not sure what to make of. With the found footage style, there aren't many attempts to make full movies. It's pretty much one tone (in most cases, scary) and that's it. My best guess is that the jokes in The Visit are meant to throw the audience off balance. Instead, it's more of a distraction. Then again, the jokes got an audience reaction when I saw it, so I guess that means they were a success. I didn't care for them though. It took me out of the mood entirely. It undercut the scares rather than lowering my defense for them.
Enough of the scares are solid. Mostly, it's the grandmother crawling on all fours a lot and being creepy at night. The grandpa's a little paranoid, which makes for some tense moments. My god, though, that story coasts on defenses like "They're old" or "That's just how old people are" for all sorts of odd behavior far too often.
Elephant in the Room: What's the twist? It's an M. Night Shaymalan movie, so of course there's a twist. It's weird that he's falling back to doing twists after he's worked so hard to get away from them with his last couple movies. This one is a pretty decent twist, although it requires a lot of contortions to make plausible.
To Sum Things Up:
Like most M. Night Shaymalan movies, The Visit is good for a single viewing. Once you get the twist, it's best not to think about the plotting required to pull it off. The scares are effective at times. It's all built around such unlikable leads though that the rest doesn't matter. There's much better horror out there.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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