I’m hesitant to get back on the M. Night Shyamalan bandwagon. To be fair, aren’t we all? What used to be a four-story calliope parading down Main Street has been reduced to … well, have you ever seen a car post-firestorm? The current Shyamalan bandwagon is worse.
Now, that said, Shyamalan just made his first watchable film in a decade, a silly/creepy week at the grandrents called The Visit. Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) have never met their grandparents; mom (Kathryn Hahn) split in her youth and proved too proud to return. The tweeners here aren’t actually excited about a week at a rural farm with caretakers they don’t know, but they want mom to have a cruise getaway to herself. Awwww, ain’t that sweet? The lame premise is that Becca is an aspiring filmographer, so The Visit can play a lot like one of the Paranormal Activity films.
And The Visit is a great deal like a Paranormal Activity film – the day is just about establishing character; the night is for fun. The kids are warned by Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) not to emerge after 9:30 p.m. That’s right, a 9:30 bed time! Nine-freaking-thirty, are you kidding me? Curiosity, of course, gets the better of the pair when weird noises happen around the 10:45 range.
–oh, and btw, I know televised gem “Arrested Development” brought “Pop Pop” back. It’s time to let it go again –
Those weird noises happen to be Nana (Deanna Dunagan and no, I don’t yet have a problem with the term “Nana”). On night #1, she’s sleep-stompin’ around downstairs and periodically throwing up. On day #2, she’s butt-naked outside their door scratching the walls. Aw, Nana, you forgot your pills again; butt-naked wall-scratching is Thursday night, not Tuesday night. As is standard with films of this nature, the mysteries steadily go from relatively benign (like gramps hiding an incontinence problem in the shed) to the more threatening. By the time Nana asks Becca to clean the very deep oven from the inside, we are suitably on edge.
The Visit banks a great deal on the idea that kids find grandparents kind of creepy to begin with. Luckily, I’m still young enough to find that position reasonable. Yeah, old folks are kinda creepy. What’s with the wardrobe? And the forgetfulness? And the weird habits? And all the pills? Yes, I know damn well this will happen to me sooner than later; that doesn’t make it not creepy on some level.
And as much as The Visit has a very Paranormal feel, it is better. M. Night suddenly remembered character development again and gave us two decent child actors. Tyler’s proclivity for white rapping is almost as good as how two random characters discover they’re being filmed and immediately break into the very same Shakespearean soliloquy. Humor rarely hurts any film. Caring about
your subject is pretty important as well, and the lack thereof is one of the big reasons I dislike the Paranormal franchise.
The Visit isn’t a great film; the dénouement could have used at least one more rewrite. There is no question, however, that this film is a departure from the Shyamalan nadir we’ve come to expect. I found After Earth better than The Happening and The Last Airbender, but I certainly won’t defend it. I’m thinking now that metaphorical M. Night has bottomed, risen slightly, and is heading up the snowboarding half-pipe again. Perhaps in three films, he’ll make another Sixth Sense. No, I wouldn’t bank on that, either.
Becca and Tyler opt for time away
The grandrents are open for a one-week stay
Their habits are strange
And Nana’s deranged
What happens when you turn old and gray?
Rated PG-13, 94 Minutes
D: M. Night Shyamalan
W: M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Family friendly horror
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The easily surprised
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Helicopter parents
