Film Review : The Visit by M. Night Shyamalan

It's been awhile since I had seen a good Shyamalan movie, and I remembered seeing the trailer for this film. I thought that looks weird, and knowing how his movies usually play out I had a feeling that this would be a good one.  I will admit that this movie is slow to build, but well worth it if you can make it through the whole thing. Which is pretty typical of his previous films.


So the whole premise is a little bit strange, but it kinda helps to set up the main story. So this single mom who has been estranged from her parents since before having her kids decides to send them to visit them for a week.  The situation with the kids is strange too, as their father recently left the family home and it's effects are shown in the children. We have a young teen girl who dreams of being a filmmaker but cannot look at herself in the mirror. Her brother is a self-proclaimed rapper who is extremely germaphobic and helps his sister in making films. All of these little quirks help to make this movie get creepy along the way. So these children are basically meeting their maternal grandparents for the first time and know very little but what their mother has told them. If that were not enough throw in such notions as how young people think of elders as being senile, incontinence and losing their marbles etc.

All of this is filmed as if it is a documentary in the style of Blair Witch.  Of course the kids see their "Nana", and "Pop Pop" acting very strange, and acting like they are in need of some much needed mental health care. They try to tell their mother who is trying to vacation with a new boyfriend, and of course, she casually blows it off as "kids being kids". I will not go any further into detail of just what happens, but the payoff for this movie does not happen until there is around 20-30 minutes towards the end. This is the true climax of the movie and all of it then makes sense as to why all of the events played out the way they had. I'll admit it was a hard hours worth of time trying to get into the slow build of this movie.  I was so afraid it was going to turn into a very lame and disappointing film. I very much enjoyed the ending and it made up for the boring and mediocre start.  I rated this 4 out of 5 stars on Netflix, and think that if you are a fan of thrillers or of this director's previous films.

Here is the link to purchase or rent this film from Amazon.