It's not The Babadook, but it is a return of Sixth Sense director. Fun.
The Visit
Grade: B
Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense)
Screenplay: Shyamalan
Cast: Olivia DeJonge (The Sisterhood of Night), Ed Oxenbould (Paper Planes)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 90 min.
by John DeSando
“Mom, there's something wrong with Nana and Pop Pop.” Becca (Olivia DeJonge)
As a grandparent I’m outraged at the crazy grandparents in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit. As a critic, I’m delighted that the master of the plot twist (see The Sixth Sense) has returned to his roots with an enjoyable horror film that takes old tropes, polishes them up, and adds humor for spice to give an unsettling evening on a date or by oneself. See it judiciously with grandkids!
Two precocious children, 15 year old Becca and 13 year old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are sent for a week to their grandparents, whom they have never met. While the scary stuff begins on Monday night and escalates to horror as the week is endured, M. Night doesn’t push the scares. He intelligently knows we get it from the get go, cause we’ve seen the trailer or heard the premise. He incrementally discloses just how crazed the old folks are.
Although I have grown weary of the found-footage device along with its disorienting camera work, this one works well enough because the kids are into doc making and could be expected to capture this historic meeting. The two are bright enough (he raps, and she’s brainy) for us to be confident they may make it through, so we enjoy the trip and the scares along the way. The hilarious moments, and there are many, help to reinforce my feeling that M. Night is lampooning both the found-footage motif and horror films in general.
One of the interests for me in seeing a good working of the genre is the emphasis on single motherhood (see Babadook) and the “horrors” those moms go through going it alone. Letting single-parent kids go anywhere alone is sheer trauma for a mom. However, the real baddies are the grandparents, who we’re constantly reminded are “old” and therefore “weird.” The old-age motif is over-worked and not as persuasive as their simply being demented. But for humor, you can't beat satirizing old folk cliches.
Such ageism allows M. Night to put off suspicions by ascribing eccentric behavior to senescence. The falls and erratic movements can be ascribed to the universal malady called old age and serve to deflect the real terror until the crimes are just that by any age:
“I never liked you anyway.” Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) to Tyler
Welcome back, M. Night.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
