Anyone would be hard-pressed to find a director with a more turbulent career than M. Night Shyamalan’s. The filmmaker can proudly claim to have worn every kind of label under the directorial sun from critical darling to audience pleasing showman. While every recent effort from the director has been met with disappointing results in terms of both box office and acclaim, Shyamalan’s latest, The Visit, is a true reminder of the director’s natural ability to tell a spellbinding story.
In The Visit, 15-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) have traveled to rural Pennsylvania to spend a few days with their grandparents (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie), whom they’ve never met due to an estrangement between them and the children’s mother (Kathryn Hahn). While the visit starts off pleasant enough, soon the two begin to notice their grandparents behaving strangely. Before long, the strange behavior turns frightening as Becca and Tyler try helplessly to reach their mother or risk not surviving the visit.
I’m personally not that much of a fan of the found footage method of telling a scary story. For me, the technique is so overdone by this point that any hopes of mixing fright with realism has all but gone. Adding to this is the fact that telling a story through found footage oftentimes usually makes the pacing feel rushed and doesn’t allow much time to soak up the atmosphere.
While the latter is true to an extent in The Visit, it’s interesting to see how Shyamalan’s brand of storytelling works alongside the found footage format. Through the narrative device of Becca filming a documentary about their trip, Shyamalan has offered up a new way of utilizing the technique. In a way The Visit feels like someone’s home movies, with characters laughing and being silly, only to be shaken up by some unsettling moment or image. The film’s lack of any music adds to this and amplifies the snow-draped surroundings and the endless feeling of isolation it gives off.
As a horror film, The Visit packs enough effective scares and surprises to earn its place within the genre, most of which comes courtesy of a very committed Dunagan. But what really makes The Visit a worthy horror entry is how it takes one of the safest of entities and makes it just the opposite. For me, a good horror movie is one which has the ability to penetrate the most innocent and secure elements of a person’s environment and turn them into a malevolent, dark force which plays with a person’s vulnerability. With The Visit, Shyamalan has tapped into one of the most potent of these entities and manages a level of unsettling tension throughout, which only escalates after the giant twist is revealed.
Featuring a cast of virtual unknowns (most unusual for a Shyamalan film), every actor is simply remarkable and makes a valuable contribution to the overall eerieness of the film. Dunagan and McRobbie are flat out horrifying as the two grandparents, seamlessly going back and forth between loving and creepy at a moment’s notice. As Becca and Tyler, DeJonge and Oxenbould give such accomplished performances for actors of their age, understanding the psychology of their characters perfectly. Finally, Hahn does some surprisingly moving dramatic work as the children’s mother, bookending the film with some truly touching monologues of her character’s troubled past.
For all of its unsettling atmosphere and jump moments, The Visit remains a film about the importance of family and the unshakable familial bond. Scenes focusing on how their parents’ divorce has changed both Becca and Tyler are skillfully, naturally and powerfully played out in the genuine yet understated way, which only Shyamalan can pull off. It’s this type of storytelling combined with the overall sense of curiosity that all of Shyamalan’s films conjure up, which shows that the director still knows how to spin a one-of-a-kind yarn.
The Package
There are nearly a dozen deleted scenes and an alternate ending, none of which add anything vital to the story, making it obvious why they were discarded to begin with.
Accompanying the deleted material is a somewhat elaborately produced “making of” where Shyamalan essentially reevaluates his approach to filmmaking in recent years and how going back to basics with The Visit helped him to rediscover himself as a filmmaker.
The Lowdown
The kind of horror film that is seldom made anymore, The Visit is an effectively quiet tale which relies on tension and atmosphere to generate actual fear.
The Visit is now available on Digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
We’re giving away a copy of The Visit on Blu-ray Combo Pack! Click here for details.
