Summary
While their mother goes on a cruise, two children go to stay with their Grandparents, whom they’ve never met, only to find their Grandparents have strange habits.
My Thoughts
I went into this movie not really expecting to care much about anything that happened, and I ended up kind of enjoying myself. This movie starts off in an extremely annoying way as both of our protagonists are precocious, insufferable teens, but it gets better when the children reach their Grandparent’s house and crazy stuff starts to happen. I want to say first off that this movie is pushing the PG-13 boundaries; there are lots of genuinely creepy images in this, there’s some pretty horrific violence involving teenagers, some swears, and even some old lady nudity. I was kind of surprised this wasn’t rated R. As far as M. Night goes, this one was actually one of the better flicks in his filmography; it’s nowhere near the level of “Sixth Sense”, “Signs”, or even “Unbreakable”, but it’s a thousand times better than “The Happening”.
(SOME SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH)
Two kids, Becca (Olivia DeJonge, “The Sisterhood of the Night”) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”), are sent to their Grandparent’s house to spend the week them, so that their Mom (Katheryn Hahn, “Captain Fantastic”) can go on a week long cruise. Once the kids arrive at the house, Nana (Deanna Dunagan, “Running Scared”) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie, “Bridge of Spies”) begin acting strangely, and the kids wonder if everything is really as it seems.
(SPOILERS END)
As I mentioned above, the beginning of this film is rough. Both Becca and Tyler are incredibly annoying. Becca is a film geek, and this movie is shot as a found footage piece. So in a weird fourth-wall-breaking way, she talks about some of the techniques that M. Night is using throughout the film. It comes off as forced and honestly a little onanistic at times. But while Becca’s comments about film technique are annoying, it’s nothing compared to Tyler’s free styling. That’s right, this movie features three or four different instances of a fourteen year old rapping horribly for an extended period of time. It’s so awful, so cringe-worthy. I’m sure it was intended as comic relief, but it only came off as irritating. Both of the kids are subpar actors, too. I can’t imagine seeing them pop up in any Oscar races any time soon. So, anyways, starting off this movie, I hated both of our main characters, and thought I was in for a very rough hour and a half.
Then, things started to change.
When the kids show up at their Grandparents home, immediately you can tell that things are a touch off. Much of that comes from the great acting done by both the Grandma and the Grandpa. They just have this creepy, unnatural air about them, and it’s made better by weird sound design and weirder Dutch angles. At this point, I feel like found footage movies have more or less run their course, but this movie actually used that gimmick to it’s advantage. It did help that things were played tongue in cheek throughout, because the film felt cheesy, but in a creepy way. M. Night struggles to write natural dialogue, as we’ve seen in almost all of his films, but this movie, because it was so tongue in cheek and strange, the dialogue felt a little more natural because it felt unnatural; if that makes sense?
Some of the images in this movie are quite intense. I wouldn’t say I was ever truly scared during my viewing, but I was quite engaged throughout the entire thing. The acting by the Grandma and Grandpa really elevate the creepy aspects of the movie, while the kids really downplay it. It’s an unusual tone, but somehow it worked pretty well for me.
Verdict
I had expected to completely hate this, but “The Visit” had almost won me over entirely by the time the third act was wrapping up. Unfortunately, the ending was dragged out a touch too much for me, and they finished it off with another stupid rap number. Overall, I didn’t hate this movie, but nor did I love it.
This is part of our requested M. Night series, so if you’re a fan of his movies check out our other reviews. If you’ve got a director or topic you’d like us to talk about contact us to let us know!
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