“Would you mind getting inside the oven to clean it?”, this is just one of the chilling lines from M Night Shyamalan’s latest release, we took a closer look…
Being familiar with director M. Night Shyamalan’s work I was excited to see a potential return to form after a couple of bumps in the road. Needless to say when I think of his films I think of things like ‘Signs’, ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘The Village’ and ignore things like ‘The Last Air Bender’ and ‘After Earth’. Not to say that Shyamalan has lost his edge as he has been involved with fantastic recent projects like the TV series ‘Wayward Pines’ and the great horror title ‘Devil’ that he produced.
‘The Visit’ is a horror/thriller story surrounding two young siblings Becca and Tyler played by Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould trying to reconnect with their estranged grandparents and this soon takes a dark turn. The film is divided into chapters Monday, Tuesday, etc… to make up the week as the tension is steadily ratcheted up building to a crescendo.
M Night Shyamalan returns behind the camera for another gripping flick.
Kathryn Hahn (Parks and Recreation) plays the sibling’s mother who has a relatively short part in this film as she spends her time enjoying her cruise with her new boyfriend. Her performance, though short lived, came across very well and you really do feel an abundance of love for her two children. A portion of her scenes were filmed as a Skype call, this is an interesting technique as it emphasises the distance between the mother and her children.
Now Nana and Pop-pop aka Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie in my view both have many standout scenes. You are quickly welcomed into their cosy Pensylvanian home and shown all of Tyler and Becca’s mom’s favourite spots. The grandparents play total extremes and without spoiling anything can take you out of your comfort zone very quickly, but also sometimes play the victim in an unnerving almost schizophrenic way that makes them very multidimensional.
The siblings do an excellent job lighting the dark pace with razor sharp wit and comedy that hits the mark without retracting from the suspense. I often feel with these types of films that the director has to know the audience and turn off the hot tap of suspense and hit the cold just before boiling point, however in this film I felt the tension at times was unbearable and I could have done with a little more recovering time.
Spoiler alert if you’ve never seen a Shyamalan film before then stop reading right now!
As most will know the director tends to be slightly predictable in that he likes to have a big twist or twists in his films and this film doesn’t disappoint though it’s pretty conservative compared to many of his other films. I felt the degree of twist was the right way to go and coming from someone that spotted the huge twist in the village I am pleased to report that this one kept me guessing to the end.
I was worried initially when I saw the camera work that it would be another shaky cam ‘Paranormal Activity’ type film, which doesn’t always work well, however I was pleasantry surprised as all shots were clear and I had my bearings at all times which is surprising due to the film adopting the stance of the siblings home movie. There is plenty to take you by surprise and make you jump in this film – like the scene under the house or late at night in the living room but what I really liked was that lots of effort seemed to be put in to not make these predictable.
Overall I was impressed with the film and would highly recommend it however I was slightly disappointed the storyline lacked enough depth to warrant another viewing.
Rating: 7/10
Author – Ben, Leicester store
Check out the trailer below, please note that this is not suitable for anyone under the age of 15.
