The Visit
PG-13 94 Min Comedy, Horror
Sept. 11th, 2015 (USA)
So, there may be some reason why this film was released on Sept 11th. It has a definitive moral: don't let hate drive what you do.
Disappointment can lead to disillusionment. The teen filmmaker, as documentarian (and please note that documentary filmmakers are primarily concerned with recording reality so that it does not get lost but for exposition of the facts into the future) is throwing around complex film terminology, attempting to be grown past her age, and to create from technology a remembrance of her mother's childhood. She is exposed to her mother's childhood world, the town, the school, the grandparents......well all seems well anyway. Is that Martha Stuart in her old age? The farmhouse seems like mid-century preservation or a museum of nostalgia.
M. Night is at his best when hiding the lurking evil underneath a veil of normalcy. It's akin to the offscreen horror of Alien, except in this case, the off-screen is actually right on the screen, you just can't see it.
Night has taken some heat of late from many critics, and I for one am a bit more disappointed in his later offerings. You're only as good as you latest film as they say in Hollywood, however, it does look a bit distant from the man who gave us The 6th Sense, Signs, The Village, and Unbreakable. That streak of films, along with Lady in the Water, marked a new kind of filmmaker and set M. Night Shyamalan apart from some of his peers. But there was some juvenility and somewhat of an industry-burdened sigh from the films Devil, The Happening, and this one. There seems to be some pressure here to use cutesy actors like the teens, and slightly more than convenient plot setups to get to our sit-suspense little treat. Just as the kids were set into a trap, I the viewer also felt like I was set up for a "boo-gotcha", as when the grandmother suddenly looks into the lens at night. It's fine to have your kidney-jolting moments like that, but it's also expected to some degree. Nothing surprised me here except (spoiler spoiler spoiler....sorry not gonna tell).
So this was "fun". It's funny that IMDB listed this as "Comedy, Horror". Hm, there were some genuinely funny parts, now that I think about it.
Is it worth going out and seeing at the theater? Well, no, this is a rental I'm afraid. I'm sorry M! Sincerely I do love your films, but this is not Shutter Island by Scorsese. You'll have to take it up a notch to get there.
6 out of 10 stars/points/beans/Depends pads/whatever
Agitatus
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