The Visit (15.)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Starring Olivia De Jonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie and Kathryn Hahn. 94 mins
To have directed After Earth may be considered unfortunate, but to have directed After Earth, and The Happening, and The Lady in the Water and The Last Airbender may be considered reckless, mental and borderline pathological. Such has been Shyamalan's fall from grace that he is now scraping around making a found footage horror. It is always a little sad to see once big time directors being reduced to the Blair Witch level, like seeing someone you once respected on Celebrity Big Brother.
In The Visit two precocious and obnoxious kids (De Jonge and Oxenbould) go off to spend a week with the grandparents (Dunagan and McRobbie) they have never met on their remote farm, while their mother (Hahn) goes off on a cruise with her new boyfriend. The girl fancies herself as a filmmaker and is making a documentary on their trip, giving the found footage excuse, the boy reckons himself a rapper and the mother hasn't spoken to her parents since she left home at 19 to run off with the teacher she had fallen in love, and who would later run off with another woman leaving her with the two kids. Once at the farm though the two children become increasingly concerned by the grandparents strange behaviour – they have to go to bed at 9.30, and hear strange noises during the night.
Shyamalan has struck upon a great idea for a satirical horror film – are the grandparents evil or are they just old? It's an idea that strikes at the heart of the youth obsessed western culture. As an exploration of the fault lines of modern America where everybody is desperate to put up a front of happiness, almost as a patriotic duty, but everybody seems to be deeply unhappy, the film is really astute. Where it is less astute is as an exploration of how to entertain and scare an audience for an hour and a half. Even in his worst films Shyamalan has shown signs of his prodigious film making skills but he doesn't do anything here with the found footage genre that has been done before and done better. The script is smart and it has an effective twist but the child characters don't engage you (through no fault of the performers who seem talented), and it took an act of will not to switch off during the first half hour.
Still, as a low budget back to basics effort it has succeeded because it made enough money to turn a profit, enough to get Shyamalan back in the game and holds out the hope that he may yet come up with something worthy of his talents.
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Starring Olivia De Jonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie and Kathryn Hahn. 94 mins
To have directed After Earth may be considered unfortunate, but to have directed After Earth, and The Happening, and The Lady in the Water and The Last Airbender may be considered reckless, mental and borderline pathological. Such has been Shyamalan's fall from grace that he is now scraping around making a found footage horror. It is always a little sad to see once big time directors being reduced to the Blair Witch level, like seeing someone you once respected on Celebrity Big Brother.
In The Visit two precocious and obnoxious kids (De Jonge and Oxenbould) go off to spend a week with the grandparents (Dunagan and McRobbie) they have never met on their remote farm, while their mother (Hahn) goes off on a cruise with her new boyfriend. The girl fancies herself as a filmmaker and is making a documentary on their trip, giving the found footage excuse, the boy reckons himself a rapper and the mother hasn't spoken to her parents since she left home at 19 to run off with the teacher she had fallen in love, and who would later run off with another woman leaving her with the two kids. Once at the farm though the two children become increasingly concerned by the grandparents strange behaviour – they have to go to bed at 9.30, and hear strange noises during the night.
Shyamalan has struck upon a great idea for a satirical horror film – are the grandparents evil or are they just old? It's an idea that strikes at the heart of the youth obsessed western culture. As an exploration of the fault lines of modern America where everybody is desperate to put up a front of happiness, almost as a patriotic duty, but everybody seems to be deeply unhappy, the film is really astute. Where it is less astute is as an exploration of how to entertain and scare an audience for an hour and a half. Even in his worst films Shyamalan has shown signs of his prodigious film making skills but he doesn't do anything here with the found footage genre that has been done before and done better. The script is smart and it has an effective twist but the child characters don't engage you (through no fault of the performers who seem talented), and it took an act of will not to switch off during the first half hour.
Still, as a low budget back to basics effort it has succeeded because it made enough money to turn a profit, enough to get Shyamalan back in the game and holds out the hope that he may yet come up with something worthy of his talents.
