The Visit: M Night Shyamalan returns to form with this horrifying tale
WITH horror classic The Sixth Sense, writer-director M Night Shyamalan tapped into children’s fear of the dark with the story of a boy who saw ghosts all around him, all the time. Shyamalan’s new film digs into another primal fear — children’s discomfort when forced into intimacy with the elderly.
We’ve all been weirded out as little ones by the wrinkles, smells and seemingly strange habits of old people.
The vehicle for that fear is a homemade documentary being shot by Becca (Olivia DeJonge), 15. Becca and her 13-year-old brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are going to stay with the grandparents they’ve never met before, and she wants to film the occasion.
The kids’ mother (Kathryn Hahn) is estranged from her parents and won’t reveal why. Nevertheless she’s willing to drop the kids at the station so they can spend a week bonding with Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop-Pop (Peter McRobbie) at their farm in Pennsylvania.
At the house, the old folks advise the kids not to leave their room after 9.30 at night. But of course on the first night, Becca creeps down the stairs, her camera in tow.
Peter McRobbie plays Pop-Pop in The Visit.Source:News Corp Australia
The film unfolds like an urban myth, a variation on the Hansel and Gretel tale. Is there more to Nana’s fixation with baking cakes and cookies than meets the eye?
What is Pop-Pop keeping hidden in his shed? What are those noises in the night?
Shyamalan’s more recent work like The Happening and After Earth has been dogged
by anti-climax but the big revelations here don’t disappoint, and as in his best work, the answer is hidden in plain sight.
by anti-climax but the big revelations here don’t disappoint, and as in his best work, the answer is hidden in plain sight.
Some of the scare tactics are predictable but Shyamalan’s characters are strong. The grandparents are impressively creepy and performances by the two leads, both young Australian actors, give this story of geriatric horror believability and humour.
Sydney actor Ed Oxenbould and Perth actor Olivia DeJonge in a scene from the movie The Visit.Source:Supplied
Indeed, there are as many laughs here as scares — a first for a filmmaker whose usual solemnity can seem like pretension and make his more silly plot twists hard to buy into.
The Visit doesn’t take itself half so seriously. It seems aware that its core audience considers this kind of movie like a fairground ride. Shrieks of audience terror are usually followed by laughter anyway, and the two emotions aren’t always that different.
Opens Thursday
Nick Dent is print director, Time Out Australia
THE VISIT
Released by Universal
Star rating 3/5
Director M Night Shyamalan
Starring Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Kathryn Hahnx
Rating M
Running time 94 minutes
Verdict Delivers effectively shocking senior moments
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