Between such infamous flops like Lady In The Water, After Earth and the mind-numbing exposition fest that was his adaption of The Last Airbender, making fun of M. Night Shyamalan has become one of America’s new favorite pastimes. It’s easy to see why, he’s become notorious for his penchant towards overly stylized directing and out-of-nowhere plot swerves that often don’t make much sense, usually at the expense of putting together a coherent story line.
His newest vehicle is the tongue-in-cheek horror romp The Visit, and while it’s probably not going to be the movie that returns him to the critical prominence he held during the success of The Sixth Sense, it at least proves he’s still capable of making an entertaining (if flawed) film. The fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously is easily its strongest asset- Shyamalan for once seems to have embraced some of the inherent absurdities of his work, and that helps make the weirdness of the material more acceptable.
One of the most welcome surprises is the likability of the young protagonists, budding filmmakers Rebecca and Tyler Jamison, played respectively by Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould. In so many horror films our sympathies wind up lying with the killer, especially in the slasher sub-genre where understandably the audience may not want to become too attached to doomed characters, resulting in so many of them being written as unappealing.
The Jamison kids on the other hand are affable and funny, with Becca poking fun at her brother’s dorky rapper persona and Tyler ribbing his sister on her nerdiness, and at first they’re fairly patient with their grandparents’ increasingly bizarre behavior. When they bicker it’s never too vicious, and they gain even more audience sympathy when they discuss their estranged father, having left after their mother Paula’s fling with their teacher (Kathryn Hahn, adding humor and heart to a relatively small role).
The grandparents, Doris (Deanna Dunagan) and John (Peter McRobbie) at first look like a perfectly pleasant older couple, the former with a passion for baking and the latter with his yard work. They have a strict 9:30 bedtime curfew, the point afterwards when Doris behaves in a rather demonic fashion, randomly vomiting , running and crawling on the floor like an enemy from the Bioshock games. John for his part gradually becomes more emotionally erratic with his insistence on attending a “costume party”, and as the weekend approaches our two heroes are just about ready to escape what’s become a madhouse- no easy task.
The biggest shock of The Visit may be how natural the performances feel. Many Shyamalan films as of late are notorious for a rather stilted reading of the dialogue, which could cause irregularities like the Airbender character Sokka- normally a charming jokester- sounding like a serious stiff. Despite Visit being very much a dark comedy, the kids’ terror is pretty believable, and Dunagan and McRobbie are effective portraying a Stepford demeanor, and the gradual unraveling of their sanity is pretty ominous. Some of the shocks come off as more disgusting than creepy, but Dunagan has some well timed jump scares and the atmosphere is low-key but consistently threatening.
I can’t say I’ve been totally Shyamalized- he arguably has a lot more to prove to audiences as a director after such a long string of critical and commercial flops. But The Visit, while imperfect, lacks much of the excess pretentiousness of any of his movies, and that’s step in the right direction. It doesn’t aim especially high, so don’t expect much beyond a cheap but entertaining B-movie. Slightly recommended for horror aficionados, Shya loyalists and moviegoers looking for a few awkward chuckles. Hopefully the sequel chronicling the career of T. Diamond Studd is in the same vein.