The Visit (newest M. Night Shyamalan movie)

Cafe Society
1

I didn’t see a topic about it yet.

Anyway, I hate the last three movies this guy has written/directed. The Village, Lady in the Lake, and the [del]Crap[/del]Happening were all horrible, in my opinion.

This guy’s first and last great movie, I think, was Sixth Sense, although Unbreakable was not bad and Signs was watchable (barely) at times.
Beyond that, though, I disliked the movies he’s made (listed above).
So anyway, I went into The Visit today thinking it was going to probably be a stinker. I didn’t have very high hopes for it, but my cousin really wanted to see it, so we went to the theater together.

…and it was…not bad. Surprisingly good, actually. In fact, dare I say, I actually liked it.
I liked it MUCH, much more than I thought I would. Looks like he’s finally made a good weird, creepy, chilling movie again…and the twist at the end didn’t seem like it was forced or made JUST to have a “twist ending”. It was like a good, natural twist ending and didn’t beat you over the head.

In short, I liked it a lot, I’d watch it again, and I recommend it to people here if you want a good, scary, creepy movie (although judging from how many people were laughing often throughout it, it might be considered more of a funny, creepy movie rather than scary).

Also, it’s PG-13, so you know it can’t be all that bad.

The trailer is here.

2

Those aren’t the last 3 movies he’s written/directed. Those would be After Earth, The Last Airbender, and Lady in the Water. You said Lady, but forgot to mention the other two.

Both quite bad, though.

3

I heard a review of the movie on NPR the other day and it made me want to see it. Glad to hear it’s not a dud.

4

Am I missing something? The Happening came out after Lady in the Water, so technically, the correct answer would be After Earth, The Last Airbender and The Happening. :wink:

But anyway, I get your point. I was just commenting on the last three I actually saw, haha.

5

I saw this too, and I’d recommend it. I never saw After Earth, Lady in the Water, or The Happening, but it was definitely better than The Village. (Though I have to say I don’t understand the hate The Village got, so I might not understand the hate for those 3 either, if I saw them.)

ETA: Though I would caution any prospective viewers that it’s in “found footage” format, which I find annoying, and wish moviemakers would stop doing it.

6

I hate people who jump on the “Let’s hate M. Night Shyamalan” train. Lady in the Water was an fun fairy tale/fantasy and The Happening had its moments. I will agree that The Last Airbender and After Earth were both special effects ridden crap, though. The Visit is a smaller film that goes back to his roots. I enjoyed it a lot and Deanna Dunagan is creep-tastic-ly amazing in it (nice ass for 75, too).

7

Seconding all of this. Both who played Grandma and Grandpa were pretty impressive with their acting skills, I think.

As for the ass scene (well, scenes), I had wondered if it was a body double or not, because it was pretty hot for being 75. : p

But yeah, this one was very deliciously creepy all throughout. A very fun movie to see.

8

After watching the trailer, I’m going to guess that this is the twist:

The boy and girl, dad and mom, and grandpa and grandma are all the same two people.

I guess I’ll have to watch it to see if I guessed right. :slight_smile:

9

Go see it -

The tension builds at a nice pace and then moves to 11 at a point and doesn’t let up.

I, for one, will never think of pineapple upside down cake the same way again.

10

I read what the twist was. I’m glad I didn’t waste a couple hours on that given that twist has been done to death.

11

Oh great, another “I’m too clever for this plot twist” person.

As the OP said, it works in this movie. It feels like a natural part of the story, and not the director saying “look how clever I am for having a TWIST in my movie!” which is one of the complaints people have had about Shyamalan’s post-Sixth-Sense oeuvre.

12

I get the impression from the commercials that the whole movie is basically OLD PEOPLE ARE [SIZE=“6”]AWFUL!!!1!!!1!!![/SIZE]
As I’m hoping to be an old person myself, eventually (too soon, actually), I’m not a fan of that message. But perhaps the movie has some other theme entirely…???

13

It works in this movie quite well - its not meant to be a ‘twist’ anyway - its more the sudden realization of whats going on and then the tension is thru the roof.

Its a fairly classic horror theme - but you need to put yourself in the children’s shoes/

14

I can’t wait until I’m old so I can be a horrible person.

15

Twist may even be the wrong word, because it’s almost obvious the case long before it’s revealed. It’s just revealed in a gradual, slow build is all.

16

I didn’t think it was obviously the case, nor that it was gradually, slowly revealed.

17

Well, this is one of those cases where once you see the signs, it doesn’t take a sixth sense to figure out what went wrong in the village - and yeah - there was some pretty clearly unbreakable ones as it progressed. Once fully revealed, it all started happening.

18

It is 59% rotten at Rotten Tomatoes which puts it well below my threshold to even consider watching. There are too many good movies in existence that I’ve never seen to waste my precious time on certified duds.

19

Saw it last night and really, thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s funny and creepy at the same time. The kids are believably dorky, and the grandparents move nicely from warm and welcoming to odd to scary to Oh my God!

I don’t think this movie has a “twist” as I would use the term. It has a development, a revelation, that ups the tension.

I also think the movie benefits from the possibilities going through the viewer’s mind because this is a Shyamalan movie. Are we dealing with ghosts? Aliens? A cult? You have no idea where it’s going because it could legitimately go in many different directions.

Very entertaining.

20

I saw it last night and had much the same reactions. The writing was good and the acting was also very good.

The young boy wannabe rapper was the best IMHO.

Also one of the things the ads don’t capture is that it’s quite funny at several moments.