The Visit

15th September 2015: 21:15 Leigh

Hailed as the new Stephen Speilberg in 1999 after the successful "The Sixth Sense", M Night Shyamalan's films got considerably worse until his name became a laughing matter.  His films have a twist ending that everyone now expects so isn't that much of a twist anymore.The Visit is a self funded (using the money from his work on After Earth) film that M Night hoped for distribution to which the jump scare loving Blumhouse took on.  The combination of these two names put fears in me straight away, but not good fears.  Bloomhouse with their generic jump scare horror films and Shyamalan with his daft characters and twist endings, surely this would be terrible.

How wrong I was.

When a young single mother sends her two children for a week retreat to their grandparents, who they never met due to a family argument, Becca and Tyler aim to create a documentary on the old folks to give back what their mother may be missing.  Replacing ghosts, aliens and bad acting with scary grandparents who seemingly change personalities as the sun goes down, The Visit is a horror film with a difference.   

I found myself laughing many times throughout the film, mainly at the young lad Tyler who decides to use popular female popstars as swear words, making very funny comments in replacement of fear, and I wasn't alone.  There were many occasions that the audience laughed with me, and really laughed.

There are moments of genuine suspense and scares as well, crawling around under the house playing hide and seek, scratching outside the bedroom door which is revealed to be a birthday suited Nanna and surprise secret camera's, all worthy of a good horror film.

I can genuinely say that after years of being connected to a series of terrible films, Mr Shyamalan has produced an essence of brilliance.  One I can recommend to not just horror fans, but people who like a good film.

The ending is a little over the top, but I can live with it as the way it is set up is very well done.....and not that much of a signature twist.

Becca and Tyler are brilliantly portrayed by the young actors and at moments of heartfelt sadness, Becca really shines through.  Some of the Tyler jokes seem a little too soon, taking away a lot of the tension, but you can see why a young lad would make such quips.