The Scare Salon

But then, as I do from time to time, I was recently browsing through one of those “Best Horror Movies on [Whatever Streaming Platform]” lists, and there was The Visit, the only movie on that particular list that I hadn’t seen. Even though it was M. Night, the short synopsis did sound kind of cool, so I decided I’d give it a chance.

And I have to say I really enjoyed this one quite a bit; it took a little while to win me over, mostly because I thought the two main (kid) characters were going to annoy the ever-loving shit out of me, but honestly, the story kind of sucked me in, and even though the kids are sort of cringe, they’re also pretty endearing (your mileage may vary on that, however, as I did see some fans who hated the boy in particular). The mystery was intriguing, some of the visuals unsettling, and even though there was the trademark Shyamalan “twist,” it was one of his more grounded, believable ones, and also one that I didn’t see coming. Overall, it was actually quite entertaining, a fact that surprised the hell out of me.

The Visit is technically found footage, as it’s filmed from the perspective of a teenage girl who’s making a documentary about the titular visit to their grandparents’ house. But because of the way the tale is presented, it doesn’t have too many of the pitfalls that plague many other found footage movies, like that irritating shaky cam where you can’t tell what the fuck is going on.

So the setup is that teenage Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are going to a farm in a very remote, rural area of Pennsylvania to stay with their grandparents for a week. Because their divorced mother Loretta (Kathryn Hahn) is estranged from her parents for reasons that aren’t really elaborated upon until later, Becca and Tyler have never met them. Out of the blue, though, the grandparents wrote a letter to Loretta asking the kids to come visit, and though Loretta is reluctant, the kids actually want to go, mostly out of simple curiosity and perhaps to find out what their mother did that was so bad that her parents kicked her out of the house and didn’t speak to her for fifteen years.

While the kids are visiting the grandparents, moreover, Loretta will finally get some time for herself, going on a cruise with her new boyfriend.

Since Becca is a film nerd who is ridiculously mature beyond her years, she decides to document the entire trip, and her somewhat pretentious film-school asides are actually pretty funny, if you’re inclined to that style of humor. As a matter of fact, though I wouldn’t call this a comedy, it does have a lot more (intentional) humor than Shyamalan’s movies normally do, which, in my opinion, was a big point in its favor.

Along those lines, I do have to mention the elephant in the room that is Tyler’s somewhat frequent rapping. Yes, the kid is white and suburban as all get-out, but he’s an aspiring rapper with the hilarious stage name of T-Diamond Stylus. Again, I thought this was going to get on my last nerve, but the kid actually pulled it off; he was really charming in a weird way, and his habit of using the names of famous female singers instead of swear words also yielded a few amusing moments.

Oh, and Tyler is also a germophobe, so you know that’s going to play into the movie at some point. It does, and I’m going to tell you right now that the scene (and if you’ve seen the movie, you know exactly the scene I’m talking about) made me throw up in my mouth. Just putting that out there.

The kids arrive by train, and their grandparents are there to meet them. Called Nana and Pop Pop (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie, respectively), the elderly folks seem exactly the way you’d expect grandparents to be. Pop Pop is a stoic farmer type, but friendly and interested in the kids’ hobbies. Nana is a classic grandma, sweet and kind and always ready with a big plate of cookies. The kids can’t imagine why the relationship between these two lovely oldsters and their mother became so fractured.

But shortly after arriving, stuff starts to get a bit strange, though at first everything can be explained away pretty effectively. One night, Becca spots Nana projectile vomiting in the living room, for example, though Pop Pop says she was just feeling sick that night and didn’t make it to the bathroom.

But Nana also has a tendency to wander the house at night, naked or nearly so, scratching at the walls. Pop Pop says she’s just sundowning, and the kids should stay in their room after nine-thirty p.m. and try to ignore her.

Tyler also notices Pop Pop frequently disappearing into a shed on the property, and starts to wonder what he’s up to in there. Upon investigation, Tyler makes the revolting discovery of a massive pile of shit-filled adult diapers. When he asks Nana about it, she tells him that Pop Pop is fecally incontinent and is embarrassed about it, so he hides the diapers out in the shed, and he eventually burns them.

Pop Pop also seems to have a virulent streak of paranoia, as he attacks a random man on the street in town because he thought the man was following him. The kids are able to pull him off and calm him down, and Nana claims he’s suffering from mild dementia.

All the explanations sound somewhat plausible; the two of them are pretty old, after all, and old people do tend to get a bit addled at times. The kids don’t really think too much about it.

But then the weirdness begins to escalate. Becca and Tyler are playing hide and seek under the house when Nana unexpectedly (and very creepily) joins in. Her nighttime excursions seem to become more overtly threatening, as does her bizarre request to have Becca crawl all the way into the oven to clean it. And on one occasion, the kids notice that a friend of the grandparents named Stacey (Celia Keenan-Bolger) came over to the house with a pie, but they never saw her leave.

When shit finally gets too crazy, the kids FaceTime their mother and beg for her to come get them. And it’s here where the big twist of the film is revealed, which I won’t spoil because this movie is not really old enough for me to do that, and it’s better if you don’t know what the twist is. Suffice it to say that it’s one of Shyamalan’s better twists; not completely believable from a plot perspective, but grounded in reality and plausible enough that it totally works and ramps the danger up to eleven.

The Visit was actually a pleasant surprise for me; it’s a fun movie with some winning characters and a suspenseful mystery that has just enough creepiness to give it an enjoyable horror edge. The kids played really well off each other, and as the story went on, you felt actual anxiety for them as the severity of their plight became apparent. The coda at the end was a bit of an odd tonal shift from the more comedic vibe of the rest of the movie, but it was a good emotional moment too (immediately undercut by Tyler doing another rap over the end credits, which I was kind of ambivalent about).

All the actors were great, and the grandparents in particular did a fantastic job going from eccentric but likeable old coots to something much more sinister as the story went on. Though I admit I haven’t bothered to watch most of Shyamalan’s more critically eviscerated films, such as Lady in the Water or The Last Airbender, I’m pretty confident in saying that The Visit is definitely one of his best movies, and one I wouldn’t mind a second viewing of.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.