[7]

M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) returns to form after over ten years of sub-par and crappy output. The Visit is a small-scale but clever character-driven thriller about two children who go for a week-long visit with grandparents they’ve never met before. Things are okay at first, but then the grandparents begin exhibiting strange behavior. Then things start to get spooky… and that’s all I can really say without spoiling the fun.

Shyamalan is known for twists, and while some of those twists have induced frustration and eye-rolling in the past, The Visit progresses organically and believably. I was hooked from fairly early on and enjoyed watching the mystery unfold. The two kids (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) had enough personality to carry the movie, and the two grandparents (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) strike the right balance of fright, mystery, and believability in their performances. My only gripe is with the found footage format of the movie. While this is truly one of the best examples of found footage cinema, I’d still prefer to have seen a straight, classical presentation of the story.