Welcome to The Attic. There are cookies in the oven, dear.

When I left the theater last Friday night my mind was swimming in thoughts. I had been so excited for the grand return of M. Night Shyamalan with The Visit. It has been ages since he came out with anything, and for a long time I feared that he had gone for good. I thought that maybe he had enough ridicule, and wanted to step away. I’m glad to see I was wrong. I think in reality he simply needed a break after the last few flops, mostly to recharge and take his time before he emerged again. Unlike most, I actually enjoyed The Village and The Happening… I adore Signs. And of course, like everyone else, The Sixth Sense is still my favorite. When I first saw the trailer for The Visit I was like a little kid on Christmas; I couldn’t wait.

Before I knew it there I was, sitting in the darkened theater with far too many pre-teens. (I knew they were going to be a problem, but more on that later…) The film is, in its entirety, a documentary. Whether it is found footage or not, I will not say because I always do my best to avoid spoilers. I’m happy to report that the premise is a smart way of setting up the documentary style film for a change. The mother of two kids (who are both the stars and ‘filmmakers’) starts off the story by telling us that she hasn’t spoken to her parents in fifteen years. However, recently they reached out to her, saying they want to get to know the grandchildren they have never met and ask if the kids can come stay with them for a week. The mother tries to resist, but the kids insist they are going. They want to meet their grandparents, but it seems they mostly want to give their mother some alone time with her new boyfriend.

The kids skyping with their mother

And so the visit begins. This story relies heavily on the children being characters. They need to be strong enough to carry this whole film, and they do so very well. The right actors were definitely chosen for the job. This is not a surprise as it seems Shyamalan has always had a knack for picking the right cast. He is incredibly good at creating stories and people that others can quickly relate to and feel for. The grandparents pick the kids up at the train station, and it seems like a pretty comfortable fit. The kids are excited to spend some quality time with their family. What they are not excited about, though, is the 9:30PM bedtime. Of course, kids will be kids and they break this nightly. They begin to catch the grandma doing very odd things. One of the first nights she is seen scratching the walls with his bare fingernails, while completely naked. At first the kids laugh it off when the grandfather tells them she has a disorder that causes a sort of dementia when the sun goes down.

“I was just cleaning it!”

Now this is where the theater crowd of pre-teens and other youngsters come into play. I myself am only 29 so I don’t mean to sound like some cranky old person, but I take my horror seriously. These kids kept laughing. Too much. There were times where the kids in the movies were making fun of the grandparents odd behavior, and of course the audience is going to laugh at that. But it got to the point where the kids around us kept laughing at everything. I suspect some of it was nervous little teehee’s, but nonetheless, it got incredibly distracting, and made some of the experience a bit too lighthearted than it should have been. I have to say after Paranormal Activity and now this both being seriously affected by the people around me being annoying, the Dark Princess may forever swear off horror in theaters. I just… I can’t. Or at least I’ll wait longer and by then the theater will be mostly empty.

Trying my best to distance all the laughter, it was a really good film. It wasn’t terrifying, but it went from “this is ok” to “OH.MY.GOD. Is that really about to happen?” and a few “oh shiiiiit!!!” for good measure. I also got one good jump that almost shot me out of my seat, and that friends, is a grand thing. Movies don’t make me jump much anymore but this succeeded in that very well. By the end of the film there had been a few twists I wasn’t expecting at all. I think a problem with the recent Shyamalan films is that he would present something and it just ended that way. But with The Visit there are twists and turns. Things you expect to happen don’t, and things you never see coming hit you in the face. I normally go a bit more into detail about the story and how it progresses, but I don’t want to risk spoiling anything. All I wish to add is that one of my favorite directors is back in true form. M. Night Shyamalan knocks this one out of the park.

Stay scared,
Dark Princess