Little Miss Horror Nerd’s Little Horror Blog 108

THE VISIT

I went to see The Sixth Sense in 1999 in the theater on opening night. The theater had oversold itself and was so packed there were no seats left. I decided to sit on the steps in the aisle. It was that or The Thomas Crowne Affair. I obviously made the right decision. Seventeen years later, this is still the best ghost film I have ever seen. The Sixth Sense was frightening, emotional, suspenseful and the ending will knock the air out of your lungs. I could not wait for the next film from this new director and rushed to the theater to see it. Unbreakable was definitely not the sort of film I usually gravitated toward but The Sixth Sense convinced me it would be amazing. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even close. I was beyond disappointed. I never went back to the theater for another M. Night Shyamalan film.

However, I became intrigued when I first heard about his most recent film The Visit and decided to watch it. The story revolves around two teens who are going to visit their grandparents they have never met. In the meantime their mother is going on a cruise with her boyfriend. The kids arrive and seem to have an instant rapport with Nana and PopPop. As the days pass, however,  they become more and more uncomfortable. Their grandparents are becoming more and more unhinged. While one child attributes the bizarre behavior to old age the other thinks something is seriously wrong with these people.

For most of the film I was under the impression it was about dementia and was an attempt to make it scary. In some ways it is but that’s not all it is. There is a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming. It was not on the level of The Sixth Sense but I thought it fit this film.

In the end I enjoyed The Visit. It was creepy, disturbing and at times it downright disgusted me. Many reviews I had read prior to viewing mentioned it being funny. I didn’t think it was funny at all. In fact the grandparents behavior was quite upsetting at times because some elderly people do in fact deteriorate this way. It seemed that there were moments where the supernatural was hinted at but that was never developed.

The only gripe I had was the young boy was very annoying. He over acted to some degree but I thought the acting was decent for relatively unknown and inexperienced actors. This movie wasn’t particularly bloody and had a low body count. There was nudity but not the kind you want to see. There is also poop. Yes poop! The Visit is a worth a watch if you like weird.

LITTLE MISS HORROR NERD’S RATING: 3 1/2 out of 5