CAPSULE: The Visit (2015, Dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

Many have posited that M. Night Shyamalan has long passed his use by date. Some would say it was written on the wind. I've felt that way since the aluminium hats. But (industry-wide) jokes aside, the man knows how to put together a scene. He's the kind of filmmaker who is as easy to root for despite his string of misguided cinematic travesties. In short, nobody's going to begrudge him a hit and he's well overdue one.

All that said, I find it a little odd that if that's what he's fishing for (and he's the brand of filmmaker who basically sweats box-office validation), I'm surprised he's cast his line into the bargain basement found footage horror barrel, a source nearly as stagnant as the Shyamalan twist genre has singlehandedly created and brought to ruin.

Seeing as I'm clearly not the target audience for The Visit (that being Shyamalan apologists and FF aficionados), I'm going to piggyback on the very appreciative punters in our preview audience who let their love of this low-budget rebound effort known, and vocally. They laughed along with the overdrawn sibling sparring between Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould (both watchable) as they document their first ever visit to their estranged grandparents. The shuffled uncomfortably with the growing unease as said grandparents started acting slightly esoterically (old folks, hey!) and they screamed with persistently gleeful listen-to-me fear at the frequent and preposterously unmarked jump scares.

They even (spoilers) feigned shock at the "twist".

My only explanation is that people who frequent these films work themselves into such a pre-viewing state that anything will set them off. Even without music cues (something Shyamalan purposefully removed to push his audience to do a little more of the work) they were popping off shrieks left, right and centre.

If self-indulgent fear-fulfillment is the goal here, Shyamalan has assembled the sort of material that gets the job thoroughly done. So, if that floats your boat, definitely add The Visit to your fright-bank. If you're after sustained dread, modulated atmosphere and an example of the genre actually achieving something interesting, probably just stay at home and download The Blair Witch Project.

★★

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