Wednesday Review: The Visit

Watching The Visit I found myself debating whether my politics had any place in a movie review. Did I want to open this review by condemning the stigma against the mentally ill this movie perpetuates? Or did I just want to stick to talking about it's quality?

Thankfully, the movie resolved my debate for me by using the aspect of mental illness in an illogical manner, giving me something to complain about: How can people with mental disorders that leave them barely able to function pull off the evil scheme presented in this movie? It relied on a great deal of secrecy and coordination that I highly doubt either of them could have carried out given their mental states.

This movie seems to have critics split right down the middle, with a little more than half declaring it to represent an upswing for Shyamalan's career now that he's back to low-budget Indie films. The rest see this as another of Shyamalan's dreaded “twist” movies, shallow and illogical. Both seem to agree that this is a passion project, since he funded it with his paycheck from After Earth, and sold it to Blumhouse.

I don't really fall into either of these camps. I think this is calculated career-saver for Shyamalan. At the end of his rope, he made a film that was sure to at least turn enough of a profit to break the streak of failures currently filling his resume for most of the 2000s. It's a self-interested move, but one I fully understand.

I reach this conclusion because the film, while made independently of Blumhouse, seems far more like a Blumhouse film than a Shyamalan. The use of found-footage robs us of Shyamalan's usual cinematography, the soundtrack is downplayed for most of the film, the colors of muted, and the performances seem calculated to give every character one or two traits to remember. The decision to copy the Blumhouse formula was likely conscious. If he wants to show he can still turn a profit, why not copy one of the most consistent profit-makers in Hollywood right now?

The premise of the movie is that a brother and sister go to visit their estranged Grandparents, who they've never met. The sister wants to document their grandparents, in hopes of finding out what caused the rift between their mother and her family. They also want to give their mother time alone with her new boyfriend. However, as the movie progresses it becomes clear that both of their grandparents are mentally unbalanced. Their grandfather is often confused and paranoid, while their grandmother enters a psychotic state after 9:30 PM and begins running around the house frantically.

Judged as a Blumhouse film, this is among their better productions. Shyamalan inserts a lot of humor, such as making the brother a terrible rapper with a gigantic ego, or having the grandmother stuff cookies in her mouth and yell “Yahtzee!” during one of the film's more frightening scenes. It's ironic that a man with such a reputation as a diva would be the one to make a Blumhouse film that doesn't take itself way too seriously. On the other hand, Signs and Lady in the Water both had levels of self-awareness that much of their audiences seemed to have miss (not that it could save Lady in the Water).

Looking at it from a horror standpoint, it's only enhanced by the humor. A frequent problem with Blumhouse productions is that we get sick of the darkness, and don't care anymore what happens to the characters. Here, however, the elements of horror and comedy blend so well together that I often found myself unsure whether my fellow movie patrons were laughing, screaming, or both in many of the key scenes.

I do recommend this movie. By the standards of Blumhouse it really knocks it out of the park. On the other hand, letting the man who directed The Sixth Sense direct a Blumhouse feels somewhat like a little-league team drafting a laid-off MLB pitcher: Yeah, he'll win them the game even if he's washed-out, but at the end of the day it isn't a lot of bragging rights. Still, winning a game is winning a game.