Broken Promises

As usual there will be spoilers.

M Night Shyamalan. We all know who he is and I feel pretty confident in stating that almost everyone who has any sort of interest in movies whatsoever will have seen at least one of his films.

He is a writer and director whose career started with one of the greatest films of the 20th Century, a movie that brought us a great Bruce Willis performance (back when such things were in scarce supply) and also delivered one of the best plot twists in cinematic history (I am not ashamed to admit that I did not see the ending coming).

From there of course he kind of dropped in quality a little with his follow up and has since become one of the worst writers and directors in all of Hollywood but I am not going to talk about his career in depth as I have already covered this in Episode 25 of World of Stu which you can go and listen to here -

https://www.mixcloud.com/Worldofstu/world-of-stu-episode-twenty-five-we-see-bad-movies/

What I am going to talk about however is a little movie that he wrote and directed by the name of The Visit which I had heard was a bit of a return to form for the man who had fallen so far from grace that it looked like his glory days would only ever be a thing of the past. Having watched the descent from the Sixth Sense to the Happening and beyond I was interested to see if he had truly found his mojo or if it was yet another false dawn.

So to the plot of The Visit which sees single mother Mom (we never learn her name) deciding that she needs a break with her new boyfriend and so opts to send her two children to spend the week with her parents with whom she has not had contact for many years after falling out with them when she was a teenager. In fact neither of her kids have ever met their grandparents and their mom apparently doesn't keep any pictures of them around (which is going to work out rather conveniently as the film goes on).

Our two main protagonists are Becca and her brother Tyler who are to be shipped off alone on the train to go stay with complete strangers due to their father being absent (remember this as it's an important plot point later on). It should also be noted that Becca dreams of being a film maker and so the majority of this movie is seen through the eyes of her camera, boy does the Blair Witch Project have a lot to answer for.

So they get to their destination and meet their grandparents who at first seem fine but quickly become more than a little odd. As the film progresses their behaviour becomes more and more erratic but the kids just seem to put it down to old age and don't tell their mom just how weird things are because they're good kids who don't want to ruin her holiday.

How odd can the grandparents behaviour be I hear you cry? Well the nan, or Nana as the kids call her, terrorises the two young uns during a game of hide and seek in the crawl space under the house, in fact she is remarkably spry and nimble for somebody so old, she also wanders the house at night (sometimes naked) scratching at the walls and doors in a sort of demonic fashion. As for the granddad (or Pop Pop to Becca and Tyler) well he likes to shit himself and store the adult nappies in the shed (again remember this tidbit as it will come back later).

Whilst all the craziness is going on a couple of people pop round to visit the elderly couple as they have not been round to their usual counselling sessions where they help others by talking to them. However both times this happens the two old folks have conveniently just gone out and so cannot welcome their visitors.

Things get weirder until the kids hide a camera and uncover Nana sneaking around with a knife as if she is going to kill them whilst they sleep and it is only then that they decide that enough is enough and they Skype their mom to come get them immediately. She of course asks them what's up and so they explain before showing her the grandparents standing outside chatting by way of the laptops camera and here is where we get the big plot twist (it wouldn't be Shyamalan without one) THEY ARE NOT MOMS PARENTS!!!!!!!

So mom is on her way with the police whilst Becca is locked in a room with crazy old Nana and Tyler is forced to stand still and allow Pop Pop to smear shit in his face (I really wish I was making this up), this all coming after Becca uncovers the dead bodies of her real grandparents and it is revealed that the crazy old weirdoes they have been living with are actually psychiatric patients who are clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Becca ends up stabbing Nana to death with a broken piece of glass whist Tyler kills Pop Pop by repeatedly slamming the fridge door on his head and going a bit loopy himself.

The movie ends with Mom finally revealing to Becca why she had fallen out with her parents and telling her to not be angry with her dad for leaving (told you it would be important) and we get a nice little montage of baby Becca and Tyler with daddy dearest in happier times.

So the big question is - Was this a return to form for a director who had appeared to disappear up his own backside? The answer is no. Whilst I will concede that this is not as outright terrible as The Happening, The Last AirBender or Lady in the Water it is in no way anywhere near the levels of brilliance Shyamalan has previously shown in the aforementioned Sixth Sense or Unbreakable and when you consider that Unbreakable (one of the last good Samuel L Jackson films) is now 16 years old you have to wonder just when Shyamalan will realise that he is not the director he believes he is and does us all a favour by just stopping (the same argument applies to the Wachowski's too).

That said however The Visit was made for a paltry $5,000,000 and took almost 20 times that at the box office which has to be considered a success when compared to The Last AirBender which cost $150,000,000 and didn't manage to break even, so maybe he does have a future career in the low budget market. His next movie which is due for release in 2017 is called Split and stars James McAvoy so there is hope that it may turn out ok but we will have to wait and see.

Whilst The Visit may not reach the heights of his early work I will admit that it is OK though that is probably as nice as I can be about it. The two children (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) are good in their roles and carry the film well and I suppose the fake grandparents are alright though a little hamfisted with some of their delivery. What hampers the film however is the by the numbers storytelling that offers nothing new or unique for the genre and basically rips off many other films of this type that just do it better.

Certain plot points such as the shit filled nappies just seem really forced and unnecessary and it's clear that they are introduced just so that they can be used later on in the tormenting of the children. It's for reasons such as this that I can only give The Visit a 5 out of 10. Is it worth seeking out to watch? No, in fact I would say don't waste your time. However if you find yourself with an overwhelming desire to sit through something that is a little more exciting than watching paint dry then by all means give this a go, I would certainly recommend it over the 2016 Ghostbusters or the abysmal Knock Knock.