By Ellena Sweet | Campus News Editor
I’ll never forget experiencing Signs for the first time when I was 11 years old. I went to an evening showing at a local theater with my older brother and two of his friends. When I think about that night, two things stand out to me. First, I remember one of my brother’s friends (who I will allow to remain nameless) being on the verge of tears the entire time. Naturally, the rest of us gave him hell for it, as if we weren’t just as scared. This brings me to the second thing that I remember: I was absolutely terrified. Signs was my first encounter with M. Night Shyamalan’s knack for terror, and it wouldn’t be my last.
Today, after a brief hiatus from scarier fare, the filmmaker is at it again with The Visit, which follows Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her little brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) on a trip to see their estranged grandparents in rural Pennsylvania. Aside from an awkwardly silent car ride home from the train station, the four seem to hit it off immediately. That is, until Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) start acting very, very strange. Gradually, what promised to be a fun, wholesome family gathering unravels into a nightmarish week of secrets, scares and (spoiler) dirty adult diapers.
Writer and director M. Night Shyamalan first frightened audiences with his paranormal hit, The Sixth Sense, which received six Academy Awards nominations. His sci-fi thriller Unbreakable came one year later, closely followed by the release of Signs in 2002. With these three films, Shyamalan seemingly secured his reputation as a prolific auteur on the rise. Fast-forward thirteen years and Shyamalan’s IMDb page tells a different story. Since the massive success of The Sixth Sense, his films have exhibited a steady decline in ratings. Meanwhile, mere mention of the once anointed filmmaker elicits a laugh from most. It’s in light of this that many moviegoers, myself included, have eagerly anticipated Shyamalan’s return.
While I wouldn’t call The Visit a comeback, it’s a step in the right direction. In many ways, the film feels like the same old Shyamalan. It continues the examination of certain, key themes that have become signature of his repertoire. The divided family motif (first embodied by Cole and his mother in The Sixth Sense) reemerges within the estranged relationship between Becca and Tyler’s mom, Paula, (Kathryn Hahn) and their grandparents, who went 15 years without speaking after a dramatic falling out during Paula’s teenage years. Even more central to The Visit is an exploration of the fear of death, which the film clearly equates with a fear of the elderly. Yet, if Shyamalan set out to discourage such a fear, he undoubtedly failed, as Nana and Pop Pop are responsible for the film’s creepiest content.
Other aspects of The Visit remove Shyamalan from familiar turf. The film marks his first attempt at the now commonplace found footage plot device, the popularity of which is often attributed to The Blaire Witch Project and, more recently, the Paranormal Activity series. Though this technique has seemingly earned a place among modern horror conventions, it is quickly losing luster, and thus Shyamalan runs the risk of appearing behind the times in his use of the method. Yet, by incorporating the technique into the narrative structure of The Visit, which is mostly filmed from the perspective of Becca, an aspiring documentary filmmaker, he expertly provides context for the found footage style while avoiding the dreaded “shaky-cam” effect that audiences have come to expect from modern horror pictures.
The Visit also features a dose of comedy, and unlike Shyamalan’s previous works, all of the jokes are intentional. Sadly, despite some genuine laughs, many of these stunts feel forced. This is most apparent during the handful of unfortunate scenes in which young Tyler assumes his gangster alter ego and raps for the camera. In these moments, Shyamalan feels like the stereotypical “cool dad” who works too hard at resonating with younger audiences. In the end, these attempts come across as desperate, gimmicky and entirely unfunny.
Fortunately for Shyamalan, Oxenbould breathes such life into Tyler that he remains likable even in his most potentially annoying moments. DeJonge accomplishes much of the same with Becca, whose sobriety threatens to render her unrealistic. Instead, thanks to some truly authentic moments from DeJonge, the audience is ultimately drawn into Becca’s perspective. The Visit serves as the stage upon which these two young stars prove their talents for conveying humor, vulnerability and fear beyond their years.
When it comes to eliciting such fear, Nana steals the show. Dunagan’s physical presence allows for the film’s most chilling scenes, as she fully commits her body to the bizarre antics of Nana, including – but not limited to – obsessively scratching at the walls while stark naked. In one of The Visit’s most memorable scenes, Nana chases the children through a crawlspace under the porch, taunting, “I’m gonna get you.” At other times, Dunagan’s power lies in her subtleties, especially during the many moments in which she simply dozes off into space, clearly out of touch with reality. These nuances work in unison with her more overt displays to create a character that is sure to haunt viewers long after The Visit is over.
In a recent interview with USA TODAY, Shyamalan attributed his diversion from scarier content to having young children. “Honestly, my kids were small and I made more family-oriented fare, and they’re teenagers so it’s time to scare them now.” If The Visit is any indication of the integrity of Shyamalan’s flair for terror, then his children can look forward to a lifetime of horror. I know that I do and, comeback or not, that seems promising enough.
