M. Night Shyamalan is back and has teamed up with the prolific production team at Blumhouse Productions to bring us yet another horror this summer.
Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) and Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) are siblings, living with their mother (Kathryn Hahn) and finding it difficult to cope with why their father left them. With their mother having an estranged relationship with her own parents an attempt by them to build bridges and take the kids for a weeklong trip is organised. Tyler and Rebecca have never met their grandparents before, giving them an air of excitement and an excuse for Rebecca to make her documentary surrounding her Mother’s history – this is where the hand-held documentary style of filming comes in – Let’s be fair it’s the only format the modern day horror film makers know and I can’t keep going on about how tired and boring this format is becoming.
Once the kids arrive at their Grandparents house everything seems all fine and normal and we take a long drawn out build up until something the tiniest bit odd starts to emerge. After hearing strange noises after they have retired to their bedrooms for the night, they decide to take a peek to see what’s going on only to see Grandma roaming around the house. The following morning they bring up the issue with Granddad only for him to tell them “best not to come out of your room after 9.30pm” Instantly from this moment things becoming even more disturbing and the kids start to question their very safety.
Obviously the budget wasn’t high for the making of this film but surely Shyamalan is a bit of a horror genius and his work could make something out of what they had available right? Wrong! The Visit comes across more as a comedy than a horror film. Most of the comedy is delivered by Tyler, a young boy who thinks he just a bit street and going to be a bit of a rap star, his dialogue is dated and just a tad misogynistic, which at times is funny but mostly offensive.
A lot of the scenes are just questionable laughable but what it does have going for it is the actual scares. The Visit does revert back to the tried and tested jump scares which will get your hearts racing. Sometimes it’s the good old-fashioned scares that make up for the lack of tension building in these films and it’s certainly worked here.
The film ends on a major twist and we all love a good twist but this just seems to have come straight out of nowhere, like it’s just been thrown into the film as a last minute gesture, there is absolutely no build up leading to this twist that makes any sense.
The Visit does try it’s hardest to be a good horror it’s just a little dull with only a handful of scares, it just spends way too much on a build up with no real explosive conclusion that should come part and parcel with these films.
The Visit is out now in UK Cinemas.
