The Visit, film review: M Night Shyamalan finally makes a film that’s not rubbish

It’s nice to see a horror movie that features a tense round of Yahtzee, says Charlotte O'Sullivan
Family unfriendly: Olivia DeJonge and Kathryn Hahn portray a daughter and mother plunged into horror in The Visit
Charlotte O'Sullivan11 September 2015

Breaking news: M Night Shyamalan has made a film that’s not rubbish. Working on a micro-budget of $5 million for Blumhouse Productions, the 45-year-old director has come up with an amusing, ultra-modern fairytale (think Hansel and Gretel).

It all starts with two precocious kids, teenage Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) and eight-year-old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), being packed off to rural Pennsylvania to bond with the grandparents they’ve never met. The week with Nana and Pop Pop involves an extremely scary oven, soiled nappies and night-time scuffling, with the script tapping into, but also mocking, our primal fear of age-impaired bodies.

It’s also nice to see a horror movie that features a tense round of Yahtzee (the game of kings), while Kathryn Hahn excels as the kids’ flaky single mother, distractedly trying to gauge the trip’s success via a fragile Skype connection.

The big let-down is the found-footage framing device (Rebecca is making a documentary for her mom, so both kids wield cameras). As in all sub-Blair Witch rip-offs, the images captured, in the midst of mayhem, are preposterous.

Shyamalan is cheating us but also himself. Given his one-time reputation as a serious director, we can’t believe our eyes.

Cert 15, 94 mins

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