The Visit, directed by M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, The Visit, compares favorably to his more successful efforts, The Sixth Sense, and Unbreakable, though it is a bit of a departure from those two earlier films.

The basic plot is a teenaged sister and brotherr, Becca and Tyler (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) are sent to visit their grandparents by their mom, (Kathryn Hahn), while mom takes a trip with her boyfriend. Since mom has been estranged from her parents for years, the two kids have never seen their grandparents, and know very few details about them.

Of course, all sorts of strange things happen, and the suspense builds until the kids find out exactly what is really going on. The film is presented as a documentary filmed by Becca, who is a budding filmmaker, and that is something you'll need to keep in mind as you watch it.

Like The Sixth Sense, there is a twist that will change the context of the story. Unlike that other film (which is on my list of all-time favorite movies, btw), the twist here is quite sinister. The Sixth Sense is an even better movie if you see it while knowing the surprise at the end. I'm not sure I can watch The Visit again, knowing what's really happening.

Shyamalan made some odd choices as far as his staging goes--many of his shots have all of the activity in the shot going on to the left of the screen, with nothing at all on the right. I'm sure this was deliberate, and possibly it was his way echoing what was going on in the plot--by the end of the film staging was a lot more traditional, and we also know a lot more of what was going on with the story.  I'm sure that the conceit that it was supposedly shot by an amateur filmmaker had some bearing on it as well.

Performances were solid all around, and the film has the look you would expect from Shyamalan, with a gorgeous color palette and interesting contrasts. There are plenty of shocks and scares, and, while the ending isn't quite as satisfying as I'd like, it was still wrapped up nicely.

I'd recommend it. See it, at least once.

On a side note--I was a bit disconcerted, during the previews, at the number of movies that were "based on a true story." I find those incredibly tedious. I don't mind films based on true stories per se; it's when they are marketed that way that I find them annoying. Why? Because an awful lot of people forget about the "based on" part and just assume that every shot, every word of dialog, every bit of action, is what really happened. Uh, no. Don't ever use a narrative film to help you decide how you feel about a historical event, because chances are an awful lot of it was just made up to fit whatever narrative the filmmaker wanted to relate.

Okay, those are my thoughts about The Visit. Have you seen it? If you did, what did you think?