Cinema Clips: The Visit

M. Night Shyamalan makes another bad movie, but this one actually shows a little bit of promise after a rancid run of films that includes “The Village,” “The Happening,” “The Last Airbender,” and “After Earth.” Becca and Tyler (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) have never met their grandma. When Mom (Kathryn Hahn) decides to go on a cruise with her boyfriend, she leaves them with her parents, even though they have been estranged for many years. Becca and Tyler are game to meet their Nana, so they board a train to Pennsylvania and meet her and their granddad at the station. Things get weird fast on the farm. Nana (a delightfully strange Deanna Dunagan) is prone to sleep walking and projectile vomiting, sometimes naked, after 10:30, while Pop Pop (creepy Peter McRobbie) has a tendency to stick shotguns in his mouth and pile his used adult diapers in strange places. There are a couple of good scares, but Shyamalan (who wrote the script and directed) opts for the stupid “found footage” gimmick, which does nothing but trip up his narrative. The film doesn’t need the found footage angle, and it suffers for it. Still, Dunagan is a creepy movie monster, and Shyamalan shows that maybe he still has some creativity left in the tank. With him, it seems simpler is better, but still not that good.