Movie Review: With ‘The Visit,’ M. Night Shyamalan gets his mojo back

THE VISIT (PG-13)

Let’s face it, M. Night Shyamalan’s last few films have left a lot to be desired. After the one-two punch that was “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable,” it’s been a steady decline ever since.  In recent years, films like “The Happening” and “The Last Airbender” have turned Shyamalan into a bit of a laughing stock. Even the very mention of his name evokes laughter in some circles. It’s so disheartening because Shyamalan can be quite a brilliant storyteller.

The new low-budget Jason Blum-produced thriller, “The Visit,” is certainly a return to form for the filmmaker. This movie is much smaller in scale than his previous efforts, but “The Visit” finds writer-director M. Night Shyamalan going back to basics. The end result is an effective little gem that features characters we actually care about, characters who are ultimately thrust into a situation that could best be described as “weird.” Fear not, though, because it’s the good kind of “weird.”

In “The Visit,” a recently divorced woman (Kathryn Hahn) sends her teenage children Becca and Tyler (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) to spend some quality time with her estranged parents in the countryside so that she might have some time to collect her thoughts and figure out how she’s going to move on with her life.

Upon arrival at a ranch house in the middle of nowhere, Becca and Tyler are greeted with open arms by Nana and Pop Pop (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie). These proud grandparents are thrilled to be united with the grandchildren they’ve never really had an opportunity to spend time with due to a strained relationship with their daughter.

At first, Becca and Tyler bond famously with the grandparents they’ve never known, but shortly thereafter, these curious teens soon begin to realize that grandma and grandpa might have a couple of screws loose. When Nana isn’t staring into space in a hypnotic-like trance, she likes to scratch walls, walk aimlessly throughout the house in the middle of the night, and stand in creepy, statuesque poses. She also has a most interesting technique when it comes to cleaning the oven. Meanwhile, Pop Pop spends a lot of his time doing God knows what in a sinister-looking shed just outside the house.

There’s a goofy, comical sensibility at play in “The Visit,” but unlike “The Happening,” it’s all by design here. Shayamalan does an expert job fusing comedy and horror in “The Visit,” but perhaps this film’s strongest attribute is offering up characters that are truly worth caring about.

As a mother at a crossroads, Hahn does terrific work. She clocks in very little screen time in this picture; but she’s incredibly effective, and you will never once doubt her love for her kids.

DeJonge is fantastic as a filmmaking-obsessed teen so utterly confused and concerned with what’s going to transpire next in her life that she chooses to document everything with a video camera. Oxenbould is colorful and energetic as Becca’s brother, a tenacious teen with an affinity for rap music. In fact, Tyler drops a couple of impressive rhymes in this picture that would make Eminem proud.

On the flipside, providing the creep-out factor with extraordinary skill are Dunagan and McRobbie. But while these seasoned pros aptly deliver an offbeat sense of menace, they couple it with a grand sense of humor.

From a technical standpoint, Shyamalan does something pretty interesting with “The Visit.” The majority of the film is captured through Becca’s lens as she sets out to put her documentary together, but thankfully, “The Visit” doesn’t feel like a disposable found footage film. It’s much more creative than that.

From a story standpoint, “The Visit” is every bit as dramatic as it is scary and funny. There’s a real connection between Hahn, DeJonge, and Oxenbould, and this keeps the movie grounded in reality even when Nana and Pop Pop’s increasingly strange behavior takes the movie on a detour into “Weirdsville.”

“The Visit” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and it has a couple of moments that don’t quite work, but in the end, it’s undeniably spooky and entertaining in a big way. For my money, this is Shyamalan’s best work since “Unbreakable,” and I don’t mean that in a “After Earth-is-better-than-The Last Airbender-and-The Happening” faint praise sort of way. No, “The Visit” is genuinely fun and goes a long way to remind many of us why we fell in love with Shyamalan in the first place.