MYST #1: The Visit

I'm no fan of horror films, especially if the director and writer of this movie are known from horror filmmaking. The director, M. Night Shyamalan, directed and produced movies such as "Sixth Sense," and "Paranormal Activity," which are films that are intended to be scary, but this movie seemed to have a twist to it. When I watched the trailer, I didn't know if it was a gag horror film or an actual scary movie. I was asked to see this film with friends but I told them it looked terrible, but I ended up going just to see it fail and laugh about it. In my Intro Survey I mention that I don't like it when the movie has genre switching and that's what makes a bad film.  As I am watching the film it has parts where it is obviously supposed to be funny, and the theater laughs hysterically. My friends and I look at each other and agree that this is definitely a movie like "Haunted House" or "Scary Movie." Everybody is throwing out comments towards the film just to make it even more hilarious. This is where the twist happens. Towards the end, there was a scene where the kids are on a Skype call with their mom back at home. (Spoiler Alert) And the children tell her that they are urgent about being picked up because "something" is going on with their grandparents. The mother then asks where they are and what they are doing. The siblings then pick up the laptop and move it towards the window so the mother can see and realize they are standing in the backyard. Then the mother says "Kids, who are those people? Those people aren't your grandparents. Have you been staying with them the entire week?!" At this point everyone in the theater and myself included are saying "What in the hell!?" We all know something is about to go down and are actually freaking out. The movie continues to have it's funny moments but then it starts to become a killer/slaughter film.

I have never seen any director pull off a successful horror film that is funny as well. Comedy and Horror. Who would have thought? Horror films are always funny when it is viewed with friends because you feel safe and comfortable. But Shyamalan made it even better by genre switching/mixing. This movie is based around the kids not coming out of their rooms after 9:30 p.m. because that's when things start becoming "weird" to the grandparents. The children are of course curious and go out to see for themselves what is going on. The film has that stereotypical horror aspects such as going beyond your limits and going past a door you shouldn't. Everyone knew when a jump scare or a build up to a freaky moment would occur. I don't know whether it was because most of the people enjoyed vulgar humor, or today horror films are just too typical for the director to use this aspect. The children would actually make fun of the grandparents about the acts they have done. Shyamalan wanted the viewers to go from laughing to screaming in a matter of seconds and it was confusing but well developed.

In the beginning of the movie, it started with the mother talking into a camera as it was setup in a interview angle and she was setting up the situation as it would cut back and forth from the kids packing to go visit their grandparents that they never met. You are then introduced to the camera operator, Becca, and she tells the audience that she will be documenting the entire trip with their elders. What's a good horror movie without a shaking camera so you can throw up afterwards. It does capture a documentary style movie though and it does a well job with creating this happy kids meeting their grandchildren but now this camera is the one thing they hold on to to see what happens to their grandparents late at night. There were some patterns when it came to the kids using the cameras. Since Becca has two she gave one to her younger brother, Tyler. And the viewing from each of the kids point of view was very interesting. It makes it seem as though we are all getting different perspectives from how these kids are dealing with the situation they got themselves into. With the documentary style it adds times of when their father wasn't around and all the good times they had at the very end of the film to end off on a good note. Any other film would just have a montage of all the good times and then have the narrator speak about it afterwards. We actually got a deal of homemade films like the ones we love deeply.

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

This film touches on so many genres. Horror/Thriller/Comedy/Documentary. The director definitely wanted to mash all of them together and see what would it create since all of the other movies nowadays are have a very simple genre and it can't be broadened out to other genres. But now it has been shown that it can become a great film if it is thought out well so we don't have people judging it and thinking it is dumb (Yes I did call myself out). But really this film did phenomenal with making me believe that any movie can be well done if it is thought out no matter if people describe it as inconsistent. Inconsistency has brought people to label horror movies to be dumb and predictable. This director decided to change the movie industry up and change how we view horror movies as Tyler and Becca do.

All in all I rate this movie 7/10

Official Trailer