The Visit (2015) Parent Guide

It’s been a few years since M. Night Shyamalan has attempted to spook audiences. With The Visit the director takes some pages from the classic children’s story Hansel and Gretel and adds a dash of Little Red Riding Hood to create a film that places two kids into grandma and grandpa’s strange abode.

Teenage Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are frequently assuring their mother (Kathryn Hahn) that all will be fine if she takes some time away from them to go on a cruise with her boyfriend. Mom is still nervous about the arrangement of leaving her children with her parents, from whom she’s been estranged for the past fifteen years. At the same time Becca, who, like her brother, has never met her grandparents, is anxious to have an adventure and try out her hand at filming the experience as a documentary.

Boarding the train they wave goodbye and hours later are in the heartfelt embrace of the people they refer to as Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie). Arriving at the warm farmhouse, their seven-day visit begins with fresh baked goods coming from an enormous oven and lots of fun distractions. However, it should be no surprise to those familiar with Shyamalan’s work that strange things will begin to happen.

The kids are advised to go to bed at 9:30 and stay in their room. But when peculiar noises begin to keep them up at night they venture out to see what’s happening. Peering down the steps Becca is startled to see her grandmother rapidly pacing back and forth and then suddenly vomiting. Another night Tyler cracks open the bedroom door and finds a naked Nana (of which we share a rear view) scraping at the wall. Grandpa also has issues. His frequent visits to an old shed trigger Tyler’s curiosity and end up sending the boy’s germ phobia into overdrive.

When questioned individually Pop Pop explains his wife is struggling with symptoms of dementia and that the kids should not be alarmed. In similar manner, Nana talks to them about Pop Pop’s incontinence issues and how he is embarrassed by the problem. The discussions help Becca to settle into the week, however Tyler is still agitated by their behavior, which seems to become more extreme with each passing day.

The casting of these young protagonists may imply this film is suitable for similar aged audiences. Parents will want to be cautious with this assumption. These kids will find themselves in a serious situation that, while not often explicitly violent, may be bothersome for many—especially for young viewers with family members experiencing mental illness. A couple of scenes of abuse and images of dead corpses are brief but disturbing, as is a scene where a germ-sensitivity is exasperated by having the sufferer’s face maliciously covered in fecal matter. There are also some profanities and brief sexual banter.

Unfortunately this film also struggles to deliver the fear factor hoped for by the writer of the amazingly suspenseful The Sixth Sense. Instead, the bulk of this screenplay meanders at a slow pace until we reach the final concluding moments. Looking back we recognize the scare is dependent on audiences buying into many assumptions and coincidences that don’t hold up well during after-movie discussions.

The production does deliver some jump moments and even tries to convey a moral message as a take away from Grandma’s house. But with the script moving across the line that separates scaring children versus abusing them, The Visit becomes a destination you will likely want to pass by.

About author

Rod Gustafson

Rod Gustafson has worked in various media industries since 1977. He founded Parent Previews in 1993, and today continues to write and broadcast the reviews in newspapers, on radio and (of course) on the Internet. His efforts also include writing and researching media in all its forms and observing how it effects society and culture. He and his wife Donna have four children.