Shyamalan’s Twist Lands Flat as Homework in The Visit

M. Night Shyamalan built his career on twists that land. The Visit is the rare one that doesn’t. It’s a low-budget, found-footage horror movie about a grandmother who might be a demon, and it plays like a director who forgot what made his earlier films work. The twist here is telegraphed early and explained late, and the whole thing feels less like a puzzle and more like a homework assignment that got turned in late.

The setup is simple. Two teenagers, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenford), are sent by their divorced mother to spend a week with her estranged parents in rural Pennsylvania. Their mother wants proof that her parents aren’t abusive monsters, and the kids agree to record everything. What follows is a slow-burn descent into paranoia, punctuated by strange noises, locked doors, and a grandmother (Deanna Dunagan) who seems far too eager to please. The father, Peter (Stephen Amos), is a quiet presence, and the mother, Graham (John Gallagher Jr.), is the film’s real villain, a man whose anger simmers beneath a polite surface.

Trailer, via Universal Pictures.

The Found-Footage Problem

Shyamalan has never been comfortable with the genre he’s working in. His earlier films used the camera as a storytelling tool, a way to keep the audience off balance. Here, the camera is a prop, a device for recording the family’s worst moments. The problem is that the characters never question why they’re filming. They don’t stop to wonder if the footage matters. They don’t hide the camera when they want privacy. They don’t even look at the screen during tense moments. This is a movie about people who are being watched, but it never makes the watching feel urgent.

The result is a film that looks cheap and feels cheaper. The lighting is flat, the sound design is hollow, and the editing is choppy. There are long stretches where nothing happens except people talking over each other in the background. The handheld camera work is meant to feel shaky and immediate, but it just makes the frame wobble. The film tries to build suspense through silence, but the silence is so complete that it becomes a joke.

DeJonge and Oxenford Carry It

The two leads are the film’s saving grace. Olivia DeJonge plays Becca as a smart, curious teenager who starts to see the cracks in the family facade. She’s the one who notices the inconsistencies, the one who questions the grandmother’s behavior, and the one who holds the camera steady when everyone else is panicking. Ed Oxenford plays Tyler as a nervous wreck, a kid who’s afraid of everything and convinced that his sister is making a mountain out of a molehill. Together, they sell the tension, even when the script doesn’t give them much to work with.

The supporting cast is weaker. Deanna Dunagan plays the grandmother as a mix of kindness and menace, but she never quite lands the shift from sweet to scary. Stephen Amos and John Gallagher Jr. play the parents as caricatures, the father as passive and the mother as actively cruel. The film spends a lot of time establishing Graham’s abuse, but it never fully explains why he acts the way he does. He’s a monster, but he’s a flat one.

The Twist That Doesn’t Land

The twist is the grandmother is a demon. It’s revealed near the end, and it’s supposed to be shocking. Instead, it feels inevitable. The film drops clues throughout, but they’re so obvious that the reveal reads as a shrug. The grandmother’s behavior is so erratic that the idea of her being possessed doesn’t require a twist—it requires an explanation. The film gives neither.

The twist also undermines the emotional weight of what comes before it. The characters are worried about being abandoned, about their family history, about the truth of their past. All of that is rendered meaningless by the reveal that none of it mattered. The demon grandmother is a plot device, not a character. She exists to scare the audience, not to deepen the story.

Comparing the Films

The comparison is stark. Shyamalan’s best work built tension through uncertainty. In Unbreakable, the audience watches Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson circle each other for hours before the truth of their relationship is revealed. In Sixth Sense, the film withholds the central twist until the final scene, making the reveal both shocking and inevitable. The Visit offers a twist that’s both predictable and under-explained. It’s a director working in a mode that doesn’t suit him.

What Works

There are moments where The Visit finds a pulse. The middle section, where the grandmother starts behaving strangely, builds some genuine dread. The film is at its best when it’s not trying to explain itself, when it’s just letting the camera catch the family in uncomfortable situations. There’s a scene where the grandmother sings a lullaby that sends chills down the spine, and there’s a moment where the father’s phone rings and the room goes silent. These are small victories, but they’re rare.

The film also benefits from its setting. Rural Pennsylvania is a place that feels isolated, where the road ends and the woods begin. The house is cramped and old, full of shadows and creaks. The film uses the location well, even if the direction doesn’t know what to do with it.

What Doesn’t Work

The pacing is the film’s biggest flaw. It takes forever to get to the payoff, and when it arrives, it’s underwhelming. The first half hour is spent establishing the family, their history, and the rules of the visit. Then the film slows to a crawl, spending ten minutes on a single conversation that could have been cut to thirty seconds. The middle section drags, and the final act rushes to tie everything together.

The dialogue is also a problem. The characters talk in circles, repeating themselves and saying things that the audience has already heard. The film is full of exposition, delivered in long monologues that break the tension instead of building it. The characters are smart enough to figure things out on their own, but the script keeps telling them what to think.

The Verdict

The Visit is a disappointment, but it’s not a failure. It’s a film that shows what happens when a talented director loses his way. Shyamalan has always been able to create a sense of unease, but here that skill is buried under a poor script and a broken structure. The film is watchable, in stretches, but it’s never compelling. It’s a film that’s easy to forget as soon as the credits roll.

The film’s score reflects this. It’s a middling effort from a director who once seemed like a master. The score is 5.5 out of 10, a number that captures the film’s frustration. It’s a movie that tries to be scary but settles for unsettling. It’s a movie that tries to be clever but settles for obvious. It’s a movie that tries to be a statement and ends up being a footnote.

Key Facts

• Title: The Visit
• Director: M. Night Shyamalan
• Release Year: 2015
• Genre: Horror
• Runtime: 90 minutes
• Score: 5.5/10

The film is not a disaster, but it’s not a success either. It’s a director playing it safe, and safe is rarely interesting. Shyamalan has shown he can do better, and he will likely do so again. For now, The Visit stands as a reminder of what happens when a great idea meets a weak execution. It’s a film that’s worth seeing once, for the performances and the setting, but it’s not worth revisiting. It’s a film that’s best left behind.

demon grandmother · found-footage · horror · M. Night Shyamalan · movie review