October 15th: The Visit (2015, In Theaters)

This was a film that was kind of hard for me to get to.  It's only in select theaters around the area, but I have to say that I see why.  This film is in fact a very strange movie.  It's a documentary of a girl and her brother going to stay with their mother's parents.  The grandparents have gone unheard of for years and the children have actually never met them before.  Chekov, would you please set the helm for over shadowing?

The Visit is the second film from M. Night Shyamalan that I'm reviewing this month and it's completely by accident.  This movie didn't really look, feel or pace like a Shyamalan movie, at all.  That is, until the very end.  And even that was very light Shyamalanianism.  It's always nice to see a film from a director that doesn't reek of their usual tricks.  (Here's looking at you, Joss Whedon![and John Favreau])

The characters, while being forgetable, work well.  The "too serious artistic teen documentarian," the "I'm the next big viral rapper 12 year old boy," the "party too hard single mother who pays too little attention" and the "goofy grand parents."  The characters seemed like they should belong in the tapestry of a more "by the numbers" movie, but they work well to create a believable family in this one.

While the movie was fairly predictable on a small level and lacked the gore that many people like to see, I think it did very well to work it's pacing and tension.  I have to commend Shyamalan for making this, it's a great film overall.  At one point, I was expecting demons, but was turned on my head.  I suggest this one for anyone looking for a good, tense horror movie that doesn't rely heavily on gore, jump scares or boobies.

I give this one a go.