The Visit

The answer: Found-footage horror flicks and M. Night Shyamalan. The question: What was popular at the movies more than a decade ago and has strained to keep its relevance since then?

Indeed, the combination of filmmaker and technique doesn’t pay dividends in The Visit, a low-budget mix of frights and laughs that fails to be consistently scary or funny.

It’s a simple premise about precocious teenage documentarian Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her mischievous younger brother, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who are sent by their single mother (Kathryn Hahn) to stay with their grandparents for a wintry week at their remote old house.

It’s the first time they’ve ever spent time with Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie), since their mom hasn’t spoken to her parents since an incident several years ago. The rules include never going into the basement or the shed, and never coming out of their bedroom after 9:30 each evening (all of which they do, of course, at some point).

Then Tyler becomes worried as the old folks start acting erratically, which Becca initially chalks up to senility before suspecting their motives might be more sinister.

In his prolonged slump since becoming Hollywood’s hottest young filmmaker with The Sixth Sense and Signs, Shyamalan has tried several different ideas without much success. Here he tries to revert to his roots but seems to be riding coattails with visual and narrative gimmicks.

His script intentionally skimps on the context and character development, in part to set up for the inevitable big twist. However, by not offering any hints into character backgrounds, it merely serves as an excuse for arbitrary behavior from the two old coots dealing with undiagnosed mental illnesses and sociopathic tendencies. Such randomness doesn’t allow for much emotional investment from moviegoers.

The climactic reveal is moderately surprising, yet the resolution that follows sort of fizzles out instead of ratcheting up the suspense. And the young siblings are rambunctious but charming, although conveniently naive in a way that feels more contrived than authentic.

Despite a few effective chills, the concept for The Visit is more clever than its execution. At least it might make you think twice the next time you drop the kids off at grandma’s house.

Rated PG-13, 94 minutes.