The Visit

M. Night Shyamalan's latest film is an intimate and chilling thriller with a horror edge, made all the more frightening by the handheld camera format. The film pits two distinct "entities" against each other: kids making a film about their family, and their grandparents, with whom something is definitely wrong. Over the course of an hour and a half, we are offered a glimpse, through a shaky image, into a house in which truly strange things happen after 9:30 in the evening. A formally minimalist and suspenseful excursion in the form of a film that stands out especially for its premise and its rawness. (08/02/2016)

M. Night Shyamalan in good form. The Visit has the makings of the best horror film of the year. The film clearly pokes fun at Paranormal Activity in particular, but also most bland ghost films, and it manages to perfectly terrify with a mere pair of old without the use of any CGI, visual or make-up effects (It Follows just shakes its head in incomprehension). The film moves quite quickly, with scares, frightening, disturbing and chilling scenes being thrown at us from a quarter of the way through – thumbs up to Shyamalan, I was afraid I wouldn't see anything until the last few minutes. It's shot in a realistic way, the found footage form doesn't get on my nerves, there's no noisy, low-quality and epilepsy-inducing shots, the sequences with the grandmother are very scary (the hide and seek sequence and the final scene with the duvet are great), and the final, for me completely unexpected and shocking twist is one of the best of this year. Shyamalan, this was a good value ride!!! Story 8/10, Atmosphere 10/10, Scares 8/10 Gore 1/10, Visuals 7/10, Action 6/10, Entertainment 9/10. 90%. (07/10/2015)

M. Night Shyamalan proved it and made a film that is evidence that he has it in him and that he has ideas worth filming and that you want to see. Or maybe you don't want to, because the sight of them is quite distressing in places. This is a film that gives you exactly the horror atmosphere you crave in a horror film. Ultimately, the story is also truly intriguing, and you want to know how it all ends. (13/10/2015)

Shyamalan, jump in the sea already! The famous director has a reputation, a quality cast, better resources and technical possibilities, but his found footage is more boring than Petr Jákl’s. To be fair, some of the subtly creepy and distressing scenes, like the night shots of the frantic grandmother or the opening game of hide-and-seek, work well, and the film can also be credited with likeable child protagonists and a well-crafted narrative form, but the tension doesn't build-up consistently, there are few truly scary moments, and in the final minutes the script wasn’t just disappointing, it was awful. Another desperate attempt to reset the quality of the former machine for dense atmosphere fails again, perhaps next time... 50% (29/11/2015)

Up until the uniform Blumhouse Productions ending, a very successful and understated bit of paranoia that will remind many of the anguished multiple-day visits to the grandparents when Mom and Dad wanted to be free of the little brats and revive their flagging sex life. Shyamalan's brokeback mountain of an ego, after all his disasters, is finally focused more on the viewer than on himself, yet still tries to sell a certain distinctiveness with it that leaves the viewer wondering until the end whether the characters are still acting okay or whether we're over the edge. For me, satisfaction and extra credit for some really strong yet subtle horror moments, see the oven cleaning or the game of hide and seek. (04/01/2016)