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)

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)

M. Night Shyamalan has proven and directed a film that is evidence of his talent and his ideas that are worth filming and that you want to see. Or maybe you don't want to because they can be quite oppressive at times. This is a film that will deliver exactly the horror atmosphere you crave in a horror movie. And finally, the story itself is truly interesting, and you want to know how it will actually end. (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)

Yes, he's back. And yes, it makes me happier than anyone else. This is the found footage concept squeezed to the last drop, a masterful work with escalating tension and an epic double finale where the bedroom one almost stares the one from [REC] in the eye. But above all (and this is what quality horror films are usually about), the film has two great central child actors. I can't remember other protagonists that I cared so much about, rooted for, and experienced so strongly along with them. If the next one is thicker, I’ll give it full stars. 4 ½. (28/09/2015)