I wouldn’t watch “The Visit” again even if you bribed me with grandma’s homemade cookies.

The movie starts off with Loretta Jamieson’s (Kathryn Hahn) backstory. It has been 15 years since she ran away from home at the age of 19, all because she was in love with an older man (Benjamin Kanes.) They went on to get married and had two kids, but divorced when Kanes fell in love with another woman and left his family behind. Right from the start, Jamieson’s kids, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) and Becca (Olivia DeJonge,) can be seen packing for a trip to their maternal grandparents’ house in rural Pennsylvania. Tyler is 13 and loves to rap, while Becca is 15 and has a passion for cinematography, which is why the entire movie is filmed through her camera. The kids have never met Nana (Deanna Dunagan) or Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie,) and don’t know what to expect of the old couple. The rest of the movie revolves around the kids’ visit and how things take a turn for the worse when they realize that Nana and Pop Pop aren’t who they seem to be.

I went into the theater expecting to be disappointed. I was half right. The movie started off like any other horror movie, a normal family doing everyday activities. The only good things about this movie were that it started getting strange pretty quickly, and the plot seemed to be original. Screenplay writer M. Night Shyamalan did a great job with the plot twist and horror elements.

DeJonge (Becca) and Oxenbould (Tyler) did a great job at acting but Dunagan (Nana) definitely took the cake. She did a fantastic job of portraying a twisted version of an otherwise lovable grandmother.

Unfortunately, the ending ruined the entire movie. The mood of the last few scenes contradicted the feel of most of the movie. There was also some unnecessary nudity, which made me uncomfortable. This movie is fun to watch if you’re going to make fun of it throughout. The sudden bursts of comedy were the only thing that kept me interested in the plot. Overall, Shyamalan should’ve wrapped it up without it being cliche and kept the focus on the horror.  

Pros

• Great plot twist
• Scary horror scenes

Cons

• Bad ending
• Unnecessary nudity