Steemitzombies: Movie Review - M Night Shyamalan's The Visit (2015)

As described by my buddy @whatamidoing : "Steemit zombies is a community and a set of guidelines for encouraging the non-spammy reposting and curation of undervalued posts. Steemit zombies must use the #steemitzombies tag as a first tag, include a link to the original post, and be at least one month old with a suggested maximum of $15 payout on the original post. Come join the #steemitzombies chat in Steemit Community Catalyst discord."

My Original Post

Post date: 5 months ago
Payout: $0.19
Commenters: 1

I wrote this 5 months ago and it made a measly 19 cents from 12 votes. Most of those votes came from Dutch speaking community members, who were hanging out in the same Discord group as I. My believe is that this is a more than decent film post, worth recycling and it isn't worse than the average @adsactly 'Lessons from Movies' post, no offense @guyfawkes4-20 ;>)

I'm not saying that this deserves to go trending or make 200 plus dollars but I just hope that some more people will be able to enjoy it. If I can buy myself some breakfast from the earnings, I'm happy.

Now let the resurrection commence:

Saturday night - or should I say Sunday morning? - it was literally after midnight, a friend and I decided to watch a movie. We picked M Night Shyamalan's The Visit. The fact that I can spell the guy's last name, without having to look it up, can be taken as a sign that he has made a name in the film industry by now.

Some might argue that Shyamalan had already done so at the end of the 20th century. Back in 1999, he directed the notorious The Sixth Sense, that was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Screenplay and Director. He was still pretty young by then - in his late twenties - but from that moment onwards, many put him on a list of filmmakers to watch. High expectations were followed by a number of films that are arguable good, mediocre and bad (depending on your taste and standards). These movies are, in chronological order:

Unbreakable (2000)
Signs (2002)
The Village (2004)
Lady in The Water (2006)
The Happening (2008)
The Last Airbender (2010)
After Earth (2013)
The Visit (2015)

and most recently:

Split (2016)


The Next Sixth Sense

People always seemed to be waiting for another Sixth Sense, which isn't fair at all. And, as is the case with comparing apples and pears, this often leads to disappointment. Although some tend to like apples more than pears - and vice versa - too many people have judged all metaphorical fruit that followed The Sixth Sense to be rotten.

Especially after The Last Airbender and After Earth, trust in the future of Shyamalan's directing career must have been at an all time low. And that is when he did something clever: he went back to writing and directing the kind of childhood fantasy story that he seems to be so at ease with. Looking at the figures/ boxoffice - 65 million made on a 5 million dollar movie - this was exactly the right decision.

In short, the guy seems to have found his groove again. The Visit appears to come right out of the imagination of a young teenager. It's full of these little fears and fantasies that we can all identify with, as we have all been kids. Fear of the dark, of other people, of sounds behind closed doors and so on.

It isn't my aim to tell you about the plot, but here's the tagline, taken directly from IMDb:

"Two siblings become increasingly frightened by their grandparents' disturbing behavior while visiting them on vacation."

and here's the official trailer:

source

My Opinion

Let me end this post by telling you that I was pleasantly surprised by this little movie. It reminded me of the kind of movies that Shyamalan directed at the start of this century - films like Signs, The Village and perhaps Lady in The Water. You might or might not like these (kind of) films, but I can tell you one thing:

Shyamalan has his own unique style. And when he's in his element, this makes for visual stories that are often quite entertaining. The fact that my friend and I decided to watch the entire movie in one sitting - or actually we weren't sitting but laying down - struggling to stay awake (the movie ended after 2am), proofs that Shyamalan did a decent job.

The (Next) Visit

We also spoke a little about Split, which is - according to rumors - a pretty interesting movie. It seems like this director is in his element again and I guess that's a good thing for every human being. I hope to watch that film the next time I visit this friend of mine.

What do you think? How do you like Shyamalan's movies? Have you seen the Visit and how did you feel about it? Would you consider Shyamalan an auteur, a filmmaker with his own unique style? Feel free to speak out in the reply section to this post

Image source poster