Hell hath officially frozen over. It’s official. Up is down, black is white, cats are dogs, and the world has gone all fiddle faddle because I saw the new M. Night Shymalan (Sham wow?) movie and I didn’t immediately disembowel myself with a wooden cooking spoon. Don’t get me wrong, parts of the movie are practically unwatchable, namely the first twenty minutes and the last five, so I mean, the run time of the film clocks in at 90 minutes, so you have slightly over an hour of an actually upsetting ad genuine film hat doesn’t rely on countless jump scares to get the point across and features subject matter that has been relatively untouched. These are all GREAT things as far as mainstream Hollywood movies go, because just like when Scotty Floronic and I found a broken crutch and bloody bandages on our front lawn (we live right next to a hospital), you hope for a miracle, but the reality probably has more to do with a broken whiskey bottle and a case of the crazies.
Submitted for the approval of the drunk in a graveyard SJW society, I call this story – THE OLDENINGSTEIN
Ok for real though. Old people are horrifying. I speak from experience. When I’m not abusing my liver or vomiting up reviews for you perverts to read, I’m a caregiver. Also horrifying, yes? Anyways, I went into this movie with a little more information about the whole thing than the average mouth breather in that M. Night Shyamalan could have rolled up to an average night shift and set up some cameras and easily made several movies and their sequels.
I like the concept of insanity, I really do, but my fuck it’s been done to death hasn’t it? I think that’s why the whole dementia/Alzheimer’s disease brand of insanity makes good subject matter for a film. Briefly touched on in The Taking of Deborah Logan, The Visit expands on that concept and tells us the story of a pair of horrible children who are going to spend a week with their long lost grandparents. Sounds cute right? A little lovey dovey.
Allow me to say I almost didn’t sit through this movie because the first twenty minutes consist of terrible dialogue between these kids who are both so weird and so white it’s really remarkable. The one kiid may have just been a jar of Miracle Whip that someone put clothes on and puppeteed from behind the scenes. The jury is still out on that one so I will get back to you.
everyone always says i have my mothers eyes
What really wrecked this opening little bit for me was the try hard dialogue which was peppered with youthful euphemisms on the part of the little brother, and Dickensian formalities on the part of the big sister documentarian. The dialogue was really distracting and where it tried to come off as cool and quirky, it sounded awkward and cumbersome and severely impaired my suspension of disbelief. The other part that really smacked me around a bit was the fact that these kids have DSLR cameras worth several thousands of dollars. M. Night Shyamalan must have realized the ridiculousness of this because he tries to play off a line where the Wal-Mart clerk mom is said to have found a Canon Mark 3 DSLR camera in a damaged goods bin. First of all, that camera is worth like $3000-5000, they don’t just end up in discount bins. He had to shoe horn in why the footage is so good and isn’t filmed on a cellphone and doesn’t involve someone carrying around a Macbook so I get it, but it was still awkward.
Story goes that their mommy dearest peaced the fuck out when she was nineteen and never spoke to her parents again. The kids roll up to meet gram gram and pop pop and everything seems all sunshine and rainbows until gramps announces that the kids aren’t to leave their room after 9:30pm, with no wifi and no imaginations, the kids obviously do and find granny projectile vomming and howling and staggering around and generally doing what sweet grannies do at 10:45pm on a Monday.
granny’s got that crazy look in her eye again
Frederico Fellini, the daughter is trying to film a heart warming documentary centering around the reunion of their broken family and spends most of her time interviewing granny and gramps and generally being pretentious. Grandma freaks the kids out when she crawls like something out of a Japanese horror film and grabs them laughing while her ass is hanging out of her brown denim corduroy skirt.
Discrepancies start to add up – the kids are told to GTFO away from the basement due to “mold” and the shed out front is also a no fly zone. Obviously the little jay of mayo goes into the shed expecting to find some old titty magazines or something and finds A STACK OF SHITTY ADULT DIAPERS.
Hoooo boy! Gramps has got a case of the runs and can’t stop eating Taco Bell. Granny gently explains that grandpa is incontinent and is prone to accidents.
After discovering Diaper Mountain (or should I say Incontinent Product Mountain for all my healthcare professionals out there), the little jar of mayo that could starts adding up all the weirdness. Grandma takes to wandering around nude at night, scratching at doors and generally slinging her flapjack titties around for the whole world to see. Grandpa finally cracks and tells the kids that granny has SUNDOWNING SYNDROME which is a form of dementia.
Ok real talk here – sundowning exists. But it’s not a syndrome. For whatever reason, demented people or people with brain injuries sometimes demonstrate increased agitation and a decline in cognitive abilities as the light changes to dark. For some patients it can happen at 3pm in the afternoon and continue all night… but it’s not a syndrome. It’s a symptom. I appreciated the nod to something that a lot of folks don’t know about, and I mean really why would the average person? We lock our elders away as soon as the crazies set in, so we don’t have to witness that.
Anywho, the daughter is so engrossed in her documentary that the little things that start happening like her laptop camera being destroyed and Grandpa cleaning his gun with it in his mouth and Grandma’s increasing night time insanity is brushed off until the kids set up a camera and film her at night wandering around with a knife.
granny needs her pills
Anyways the kids get freaked out and call their mom who is home from her being slutty on the high seas vacation and as they pan the Skype call to the grandparents, the mother goes WHO THE HELL ARE THOSE PEOPLE. Turns out, granny and gramps aren’t really granny and gramps. They’re actually patients from the nuthouse where granny and gramps worked and fake granny drowned her kids in the lake.
Thats the twist.
Obviously if you pay attention and notice neighbors talking about the “drama” at the mental hospital, and then granny and gramps constantly being absent from appointments, you get the idea that something is up. Turns out real granny and gramps are dog meat in the basement, and the mental patients have plans to commit suicide and kill the children.. a real family affair.
Anywho some shitty diapers get wiped on people and stabbing occurs and like every M. Night Shyamalan film, all the idiosyncracies get wrapped up in the most ham fisted way. The insecure girl is able to brush her hair in front of a mirror, there’s lots of crying and vagina holding, and then the movie ends with a white kid rapping, so I mean if you go see this flick just show up twenty minutes late because you couldn’t find your keys that you left at the circle jerk, and then leave five minutes early because you’re late for your table at Red Robin and you’re pretty well golden.
I liked this film overall. The scary Alzheimer’s patients was neat, but somewhat problematic. the whole twist and shitty dialogue and spoon feeding plot connectors to the audience thing was a bit much but really for PG-13, it wasn’t bad.
Though I much rather prefer my old people to look like this:
a photo of DIAG contributor Filthy Uncle Mike
Anyways kids – remember to always hide the evidence when you boom boom in your pants, wander around with your ass hanging out and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS stay spooky! Until next time.