Director M. Night Shyamalan returns to the horror genre with "The Visit." After taking time to try his hand at big-budget sci-fi flicks like "The Last Airbender" and "After Earth," he leaves behind the highly-produced Hollywood look to dabble in the found-footage subgenre of horror and gives kids even more reason to dread going over to grandma and grandpa's house, Variety reported.
In the film, single mom (Kathryn Hahn) sends her two teenagers, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), to visit the grandparents they've never met, according to IMDb. What ensues is the teens documenting their trip with digital cameras, and they learn that there's something not quite right with Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie).
The story adds elements of the Brothers Grimm interpretation of the creepy German fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel," portrayed in the trailer with a scene where Nana attempts to get Becca to climb into a hot oven. It also plays off of the success of the found-footage horror franchise "Paranormal Activity," according to Rolling Stone.
The absence of a soundtrack was a deliberate tool that Shyamalan used to create tension with the sounds of teens chatting, according to Variety. He uses sound-editing to amplify every door creak and crash to up the jump-scare factor.
The film received a 65 percent on movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes, and it reportedly doesn't hold up to Shyamalan's other contributions to the horror genre ("Sixth Sense, "The Village").
The film is "not enough to make up for Shyamalan's awful After Earth," Rolling Stone reported, "but it's a start."
Watch the official trailer for "The Visit" below.
