A Visit to Grandma’s House
On September 11th, 2015, The Visit was released into theatres, surprising viewers with a different kind of antagonists. Rather than paranormal activity and serial killers, The Visit brings a scary movie a little closer to home than some would expect.
While The Visit sounds like a film about alien invaders, it actually begins by following siblings Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) on a trip to meet their maternal grandparents for the first time.
Due to their mother (Kathryn Hahn) running away with her boyfriend when she was 19 with a boyfriend who she proceeded to have two children with, Becca and Tyler have never met or had any contact with them until one day out of the blue Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) contact them asking to meet their grandkids.
After saying goodbye to their mother and boarding a train heading into the countryside, they are welcomed by their Nana and Pop Pop where a visit with their grandparents is everything that can be expected. That is, until Becca and Tyler notice abnormal behavior and discover a shocking secret–and they begin to wonder if they’ll ever make it home.
But it’s only when Nana and Pop Pop begin make the odd request of forbidding Becca and Tyler from leaving their rooms at 9:30 at night that things get strange and eery and erratic noises are dismissed at Nana’s sleepwalking.
With a PG-13 rating and such a laughable plot, I expected a cross between Paranormal Activity and A Griswold Family Christmas. But in true horror movie fashion, there were plenty of cliche but effective “gotcha” scares as well as no cell phone reception, scared children, and spooky noises that come out at night.
The Visit was also shot using the creative filming style choice known as “found footage.” Also used in the Paranormal Activity movies, and every horror movie since then, this kind of hand-held filming gives the perspective of the camera and what the camera sees.
In the case of The Visit, Becca and Tyler attempt to document their mother’s childhood home since their mother couldn’t go herself. But the footage becomes a tool for their mystery investigation. They use the camera to see what happens outside their bedroom at night by sticking the camera in cabinets, inside Pop Pop’s barn, and every nook and cranny that will freak out the viewers.
While The Visit does have it’s fair share of scary movie moments, it also has surprise comedy moments. When younger brother Tyler tells his sister he wants to stop swearing he decides instead he’ll say the names of female pop-singers. This promise is followed by Tyler, terrified, and whispering “Katy Perry,” or shouts of “Sarah McLachlan!” several times throughout the movie.
But with these contradicting themes the question remains, is The Visit really a horror movie or a comedy?
“Comedy, for sure,” says a senior at Arrowhead High School, Gianna Natalizio. “There were all these parts where you were waiting for something scary to happen and then [Nana] came out of nowhere and all you could really do was laugh about it.”
However senior Judy Angle disagreed: “I don’t know, I thought there were some moments that were scary. Like there were moments when you were waiting for something to happen and jump out at you, and just the anticipation and waiting is what really made it scary. Like you know something will happen but not what so I think that it might not have been a horror movie in all aspects, but it did what it was supposed to do.”
Although the seniors disagreed on how much of a horror The Visit was, both girls stated they wouldn’t see it again if they had the choice and that maybe they would think twice before their next visit to Grandma’s house.
