movie the visit spoiler

MONDAY MORNING

We meet Tyler, Becca’s brother, while they drive to Philadelphia's 30th street station. He is 13 and talks like a wannabe rapper, complaining that he’s got three girls on deck and is upset he won’t be able to text all week. Their mom hugs goodbye at Grand Central, and they board a train. On board, Tyler shows off his free-styling skills by rapping for the camera. Becca mentions that she agreed to the trip because their mom hasn’t been able to connect with her new boyfriend, and a five-day cruise might help them get closer.

NANA & POP-POP are waiting at the train station with a sign, "Becca & Tyler." As they get off the train, they see the sign and go straight up to them. The grandparents seem friendly enough and take them back to their large house. Tyler does a freestyle rap using Nana’s suggestion of “pineapple upside down cake.” Becca discusses her documentary and her love of making movies.

Tyler and Becca get settled into their room upstairs, which used to be their mother’s. They play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets the bed and who gets the sofa… and Becca gets the bed. She tells Tyler about the old time song she’s going to play over some of the footage when there’s a happy conclusion to the week. She gives Tyler a second camera so he can film additional footage.

Tyler films Pop-Pop mysteriously working in the shed. He calls out to him and Pop-Pop sees him but doesn’t respond.

Tyler coerces Becca to play Hide and Seek underneath the house. They crawl around and then suddenly Nana is down on all fours behind Tyler. She races after him and then Becca, each scurrying to get away from her as she seems demented and “off,” repeating “I’m going to get you” as she scurries after the kids. They escape from underneath the house, and Nana laughs, her hands sullied, seemingly aware of the game and simply trying to participate. She walks away, revealing the roughhousing has caused her dress to ride upwards, exposing her bare butt.

A man comes to the door and asks to talk to their grandparents. They tell him they’re not there. He says he knows them from Meadow Shade, the hospital they volunteer at a few days a week, and he has some gossip to tell them about the latest drama going on down there.

Tyler decides he’s going to investigate what’s in the shed. He sneaks inside and says it smells like ass. He finds in the corner a pile. He gets closer to see what it is and discovers it’s used adult diapers. He runs out screaming. Inside, Nana explains to him that Pop-Pop is incontinent, and a lot of adults have to wear diapers. He hides them in the shed because he’s ashamed. She then continues giving Becca tips on how to make cookies.

That night, Pop-Pop comes into their room and tells them that there is mold in the basement, and they should not go down there. He also tells them that everyone follows the same schedule, so lights have to be out at 9:30. They agree but are annoyed, especially since there is no WiFi, and they can’t use any electronics. Tyler decides to start using pop star’s names instead of misogynistic terms in his raps and says if he stubs his toe, it sounds cooler to shout out “Shakira!” than a cuss word (This is a motif that is carried out throughout the movie with him shouting out “Sarah McLachlan” and “Katy Perry” in times of annoyance or danger). The two can’t sleep, and it’s now 10:23 PM. Becca says she’s going to sneak out to get one of Nana’s cookies. She opens the door and sees Nana walking in the dark, projectile vomiting. She quickly shuts the door.

TUESDAY MORNING

The next morning, Pop-Pop and Nana are outside with breakfast on the table. Nana apologizes because she’s got hot oil all over Becca’s computer but really only the webcam. Becca says she will probably be able to scrub it off with enough effort. The kids later ask Pop-Pop if Nana is sick. They are told Nana experiences something called sundowning, which is a form of dementia that happens when the sun sets. It’s the equivalent of talking in one’s sleep and not to be concerned, but it’s best for them to stay in their room. He says Nana is convinced there are bad things inside her, so she throws up to get rid of them. As he’s explaining this, he’s putting on a tuxedo. They ask him if he’s going somewhere, and he tells them there’s a costume ball at the train station he’s late to. He then realizes that he’s confused and takes the tuxedo off.

Pop-Pop takes Becca and Tyler through the town. They play a game where they make up stories about people who live in the buildings – including the closed police station. When they try to make up a story about a tall building, Pop-Pop tells them it’s Meadow Shade where they volunteer, and he’ll show it to them when he gets his Meadow Shade badge from home. They go to the park to play, but Pop-Pop tells them they have to leave because they’re being followed. The kids see a man across the street using his cell phone, not paying attention to the three of them. Pop-Pop runs over and begins to accost the man, yelling at him. Becca and Tyler convince him to leave the man alone, and Pop-Pop apologizes to them.

Back home, Becca is in the kitchen with Nana. She asks her if she can interview her, but Nana does not want to be on camera. Instead, she asks for Becca’s help cleaning the oven. Becca cleans with just her arm, but Nana tells her to lean into it. Nana then convinces her to get completely inside. While she’s fully submerged in the oven, Nana bounces up and down excitedly. Becca reappears, and Nana tells her she is ready to be in her movie.

Becca interviews Nana by asking her warm-up questions. When she asks Nana what happened 15 years ago to cause her not to speak to her daughter, Nana starts going berserk, shaking violently, and screams that she no longer wants to be in Becca’s movie.

Outside, Tyler interviews Becca asking what animal she’d want to be (“a dolphin”), then why she likes the pizza guy despite him having bad acne (“he has kind eyes.”) Then he asks her why she can’t look at herself in the mirror, pointing out when she brushes her hair, she does it with her back to the mirror. And when she brushes her teeth, she looks down. She hints that it’s because their dad abandoned the three of them years ago, and she has felt rejected. Tyler defends his dad, saying there was a time when he was eight when he was playing peewee football. His team was up by three, and it was the fourth quarter and they were set to win as long as nobody scored in the final minutes. A big kid came running towards him but instead of blocking him, he just froze. Everyone started screaming at him but he was completely frozen, immobile, which is what happens when he’s afraid. But his dad never judged him for it. But he sometimes blames that for being why his dad went away.

In the editing software, she’s piecing together on her computer, Becca films herself in front of an obstructed slideshow of pictures of her brother, her, and their father. She says that while she’s trying to tell the story of her mom’s parents, she will not be including anybody from the past that she doesn’t consider worthy of acknowledgment.

That night, at 10:47 PM, they hear a scary sound coming outside their locked door. The two want to film what’s on the other side, so Tyler tells Becca to open the door. She refuses. He then says if she holds the camera, he’ll open the door. He does, and they reveal a naked Nana clawing at the door opposite them, scratching like a frantic dog. He shuts the door and declares that he’s now partially blind.

WEDNESDAY MORNING

The next morning, Becca interviews Pop-Pop, and he tells her how he used to have a great job, but he used to see a white figure with yellow eyes at his job. Nobody else could see it, but he was insistent it was there. So he was eventually fired. He warns Becca that she, too, will see the white figure with yellow eyes one day. She tells him he seems sad.

Tyler tries to convince Becca to set the camera up in the living room so it can film what happens at night. She says she can’t film their grandparents unless one of them is there otherwise it’s unethical. She explains they’re both experiencing signs of early on-set schizophrenia.

A neighbor named Stacey comes over, telling them their grandparents volunteered at the hospital when she was in rehab, and she baked treats to thank them.

The kids get an Ethernet cord and now talk to their mom on Skype. Tyler tells her Nana is acting weird. The mom tells them they’re old, and that’s just how old people act. Becca defends them and says they are weird but nice. Tyler and Becca both agree that this is a “1” on the scale of problems. Their mom comments how she wishes she could see them (but can’t because their webcam is blocked from Nana’s mishap in the kitchen). Their mom leaves to watch her boyfriend in a Hairy Chest contest on the cruise ship.

That night, at 10:16 PM, they hear a horrible commotion outside the door. They want to know what Nana is doing this time but are too scared to look. Becca decides just to open the door and film for a short while, for the documentary’s sake. When she opens the door, they see Nana running past, with both arms behind her back, rushing past them, in both directions. Just as she’s about to crawl towards the camera, they shut and lock the door.

THURSDAY MORNING

The next morning, the four of them go out into the woods. Becca says she doesn’t want to leave without getting an “elixir” for Mom. While the grandparents are ahead on the trail, Tyler begins to mimic Nana’s running with her arms behind the back… only to get caught by Nana, who tells them they’re going to miss the family of foxes. They turn the corner and see Nana staring into a well. They ask her what she’s looking at, but Pop-Pop tells them it’s nothing.

Tyler and Becca return to the well later to try to figure out what is hidden inside. But all they pull up is water.

Becca goes in the shed and finds Pop-Pop with a rifle in his mouth. He declares he’s just cleaning it and then mimics cleaning it.

Later that evening, Becca is in the living room and hears Nana laughing hysterically. She decides to show what kind of television show makes her Nana laugh, hoping it’s the same one her mom loves. But she finds Nana rocking in a chair, facing the wall. She asks Nana what she’s laughing about and is told the naughty spirits are inside her, and she laughs to keep them at bay. She then tells her a story about how there are people in the water that were stolen by people from another planet. These people will later be collected and sent back to this planet but for now, they’re at the bottom of water. Becca tries to interview her again, but she goes crazy when she is asked about the night that caused them to become estranged. When Becca presents it as a story about a girl who fell in love with an older man, whose family did not approve, and what she would say to the girl, Nana tells her “I would tell the girl I’m sorry.”

Becca now has her “elixir,” an apology from Nana. Outside the window, they see Nana and Pop-Pop in a heated argument with their neighbor, Stacey. They wonder what they are fighting about.

Becca decides Tyler is right and that they should set up the camera in the living room to see exactly what goes on at night. Becca also wonders what’s in the basement given that they were told not to go down there.

At night, Tyler is freaking out because he touched something slimy on the toilet handle and can feel it seeping into his skin. Becca gets tissues and helps wipe it off. Time passes, and they fall asleep. In the living area, Nana opens and slams the basement door several times. She then rushes around the room, crawling like a dog… then appears RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HIDDEN CAMERA and screams. She picks up the camera and then films herself going into the kitchen where she grabs a butcher knife. She makes her way up to the kids’ bedroom and begins pounding at their door. Becca and Tyler wake up, startled. They can hear Nana trying to get in but just stay still.

FRIDAY MORNING:

The next morning, they watch the footage and see that Nana was trying to kill them. Becca tells them that their mom is back from her vacation that day so they just have to avoid their grandparents all day until she can come and get them. They throw the ball around and every time the grandparents come by, they tell them “We’re playing. This is how kids play.”

Inside, they try to avoid their grandparents by going out to play but Nana asks if Becca can help clean the oven first. Becca leans in, but Nana tells her to go in further. Tyler objects but Nana tells him they’ve done this before. Becca finally climbs all the way in and Nana pushes her fully inside and shuts the door, telling her she wants to do something real quick – and wipes down the handle. Tyler screams at her to open up the oven, and she does. Becca is shaken up, and they quickly go outside and play.

They wait until the grandparents are out front and then get on Skype, hoping to sneak in a call without the grandparents being aware. The oil has now been scrubbed off of the webcam so their mom can see them, too. The mom is back home and tries telling them about her vacation and a fight with her boyfriend, but they quickly tell her that she needs to come and pick them up right now. She tells them, “Do you know how long it’d take to drive from here to there?” but they tell her to get in the car immediately and make her way to them. They say that their grandparents are scaring them; Nana tried to kill them with a butcher knife, and Pop-Pop put a gun in his mouth and she’s afraid he’s going to hurt himself. Tyler films the grandparents from the window so his mom can see them. The mom is now white-faced and tells them she has to tell them something and for them to listen – “THOSE ARE NOT YOUR GRANDPARENTS.” She asks if they’ve been staying with them all week and tries to call the local police but gets a recorded message (the station is closed). The mom complains that the hick town has an incompetent police department, and she’s going to drive to come get them and will continue to try to call the police on the way. Heading out, she tells them to get somewhere safe… but just then the grandparents return, and they shut down Skype. The grandparents suggest having a board game night, but the kids say they want to check something outside while the grandparents figure out the teams. They head for the yard only to see STACEY HANGING DEAD FROM A TREE. Nana appears and tells them they already have the teams – old versus young.

The kids are forced to play Yahtzee with the fake grandparents, who eerily pretend everything is normal, Nana complaining how competitive Pop-Pop is. They begin to play the game, but the grandparents are becoming more demented. Pop-Pop begins dressing up for the costume party again. Becca excuses herself from the game saying she’s got to film something real quick. Pop-Pop is suspicious and angry. Nana gets excited and starts eating cookies frantically. She turns to the camera Tyler has placed on the table and screams “YAHTZEE!”

Becca goes down to the basement, explaining to the viewer that she thinks her real grandparents have been trapped down there, and that’s why Pop-Pop told them to stay away. She begins calling out for the real Nana and Pop-Pop but doesn’t hear a response. In the corner, she sees a dumpster and hurries over to it. Inside are family photos of her real grandparents. She also sees something from Meadow Shade which she now learns is a MENTAL HOSPITAL. She digs some more and finds a hammer with blood and white hair on it… and then sees THE CORPSES OF AN OLD WOMAN AND OLD MAN. Immediately behind her, Pop-Pop has appeared. He explains that he and the woman they know as Nana were mental patients and their real grandparents were volunteers. When they told them about their upcoming visit with their grandchildren, the two imposters decided it would be fun to experience in their place. But he is now determined to kill Becca. He chases Becca up into her room and locks her in. But she manages to defend herself, then busts the lock and escapes.

It’s past 9:30 PM. Nana is beginning to sundown and starts crawling around the couches, chasing Becca. Meanwhile, Pop-Pop comes down to the kitchen with Tyler, who is frozen in fear, just like during the peewee game. Pop-Pop tells him he’s “under a spell” and tells Tyler he never liked him. He goes behind the kitchen counter and removes his pants while the frozen Tyler looks on. Simultaneously, Becca continues to be chased by Nana. Becca is hiding in the corner facing the mirror but as normal, she doesn’t look at herself, so she’s oblivious that Nana is creeping up on her. Nana smashes Becca’s face into the mirror and pieces of glass shatter all around them. Becca picks up a shard of glass as Nana jumps on top of her, clawing at her.

In the kitchen, Pop-Pop has now revealed that he’s removed a dirty diaper. He comments that he’s noticed Tyler doesn’t like germs… and then shoves the dirty adult diaper into Tyler’s face.

Meanwhile, Nana is on top of Becca, trying to kill her, but Becca stabs Nana to death with the glass shared. In the kitchen, Becca encourages Tyler to snap out of his frozen state, and he does, charging at Pop-Pop again and again and shouting as if he’s tackling the big player on the peewee league. He has so much adrenaline that he pummels Pop-Pop to the ground and then smashes the refrigerator door against his head several times (unseen to the audience).

The kids run outside to find their mom and police cars out front. They hug their mom as the old time music that Becca promised to play at an important moment in her film plays.

Back home, the mom tells Becca that she used to be a great singer, and she could tell her mom was proud of her when she’d sing around the house as a kid. The fight happened because they didn’t approve of her husband and when her mom blocked the door to keep her from leaving, she hit her mom and in response, her dad hit her. Stunned by the event, she stormed out and never talked to them again. She tells Becca not to hold on to anger. In response, we see the slideshow of Becca’s dad that she previously said was banned from her documentary, played in full.

As the credits roll, we see Becca brushing her hair while looking at herself in the mirror while Tyler performs a rap to camera about the events that took place over those five days, including getting a used adult diaper shoved in his face and how it took two bars of soap to feel clean again. He says it did not taste like chicken.

Tyler and Becca go to spend the week with their estranged grandparents while their mom is on vacation with her new boyfriend. Little do they know, but the grandparents are actually patients at a mental hospital, who killed the real grandparents and took over their lives when they heard of the upcoming visit. The kids kill the imposters in self-defense and the mom regrets having a 15-year grudge against her now deceased parents, who were harmless in retrospect. Because of this, Becca forgives her father for abandoning the family years ago.

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The Visit Ending, Explained: What’s Wrong With the Grandparents?

In M. Night Shyamalan’s 2015 horror film, ‘The Visit,’ the audience accompanies a pair of young protagonists on a trip that leads to more menacing outcomes than one expects from a visit to Grandma’s house. After their distant grandparents, Nana and Pop Pop, reach out to teenage sibling duo Becca and Tyler, the pair takes the former up on their invitation for a week-long stay. However, upon arrival, armed with several cameras for Becca’s documentary, the two quickly begin noticing the strange happenings that seem to occur at the house after nightfall. Thus, the kids find themselves fending for themselves as each day unravels more erratic behavior by their aging grandparents, with the night bringing something more sinister.

The found footage film builds a compelling thriller narrative that gradually boosts its suspense until the final act delivers a startling and much-anticipated plot twist that fans have come to expect from the filmmaker. Nonetheless, the same conclusive twist may have left some of the viewers with a few questions. SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Visit Plot Synopsis

In her late teens, Loretta Jamison ran away with a substitute teacher from her high school, Corin, causing a rift between herself and her parents. As a result, years later, after Corin has abandoned his family, Loretta’s 15-year-old daughter, Becca, and 14-year-old Tyler have never met their grandparents. However, their distant relationship stands to change when the old couple reaches out to their grandkids, extending a home-visit invitation. Even though Loretta is against the idea, she doesn’t try to stop her children after they decide to visit her childhood home.

As such, while Loretta leaves for a cruise with her boyfriend, her kids take the train to visit their grandparents with promises of routine Skype calls. Becca, an aspiring filmmaker, decides to document the entire thing in hopes of learning the specifics about her mother and grandparents’ falling out. Consequently, Bella and Fredrick Spencer arrive at the train station on Monday morning to pick up their grandkids with enthusiastic smiles. Their first day together goes smoothly, and as it comes to an end, the kids’ grandpa, Pop Pop, instructs them about a 9:30 bedtime rule.

Although the kids don’t think of it much at first, Becca learns the merit of following through with the rule after she ventures out for a midnight snack and witnesses her Nana, sick and frantically throwing up. Even more frightening, the morning after, the woman abruptly and manically chases the kids under the house’s crawlspace during an impromptu game of hide-n-seek. Throughout the day, the kids’ concern grows further after noticing a few disturbing things about Pop Pop, such as his lack of bowel control and tendency to attack strangers in a fit of paranoia.

The following night, Tyler’s worries grow after he spots Nana wildly scratching at the walls outside the kids’ guest room in a stark state of undress. However, after Becca asks Pop Pop about the older woman’s condition, she receives a plausible answer about Nana’s sundowning issue, establishing her concerning after-hours behavior is similar to sleepwalking.

The explanation satisfies Becca, who attempts to return to her mission to learn about her mother’s relationship with Nana and Pop Pop. Still, she doesn’t make much progress since the topic seems to trigger a violent episode in her grandmother. Meanwhile, Tyler remains weary of his grandparents’ actions and insists they should spy on them by setting up cameras in the living room. Although Becca is initially against the idea, she agrees after walking in on Pop Pop with a rifle’s barrel in his mouth.

Even so, the plan backfires when Nana spots the camera on her nightly manic episode and attempts to break into the kids’ room armed with a knife. Once Becca realizes their lives may be in danger after reviewing the night’s footage, she decides to ask Loretta to pick them up on account of the dangerous circumstances. However, the kids are in for a big surprise when they show the elderly couple to their mother from a window, only to learn that the people they have spent the past few days with are not their grandparents.

The Visit Ending: Who Are The Old Couple? What Did They Do To The Real Grandparents?

As a slow burn of mourning suspense and horror, the film reveals Nana and Pop Pop’s concerning attributes in slow bouts. At first, the behavior that the couple exhibits can be easily explained as a condition of their old age, with sundowning, memory issues, and paranoia forming the baseline. Yet, as the film progresses, the old couple becomes more and more dangerous— first toward themselves and then the kids.

Due to Loretta’s dramatic exit from her parents’ house, the woman seldom speaks to the couple, even as she regularly calls the kids. Furthermore, a seemingly innocent accident damages Becca’s webcam, robbing the mother of any visual cues. Therefore, it isn’t until Thursday morning, when Becca and Tyler have begun fearing for their lives, that Loretta glimpses at the old couple. Consequently, she realizes all this time, her kids have been living with a pair of strangers who are pretending to be their grandparents.

The revelation immediately sets Loretta into action, who tries to contact the cops and reach her kids as soon as possible. In the meantime, she advises her kids to seek help from the neighbors to put distance between themselves and the imposters. Nevertheless, the old couple prevents Becca and Tyler from leaving the house with the idea of a family game night. Thus, with tension in the air, the kids find themselves enduring a game of Yahtzee until the old woman’s incoming mental episode gives Becca an excuse to slip away.

Using the opportunity to explore the house and learn about the imposters, Becca ventures into the forbidden basement, where she suspects her actual grandparents to be. Inside, she finds all the answers to her questions as Becca’s hunch turns out to be true in the worst way possible.

As it would turn out, the imposter old couple is a pair of psychiatric hospital patients, where the actual Bella and Patrick Spencer volunteered. The psychotic couple believed they were from an alien planet, Sinmorfitellia. As such, the pair drowned their own kids inside a well that they believed to hold a passage to the alien planet. For the same reason, they were being under monitoring in the psychic hospital.

Nonetheless, the couple escaped their bounds after the Spencers revealed their plans for a family reunion with their grandkids. Envious of the other couple, the imposters, Claire and Mitchell, killed the former pair and overtook their identities to spend the week with Becca and Tyler. Consequently, the duo managed to evade outsiders anytime they came looking for them at the house and ultimately killed their neighbor, Stacey, when she realized their reality.

Soon after Becca learns this truth, Mitchell locks her up in a room with a psychotic Claire, undergoing her violent episode. Despite their earlier attempts at domestic bliss, the couple’s instincts compel them to harm the children. Nevertheless, before the older woman can choke Becca to death, the girl manages to get her hands on a mirror shard and stabs her attacker to death. Afterward, she rushes to her younger brother’s aid, whom Mitchel is psychologically torturing.

However, with his sister’s element of surprise, Tyler manages to overpower Mitchell, unleashing raw rage and bashing the older man to death by slamming the refrigerator door at his head. Ultimately, after killing the old couple pretending to be their grandparents, Becca and Tyler make it out of the experience alive and reunite with their mother.

Why Did Loretta Stop Talking To Her Parents?

By the film’s end, Loretta’s sore relationship with her parents remains the one last mystery. Arguably, the woman’s reluctance to speak to her parents played a part in the kids’ entrapment since the latter had no point of reference to distinguish their relatives from strangers. Furthermore, part of Becca’s curiosity about her grandparents stemmed from Loretta’s refusal to speak about them to her own kids.

As such, after Becca and Tyler have returned to the safety of their home, Loretta sits down for one last interview for her daughter’s documentary, where she speaks about her past with her parents. When 19-year-old Loretta tried to run away from home with Corin, her high school teacher, the former’s parents wanted to stop her. Nevertheless, the same only resulted in an altercation where Loretta hit her mother, followed by the former’s father hitting his daughter.

Therefore, Loretta’s last day on the farm gave birth to several familial complications. Although Loretta’s parents tried to apologize and solve things afterward, the woman continued to avoid them years and years into the future. For the same reason, Loretta imparts a lesson to her daughter to never hold grudges so hard that they end up ruining things. In turn, Becca, who despises her father for abandoning them, decides to learn from her mother’s mistakes. Unlike Loretta, who refused to speak to her parents, leading to regret after their death, Becca chooses to include home videos of her father in the documentary to close the narrative as a sign of her forgiveness.

Read More: Is The Visit Based on a True Story?

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‘The Visit’ Ending Explained: Family Reunions Can Be Torture

What's wrong with Grandma?

The Big Picture

• In M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit , the main characters discover that the grandparents they are staying with are actually dangerous imposters.
• The twist is revealed when the children's mother realizes that the people claiming to be their grandparents are strangers who have assumed their identities.
• The climax of the film involves a tense and dangerous confrontation between the children and the imposters, resulting in the reveal of the true identities of the grandparents.

M. Night Shyamalan is considered a master at delivering drop-your-popcorn-level twisty conclusions to his haunting films. People still talk about the end of The Sixth Sense as perhaps one of the greatest twists in the history of modern cinema. The jaw-dropper at the end of Unbreakable ranks close to the top as well. But there is another pretty decent curveball that the director tosses up in a lesser-known movie that is currently streaming on Max. In 2016's The Visit (which is currently streaming on Max ) he plays on the hallowed relationship between children and their doting grandparents. How could Shyamalan toy with the innocence of this? It is an excellent film that deftly blends found footage with the director's signature slow-burning tension to leave audiences with yet another "WTF?" moment . Let's dig into what exactly happens at the end of his underrated movie, The Visit .

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

What is 'The Visit' About?

Young Becca Jamison ( Olivia DeJonge ) and little brother Tyler ( Ed Oxenbould ) are sent away by their divorced mother Loretta ( Kathryn Hahn ) to finally meet and spend some time with their grandparents , Frederick, or Pop Pop ( Peter McRobbie ), and Maria, better known as Nana ( Deanna Dunagan ). They have a nice rural estate away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and it feels like this is going to be a heartwarming story of two generations of the Jamisons getting to know each other. It seems a bit odd that these two preteens have yet to meet their maternal grandparents, but Shyamalan explains that nicely in the first few scenes: Loretta has had a years-long falling out with her parents after leaving the family farm at the age of 19.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Eerie Found Footage Horror Movie Deserves Another Look

Loretta is still estranged from her parents but she wants her children to have a relationship with them — she only wants to go on a cruise with her new boyfriend and needs someone to watch the kids. So, the children have no idea what their Nana and Pop Pop actually look like. And you can feel something amiss from the very beginning of the film as the two precocious but excited kids set off to meet their grandparents. The entire film is told through the kids' (mainly Becca, an aspiring filmmaker) camcorder, as they have decided to document their trip. It's clear right away that Becca resents her father as a result of his abandonment, as she refuses to include any footage of her dad in her film.

Shyamalan Expertly Builds Tension in 'The Visit'

Upon the kids' arrival, Nana and Pop Pop seem like regular grandparents with regular questions like, "Do you like sports?" and "Why are your pants so low?" Nana tends to the chores like cooking and cleaning while Pop Pop handles the more rugged work outdoors like cutting wood. Naturally, Shyamalan tightens the screws immediately when the audience discovers that there is little to no cell phone reception, so he can isolate our four players into a single space. The Grandparents seem fairly easygoing but they have one strict rule — the kids must not come out of their bedroom after 9:30 pm. The very first night, Nana exhibits some bizarre behavior, walking aimlessly through the downstairs portion of the house and vomiting on the floor. However, the next morning she seems to be just fine.

Pop Pop explains to Becca and Tyler that she suffers from "sundowning" which is a very real diagnosis that usually affects the elderly . He tells them that at night Nana gets this feeling that something is in her body and just wants to get out. Pop Pop is clear and coherent, and yet again, we, along with our two young lead characters, assume the grandparents, while odd, are nothing to fear. A Zoom call with Loretta further assuages their fear by explaining away all the strange behavior as part of getting older. It's a back-and-forth that Shyamalan expertly navigates by pushing the audience only so far before reeling it back in with a logical explanation. But soon, things become inexplicably dire and dangerous.

"What's in the shed?" Tyler asks as he looks into the camera while contributing to Becca's documentary . "Is it dead bodies?" What he discovers is a pile of used, discarded adult diapers filled with Pop Pop's excrement. The smell sends Tyler reeling, and he falls out of the shed onto the snowy ground. This time, it's Nana who explains away Pop Pop's odd behavior. She tells her grandson that Pop Pop has incontinence and is so proud that he hides his waste in the shed. At this point, everything seems very odd to say the least, but there is nothing to suggest anything sinister is afoot . Not yet anyway. Even after he attacks a random stranger who he believes is watching him out on the streets on a trip into town, you still just think that maybe Pop Pop may just have a loose screw. However, the sense that these elderly people are something more than doting parents is intensified when Nana leaves Becca inside the oven for several seconds.

What Is the Twist at the End of 'The Visit'?

"Those aren't your grandparents?" Get the heck out of here! What?! Loretta finally sees the two people claiming to be her parents and tells Becca and Tyler via Skype that they aren't their beloved Nana and Pop Pop, but two complete strangers who have assumed their identities. Loretta immediately calls the police, but it will take hours for help to arrive at the remote farmhouse. Becca and Tyler are going to have to play along with these dangerous imposters. After the most tense and awkward game of Yahtzee in the history of board games, things get really, really ugly. Nana and Pop Pop haven't laid a hand on either of the kids in the movie so far. You can feel the slow and excruciating tension that Shyamalan is building . He knows that the audience is waiting for that "point of no return" moment when it is crystal clear that Becca and Tyler's lives are in danger. Becca manages to escape to the basement to discover the dead bodies of two elderly people murdered. Nana and Pop Pop are escaped mental patients from the nearby psychiatric hospital and have killed the real Jamison grandparents.

What Happens at the End of 'The Visit'?

Pop Pop realizes their cover is blown and becomes physical with Becca. He's upset that Becca is ruining Nana's perfect week as a grandmother. He tells her, "We're all dying today, Becca!" pushing her into a pitch-black upstairs room. Meanwhile, he grabs Tyler and takes him into the kitchen, and does one of the most foul and stomach-turning things ever in a Shyamalan film . He takes his used diaper and shoves it in the boy's face. He knows that Tyler is a germaphobe, and it is the most diabolical and traumatizing thing he could do to the boy. Becca is trapped upstairs with the sundowning Nana, fighting for her own life. After a struggle, Becca grasps a shard of glass from the broken mirror and is able to stab Nana multiple times in the gut.

She breaks the lock on the door and runs downstairs to help Tyler. She pulls "Pop Pop" off her traumatized younger brother. Suddenly, Tyler snaps out of his stupor and releases the pent-up anger of his football tackling lessons with his estranged father. He knocks Pop Pop to the ground and slams the refrigerator door on his head over and over . This is significant because earlier in the movie, Becca ribs Tyler about how he froze up during a big play in a youth football game, and this time he comes through to save Becca in the final kitchen scene conquering his biggest fears.

Loretta and the police arrive and the kids run frantically out of the house. The final scene has Loretta setting the record straight for the documentary about the traumatic moments surrounding her running away from home. 15 years before the events of the film, before Becca was born, Loretta fell out with her parents over her decision to marry her teacher. The argument led to Loretta and her parents getting physical with each other, and she left home that night and never responded to their attempts and pleas to reconnect. It's the most emotional scene in the film as Loretta is feeling a huge amount of guilt at never getting to say she was sorry for the strained relationship between her and her parents or getting to possibly hear an apology for the wrongs they also committed. Loretta tells Becca "Don't hold on to anger! You hear me?" The two then share a meaningful embrace. And the final shot is of the two kids with their dad on a birthday when they were much younger.

The Visit is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

Watch on Max

The Visit Explained (Plot And Ending)

The Visit is a 2015  horror   thriller  directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It follows two siblings who visit their estranged grandparents only to discover something is very wrong with them. As the children try to uncover the truth, they are increasingly terrorized by their grandparents’ bizarre behaviour. Here’s the plot and ending of The Visit explained; spoilers ahead.

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Where To Watch?

To find where to stream any movie or series based on your country, use This Is Barry’s Where To Watch .

Oh, and if this article doesn’t answer all of your questions, drop me a comment or an FB chat message, and I’ll get you the answer .  You can find other film explanations using the search option on top of the site.

Here are links to the key aspects of the movie:

• – The Story
• – Plot Explained
• – Ending Explained
• – The Sense Of Dread
• – Separation, Remorse, and Personal Fears
• – Frequently Asked Questions Answered
• – Wrap Up

What is the story of The Visit?

The Visit is about two kids visiting their grandparents for the first time. They are also going there to hope and rebuild a bridge between their mom and grandparents and help their mom heal after a painful divorce. The movie is in documentary form.

The Visit is one of the most unnerving and realistic horror stories. A good thing about classic horror movies is that, after the movie ends, you can switch it off and go to bed,  knowing that you’re safe . Vampires, ghosts, and demonic powers don’t exist, and even if you are prone to these kinds of esoteric beliefs, there are safeguards. If your home is not built in an Indian burial ground and you haven’t bought any creepy-looking dolls from your local antiquary, you’re perfectly safe.

However, what about the idea of two kids spending five days with two escaped psychiatric ward patients in a remote farmhouse? Now, this is a thought that will send shivers down your spine. It’s a story that sounds not just realistic but real. It’s  something that might have happened in the past  or might happen in the future.

This is  what  The Visit  is all about . This idea, coupled with documentary-form storytelling, is why the movie is so unnerving to watch.

The Visit: Plot Explained

Loretta’s past.

As a young girl, Loretta Jamison fell in love with her high school teacher and decided to skip her hometown with him. Before leaving, she had a heated altercation with her parents and hasn’t seen them since. At the movie’s start, she is a single mom of 15-year-old Becca and 14-year-old Tyler, and she  hasn’t spoken to her parents in 15 years .

What really happened on the day Loretta left?

Loretta’s mom tries to stop her from leaving the house, and Loretta hits her mom, and her dad hits her. Soon after, her parents try to reach out to Loretta, but she refuses to take their calls, and years go by.

Meet The Grandparents

Years later, Loretta’s parents reach out to  meet their grandchildren . The grandparents are, seemingly, wholly reformed and now even help at the local psychiatric hospital. Although initially not too fond of the idea, Loretta is persuaded by the insistence of her children. While she had no intention of visiting the parents, she permitted her children to pay their grandparents a five-day visit.

At The Grandparents’

Their first meeting with Nana and Pop Pop starts on the right foot. They start getting to know each other, and other than a simple generational gap, nothing seems too strange. The only thing that seems off is that they are warned  not to leave the room after 9:30 in the evening .

The kids break this rule, and on the first night, they notice  Nana acting erratically , projectile vomiting, scratching wallpaper with her bare hands, and running around the house on all fours. Grandpa appears paranoid and hides his adult diapers in the garden shed, and the situation escalates each day.

The Visit Ending Explained: What happens in the end?

The ending of Visit has the kids finally showing the elderly couple to Loretta. She, completely horrified, states that  those are not her parents . The pair posing as Pop Pop and Nana are escaped psychiatric institution patients who murdered their grandparents and took their places.

The kids survive, kill their captors, and are found alive and well by their mom and the police. Becca kills Nana with a shard from the mirror, thus symbolically overcoming her fear of her reflection. Tyler kills Pop Pop by repeatedly slamming him in the head with a refrigerator door after overcoming his germaphobia and anxiety about freezing.

The Sense Of Dread

The elements of horror in this movie are just  perfectly executed . First of all, the film is shot as a documentary. Becca is an aspiring filmmaker who records the entire trip with her camera. From time to time, we see an interview of all the characters, which just serves as the perfect vessel for characterization.

No Ghouls or Cults

Another thing that evokes dread is  realism . There are no supernatural beings or demonic forces. It’s just two kids alone in a remote farmstead with two creepy, deranged people. Even in the end, when Loretta finds out what’s happening, it takes her hours to get there with the police. The scariest part is that it’s not that hard to imagine something along those lines really happening.

The  house itself is dread-inducing . The place is old and rustic. Like in The Black Phone soundproofing a room  could have prevented kids from hearing Nana rummaging around the house without a clear idea of what was happening, but this was not the case, as the old couple weren’t that capable.

The  characters  themselves  are perfectly played . Something is unnerving about Pop Pop and Nana from the very first scene. It’s the Uncanny Valley scenario where you feel that something’s off and shakes you to the core, but you have no idea what it is.

Separation, Remorse, and Personal Fears

What this movie does the best is explore the  ugly side of separation, old grudges, and remorse . The main reason why kids are insistent on visiting their grandparents is out of their desire to help their mom.

They see she’s remorseful for never  working things out with her parents . In light of her failed marriage and the affair that caused it to end, she might live with the doubt that her parents were right all along. This makes her decision and altercation with her parents even worse. Reconciling when you know you were wrong is harder than forgiving the person who wronged you.

The Kids’ Perspective

There are personal fears and  traumas of the kids . Tyler, in his childish naivete, is convinced that his father left because he was disappointed in him as a son. Tyler tells Becca that he froze during one game he played, which disappointed his dad so much that he had to leave. While this sounds ridiculous to any adult (and even Becca), it’s a matter of fact to Tyler. As a result of this trauma, Tyler also developed germaphobia. In Becca’s own words, this gives him a greater sense of control.

On the other hand,  Becca refuses to look at herself in the mirror  or stand in front of the camera if she can help it. Both kids  had to overcome their fears to survive , which is a solid and clear metaphor for how these things sometimes turn out in real life.

Frequently Asked Questions Answered

The visit: what’s wrong with the grandparents who are the grandparents.

The people who hosted Becca and Tyler were runaway psychiatric hospital patients who murdered the real grandparents and took their place. Nana’s impostor (Claire) was actually responsible for murdering her children by drowning them in a well. Pop Pop’s impostor (Mitchell) wanted to give Claire a second chance at having kids / being a grandparent.

How did the imposter grandparents know about the kids’ visit?

It appears Claire and Mitchell hear the real Nana and Pop Pop brag about their grandkids’ visit. They also learned that neither the grandparents nor the kids had seen each other. The real grandparents appear to have been consulting in the same hospital Claire and Mitchell were being treated. The two crazies take this opportunity to break out, kill the real grandparents and go to the station to pick up the children.

The Visit: What is Sinmorfitellia?

Claire and Mitchell believe that Sinmorfitellia is an alien planet, and the creatures from there lurk on Earth. They spit into the waters of wells and ponds all day, which can put people into a deep sleep. They take  sleeping with the fishes  quite literally. Long ago, Claire drowned her children believing they would go to Sinmorfitellia.

The Visit: What happened to the real grandparents?

Claire and Mitchel killed Nana and Pop Pop and put them in the basement. This information went unnoticed because Becca’s laptop’s camera was damaged by Nana, so Loretta could not confirm the imposters. Claire and Mitchel were not present every time someone came to visit, so no one suspected foul play except Stacey, who received help from the real grandparents. As a result, she is killed.

What did Claire and Mitchel intend to do?

They plan to go to Sinmorfitellia with Becca and Tyler. They all plan to die on that last night and enter the well, which they believe is their path to the alien planet where they can be happy together. This is perhaps why the grandparents hang Stacey outside the house because they don’t care about being caught.

The Visit: What’s wrong with Nana?

We don’t know what caused Nana’s mental illness, but she was crazy enough to kill her two children by putting them in suitcases and drowning them in a pond. It appears she suffers from schizophrenia as she has delusions.

The Visit: Wrap Up

From the standpoint of horror, The Visit has it all. An unnerving realistic scenario, real-life trauma, and an atmosphere of fear. Combine this with  some of the best acting work in the genre  and a documentary-style movie, and you’ve got yourself a real masterpiece.

On the downside, the movie leaves you with a lot of open questions like:

• Considering the kids have never seen the grandparents and are going alone, Loretta didn’t ensure her kids knew what her parents looked like?
• How are Claire and Mitchell out and about so close to the hospital without being caught?
• Considering they are mentally ill, how did Claire and Mitchell plot such a thorough plan? (e.g. strategically damaging the camera of the laptop)
• I understand  Suspension Of Disbelief  in horror films, but neither kids drop their cameras despite the terror they go through only so we, the audience, can get the entire narrative?

What were your thoughts on the plot and ending of the movie The Visit? Drop your comments below!

Stacey is a talented freelance writer passionate about all things pop culture. She has a keen eye for detail and a natural talent for storytelling. She’s a super-fan of Game of Thrones, Cats, and Indie Rock Music and can often be found engrossed in complex films and books. Connect with her on her social media handles to learn more about her work and interests.

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Let's Talk About the Twist in M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Visit' (Spoilers!)

Olivia DeJonge in ‘The Visit’ (Universal Pictures)

[Warning: We’re going to spoil the big twist of The Visit in the very first paragraph and then discuss the ending, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, look away.]

For someone who was at one point regarded as the Master of the Mind-Blowing Plot Twist, it’s funny to think how almost every one of director M. Night Shyamalan’s surprise endings are essentially summed up by a single line of dialogue. Think, “ I see dead people ,” in The Sixth Sense , “ They called me Mr. Glass ,” in Unbreakable or “ Swing away ,” in Signs . The director’s new film, The Visit (in theaters today) tosses another one sentence-wonder on the pile: “Those aren’t your grandparents.” Uttered at the pivot point between the second and third acts, those words provide an otherwise formulaic movie with a much-needed kick in the pants as it enters the climactic home stretch.

But let’s back up a minute to explain why that sentence pulls the audience back in at the moment they might otherwise check out. Made in The Blair Witch Project found-footage tradition, The Visit depicts a family reunion that’s being documented by a pair of precocious youngsters, 15-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and 13-year-old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould). In order to give their single mom (Kathryn Hahn) a chance to take a much-needed vacation with her new boyfriend — her first steady beau since their father split — the kids have volunteered to spend a week with the grandparents they’ve never met. How have they gone this long without receiving a birthday phone call or even a card from their Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie)? Well, as Mom tells it, she fled their household nearly two decades ago under contentious circumstances and has deliberately refrained from seeing or speaking to them since. She’s clinging to that resentment so fiercely, she doesn’t even have any pictures of her parents around…a plot point that will become important later on.

Deanna Dunagan in ‘The Visit’ (Universal Pictures)

After years of silence, the old folks have taken steps to heal this rift by asking to meet their grandchildren. Becca, the budding filmmaker of the two siblings, sees the potential for a heart-wrenching documentary to be made from this week-long vacation and eagerly equips herself with two digital cameras. But rather than teary confessionals and family secrets laid bare, she ends up capturing some truly disturbing behavior not long after she and Tyler pass through the doorway of Nana and Pop Pop’s isolated Pennsylvania farmhouse. On their very first night, Becca records her grandmother roaming about the house, vomiting all over the floor. And at roughly the same time each subsequent evening, Nana is out of her bed doing something bizarre, whether it’s crawling around the floor on her hands and knees or moaning and banging on cabinets and doors. Pop Pop blames her problems on “ sundowning ,” an actual medical condition affecting dementia patients. Meanwhile, he’s got his own problems, including a shed where he keeps poop-filled diapers (he’s incontinent, you see) and a penchant for cleaning guns by sticking them in his mouth.

Much of this potentially paranormal activity has already been teased in the movie’s trailer , which is designed to make you think that: A) The grandparents are demons; B) The grandparents are possessed by demons; C) The grandparents have been replaced by body-snatching monsters from a parallel dimension. As it turns out, though, their crazy behavior is due to the fact that they’re both legitimately crazy. They’re also — big twist! — not Nana and Pop Pop, as Hahn’s character belatedly reveals when Becca and Tyler surreptitiously film the elderly couple during a Skype session on the last day of their stay. (Estranged daughter that she is, she has conveniently not wanted to speak with them in earlier video calls.) Because Mom is hours away by car and the local police aren’t answering, the kids have to stay in the house with these strangers for a full day pretending like nothing has changed.

Watch the trailer:

Too bad for them that Pop Pop decides to prove that being crazy isn’t the same thing as being stupid. Aware that the ruse is up, he fills in the backstory behind the twist. Prior to taking up residence in the farmhouse, he and “Nana” were patients at a nearby mental hospital where the real Nana and Pop Pop were regular volunteers.

Jealous at their happiness over the impending visit of their grandkids, the frauds forced their way into the home and murdered the couple with a hammer, stashing their bodies in the basement. (Throughout the movie, other folks from the hospital have been stopping by the house to check up on the popular duo, but their replacements have conspired to be “out for a walk” during these visits.) They then went to the train station to pick up Becca and Tyler who were none the wiser because, remember, no pictures! Also, no Mom around to warn them otherwise. (Not for nothing, but this twist really does elevate Hahn to Worst Mother in the World status.)

Peter McRobbie in ‘The Visit’ (Universal Pictures)

Of course, now that the kids know, they’ll have to die — a fate they manage to avoid by killing the escaped mental patients instead. As the siblings stumble outside, the cops and their mother finally show up and whisk them away to safety. In a final coda, Becca finally gets the on-camera waterworks she’s been searching for when Mom reveals that she had the opportunity to mend fences with her parents years ago, but decided to hold onto her grudge instead — a choice that indirectly led to their deaths. She tearfully tells her daughter that forgiveness is essential, which in turn allows Becca to let go of some of the lingering anger she feels towards her own father for ditching their family.

In the past, some of Shyamalan’s twists have deepened his movies, turning, for instance, The Sixth Sense into a parable about grief and Unbreakable into a real world exploration of comic-book mythology. With The Visit though, the big revelation cheapens the movie to a certain extent. When you step back and think about it, there’s something deeply unpleasant about the way he’s using the mentally ill as routine horror-movie boogeymen. In the moment, however, the twist achieves its goal of catching the audience off guard. During the screening I was in, a wave of loud gasps swept through the packed house when Hahn said, “Those aren’t your grandparents” — the same gasps I heard 16 years ago in the final moments of The Sixth Sense when everyone figured out at the same instant that Bruce Willis had been dead all along. Shyamalan may no longer be considered “ The Next Spielberg ,” but that reaction to The Visit indicates that he’s still capable of some Spielbergian surprises.

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Screen Rant

The grandparents in the visit explained: breaking down the twist's clues & reveal.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit has a big twist and shocking reveal about the grandparents, and there were many clues to this throughout the movie.

Spoilers for M. Night Shyamalans' The Visit.

• Loretta's strained relationship with her parents and lack of photos and communication were clues to The Visit's twist.
• Becca and Tyler had never met their grandparents before and didn't know what they looked like.
• The grandparents had strange rules, and Nana's odd behavior during hide-and-seek hinted at their true intentions.

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit has every element that makes a Shyamalan horror movie, including a plot twist that was hinted at throughout the whole movie. After rising to fame in 1999 with The Sixth Sense , M. Night Shyamalan has continued to make movies, mostly horror ones that often include a twist and shocking reveal. Although these elements led to predictable and disappointing reveals and movies, there are others with interesting twists that added to the tension of the story, as was the case of the 2015 found footage horror movie The Visit .

The Visit follows siblings Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who live with their divorced mother, Loretta (Kathryn Hahn). Loretta hasn’t talked to or seen her parents in 15 years, but when they get into contact with her, Becca and Tyler convince her to let them visit them for a week. As they have never met their grandparents, Becca decides to make a documentary film of the experience. Once with their grandparents at their isolated farmhouse, it all seems normal at first but gets gradually stranger and more disturbing, leading to a shocking reveal: the “grandparents” aren't the real ones, and they killed Loretta’s parents to pose as them .

M. Night Shyamalan's Films Ranked From Absolute Worst To Best (Including Old)

Loretta had no relationship with her parents in the visit, loretta didn’t even take her children to the farm..

The first big red flag in The Visit that pointed at this not being a typical trip to the grandparents’ house was Loretta’s relationship with them. At the beginning of The Visit , Loretta explained that she left her parents’ home after falling in love with Becca and Tyler’s father, whom her parents never approved of. Loretta didn’t share more details at first, but at the end of The Visit , it’s revealed that she had a major argument with her parents in which she hit her mother and her father struck her, and after that, she ignored all their attempts to contact her.

Loretta’s resentment and anger went as far as not showing her children photos of her parents , nor did she make the effort to accompany her children to her parents’ house – after all, it was their first time going there and meeting their grandparents. Loretta’s estranged relationship is one of the biggest and earliest clues to The Visit ’s big twist.

Becca & Tyler Had Never Seen Their Grandparents Before

Becca & tyler had no idea what their grandparents looked like..

Not making them part of her and her children’s lives, and not having any photos of them, made it so Becca and Tyler had no idea of what they actually looked like.

Loretta’s difficult relationship with her parents led to her not talking about them, not making them part of her and her children’s lives, and not having any photos of them, so Becca and Tyler had no idea of what they looked like. This certainly made it easier for the fake grandparents to lure Becca and Tyler in , but it was yet another hint at this not being a normal trip to visit the grandparents.

The Kids Weren’t Allowed To Leave Their Room After 9:30 pm.

The grandparents had a couple of rules that had to be followed..

The first rule was because the “grandparents” were hiding the bodies of the real ones in the basement.

Once at the farm, it seemed like a quiet and calm place and the grandparents seemed pleasant, but they had a couple of rules that Becca and Tyler had to follow. The first one was that they weren’t allowed to go into the basement because it had mold, and the second one was that bedtime was at 9:30 every day, and they weren’t allowed to leave their room after that. The first rule was because the “grandparents” were hiding the bodies of the real ones in the basement, but the second one was more complicated.

Nana acted erratically at night , projectile vomiting, running around the house, crawling like an animal, and ripping the walls while naked, among other disturbing things. Leaving their room after 9:30 pm would have not only endangered Becca and Tyler, but it would have also revealed there was something wrong with the grandparents.

Nana’s Odd Behaviour During Hide-and-Seek

One of the visit’s biggest scarejumps..

With not much to do at the farm, Becca and Tyler decided to play hide and seek under the house, but to their surprise, Nana was also there. Nana chased Tyler and Becca, crawling like an animal , and when they all got out, she acted as if nothing had happened and went back inside the house. That same behavior was repeated later on in the movie, further disturbing Becca and Tyler.

Pop Pop Attacked An Unknown Man On The Street

Pop pop believed he was being followed..

Another red flag in Pop Pop’s behavior (after the reveal of the shed with piles of soiled diapers) was when he and Nana took Becca and Tyler to see the school Loretta attended when she was younger. There, Pop Pop saw a man on the other side of the street and, believing he had been following them for a while, attacked him. It wasn’t until Becca stopped him that Pop Pop realized he didn’t know the man, and though this was brushed off by Becca and Loretta as “old people” behavior, Tyler knew something wasn’t right.

Nana “Accidentally” Covered Becca’s Laptop Camera With Dough

Nana temporarily left becca & tyler without their webcam..

Becca and Tyler kept in touch with Loretta through video calls every day while Loretta was on a cruise with her new boyfriend. One day, Nana apologized to Becca for ruining her laptop as she spilled dough on it and tried to clean it but couldn’t get rid of the dough on the camera. Loretta wasn’t able to see her kids because of this , but it was soon clear Nana did it on purpose so Loretta couldn’t see them and thus tell the kids they weren’t the real grandparents.

Dr. Sam’s Visit To Check On The Grandparents

Dr. sam’s visit was a big clue to what happened to the grandparents..

Had the grandparents been home when Dr. Sam arrived, The Visit would have ended earlier.

During their time at the farm, only two people came to visit. The first one was Dr. Sam, who worked at the same hospital where Becca and Tyler’s grandparents volunteered. The grandparents weren’t around when Dr. Sam arrived, but he told Becca and Tyler that he wanted to check on them as they hadn’t gone to work in a couple of days. Had the grandparents been home when Dr. Sam arrived, The Visit would have ended earlier.

Nana Asked Becca To Clean The Oven

Nana had other intentions..

In one of the most suspenseful and strangest moments in The Visit , Nana suddenly asked Becca to help her clean the back of the oven. Becca did so to help her, but Nana insisted that she reach the far back of it, thus getting in completely. Although Nana didn’t do anything to Becca the first time, the second time she asked her for help she closed the oven to clean the outside and then opened it again, letting Becca out.

This moment is reminiscent of the tale of Hansel & Gretel and how the witch tried to trick Gretel into getting inside the oven.

Stacey’s Visit & Confrontation

Stacey realized these weren’t the real grandparents..

The second visit was from a woman named Stacey, whom Becca and Tyler’s real grandparents had helped in counseling at the hospital. As the grandparents weren’t home when she arrived, she returned later and came face to face with the fake grandparents. Stacey tried to get them to leave with her to take them back to the hospital, but they ended up killing her and hanging her body from a tree. Stacey realized these weren’t Becca and Tyler’s real grandparents , but the siblings didn’t understand her reaction.

Why Nana & Pop Pop Killed The Real Grandparents

Becca & tyler never got to meet their real grandparents..

Nana was revealed to have committed murder in the past, and they were both jealous of the real grandparents’ happiness and the visit of their grandkids.

During Becca and Tyler’s final night at the farm, the truth was unveiled: Nana and Pop Pop were patients at the mental hospital where Becca and Tyler’s grandparents volunteered, and the real ones were murdered by them and their bodies kept in the basement. Nana was revealed to have committed murder in the past, and they were both jealous of the real grandparents’ happiness and the visit of their grandkids , so they killed them and took their place.

Clues like Loretta having no photos of her parents and the kids never having met them were necessary to keep the big reveal of The Visit a secret, while others like Dr. Sam and Stacey’s visit added to the horrors that were about to be unleashed at the farm.

From director M. Night Shyamalan, The Visit follows two siblings who are sent to stay with their estranged grandparents while their mother is out of town on vacation. Realizing that all isn't what it seems during their stay, the siblings set out to find out what is really going on at their grandparents' home. Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould star as Becca and Tyler, with Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, and Kathryn Hahn making up the rest of the main cast. 

The Visit | 2015

• Olivia DeJonge plays Becca, a teenage girl who, along with her younger brother, visits their grandparents and uncovers dark secrets about their family during their stay.
• Ed Oxenbould's character in The Visit is Tyler Jamison. He plays the role of Becca's younger brother and is a central character in the plot.
• Deanna Dunagan plays the character of Claire Zachanassian in The Visit. She is a wealthy woman who returns to her hometown seeking revenge.

Ending Explained

M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit Ending, Explained

M. Night Shyamalan's horror movies often include a fun twist, and his 2016 release The Visit has a compelling ending with one of the coolest reveals.

M. Night Shyamalan's twist endings are the hallmark of his career, and his 2015 movie The Visit has one of the most exciting ones. Olivia DeJonge, beloved for playing Ashley in the twisted Christmas horror film Better Watch Out, stars as Becca, a teenage girl who stays with her grandparents alongside her brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould). What should be a fun and peaceful family vacation becomes a perplexing and mysterious nightmare and the teenagers must scramble to discover the dark and haunting truth.

The M. Night Shyamalan horror movie has an exciting ending that shifts the audience's perception of the story, proving once again that the filmmaker is great at providing surprising moments that no one sees coming. The final scenes of The Visit make this one of the most unnerving horror movies of the 2010s.

RELATED: Signs: Joaquin Phoenix’s Character is a Perfect Metaphor for M. Night Shyamalan's Filmmaking

What Happens At The End Of The Visit, And What Is The Twist Ending?

Becca falls into the final girl horror movie trope when she makes an important discovery that is key to the ending of The Visit . When she discovers the dead bodies of her and Ed's grandparents, she also sees uniforms from the hospital where they were employed. This helps her see that "Nana" and "Pop Pop" were patients who ran away, killed their grandparents, and pretended to be them. This is a huge plot twist that was hard to see coming.

The satisfying horror movie ending has the siblings fighting back, but the final scenes are tense and scary, and their survival never feels like a guarantee. Pop Pop locks Becca in her room and hurts Tyler, but Tyler kills Pop Pop and Becca kills Nana. The teenagers are able to get away and talk to the police about what just happened.

The Visit ending works on two levels: a fast-paced, thrilling example of a good horror movie plot twist and also an emotional story about family bonds and problems. Becca and her mom Loretta (Kathryn Hayn) have a tough conversation about how Loretta never talked to her parents after a fight 15 years prior. Loretta wants Becca to stop feeling anger about her own dad's decision to leave the family behind, and the two characters share a sweet moment that helps Becca move forward.

This adds an extra layer to the movie and makes Becca a more fully formed character. It also makes both Becca and Ed feel real since they may be dealing with this out-of-this-world situation, but they are also regular teenagers who feel the pain of a parent who doesn't show them the love that they deserve. While Shyamalan's movie Old is a bad adaptation , The Visit shares that sometimes, it can be difficult to get along with family and it can be tough to move on from past hurts. The movie may have a fun and flashy twist, but it has some deep moments as well that can't be ignored.

How Does This Twist Compare To Others In M. Night Shyamalan Horror Movies?

The Visit ending has one of the best and most unpredictable horror movie plot twists , which makes sense given M. Night Shyamalan's reputation for having shocking moments in most of his films. When comparing the reveal of the identity of "Nana" and "Pop Pop," it's fun to think about the other big reveals in the filmmaker's career. Of course, the standard will always be the twist in the important horror movie The Sixth Sense when it turns out that Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is actually dead and that's one reason for his sweet bond with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment).

The twist at the end of The Visit might not be quite as stunning as the one in The Sixth Sense , which will always be one of the best horror movie plot twists as it creates such a compelling atmosphere of shock and awe.

However, The Visit still has a fresh and different ending and the final scenes prove the strong character development of the movie. At first, Pop Pop and Nana seem perfectly normal and innocent, and no one would think that grandparents would be evil. And even when Becca and Ed start noticing weird things, it's hard to think that these characters might not be who they are claiming to be. That would mean that they are truly evil and diabolical, and they seem so naive.

The Visit twist ending also works because it's so creepy. Like Pearl (Mia Goth) and Howard (Stephen Ure) in X and Pearl , the patients lying about their identities are definitely unsettling. The movies make sure that the characters are odd and mysterious, but they never seem like they could be killers until audiences finally see them causing havoc.

NEXT: 5 Nonsensical Plot Twists In Horror Movies

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

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M. Night Shyamalan had his heyday almost 20 years ago. He leapt out of the gate with such confidence he became a champion instantly. And then...something went awry. He became embarrassingly self-serious, his films drowning in pretension and strained allegories. His famous twists felt like a director attempting to re-create the triumph of " The Sixth Sense ," where the twist of the film was so successfully withheld from audiences that people went back to see the film again and again. But now, here comes " The Visit ," a film so purely entertaining that you almost forget how scary it is. With all its terror, "The Visit" is an extremely funny film. 

There are too many horror cliches to even list ("gotcha" scares, dark basements, frightened children, mysterious sounds at night, no cellphone reception), but the main cliche is that it is a "found footage" film, a style already wrung dry. But Shyamalan injects adrenaline into it, as well as a frank admission that, yes, it is a cliche, and yes, it is absurd that one would keep filming in moments of such terror, but he uses the main strength of found footage: we are trapped by the perspective of the person holding the camera. Withhold visual information, lull the audience into safety, then turn the camera, and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT? 

"The Visit" starts quietly, with Mom ( Kathryn Hahn ) talking to the camera about running away from home when she was 19: her parents disapproved of her boyfriend. She had two kids with this man who recently left them all for someone new. Mom has a brave demeanor, and funny, too, referring to her kids as "brats" but with mama-bear affection. Her parents cut ties with her, but now they have reached out  from their snowy isolated farm and want to know their grandchildren. Mom packs the two kids off on a train for a visit.

Shyamalan breaks up the found footage with still shots of snowy ranks of trees, blazing sunsets, sunrise falling on a stack of logs. There are gigantic blood-red chapter markers: "TUESDAY MORNING", etc. These choices launch us into the overblown operatic horror style while commenting on it at the same time. It ratchets up the dread.

Becca ( Olivia DeJonge ) and Tyler ( Ed Oxenbould ) want to make a film about their mother's lost childhood home, a place they know well from all of her stories. Becca has done her homework about film-making, and instructs her younger brother about "frames" and "mise-en-scène." Tyler, an appealing gregarious kid, keeps stealing the camera to film the inside of his mouth and his improvised raps. Becca sternly reminds him to focus. 

The kids are happy to meet their grandparents. They are worried about the effect their grandparents' rejection had on their mother (similar to Cole's worry about his mother's unfinished business with her own parent in "The Sixth Sense"). Becca uses a fairy-tale word to explain what she wants their film to do — it will be an "elixir" to bring home to Mom. 

Nana ( Deanna Dunagan ), at first glance, is a Grandma out of a storybook, with a grey bun, an apron, and muffins coming out of the oven every hour. Pop Pop ( Peter McRobbie ) is a taciturn farmer who reminds the kids constantly that he and Nana are "old." 

But almost immediately, things get crazy. What is Pop Pop doing out in the barn all the time? Why does Nana ask Becca to clean the oven, insisting that she crawl all the way in ? What are those weird sounds at night from outside their bedroom door? They have a couple of Skype calls with Mom, and she reassures them their grandparents are "weird" but they're also old, and old people are sometimes cranky, sometimes paranoid. 

As the weirdness intensifies, Becca and Tyler's film evolves from an origin-story documentary to a mystery-solving investigation. They sneak the camera into the barn, underneath the house, they place it on a cabinet in the living room overnight, hoping to get a glimpse of what happens downstairs after they go to bed. What they see is more than they (and we) bargained for.

Dunagan and McRobbie play their roles with a melodramatic relish, entering into the fairy-tale world of the film. And the kids are great, funny and distinct. Tyler informs his sister that he wants to stop swearing so much, and instead will say the names of female pop singers. The joke is one that never gets old. He falls, and screams, "Sarah McLachlan!" When terrified, he whispers to himself, " Katy Perry ... " Tyler, filming his sister, asks her why she never looks in the mirror. "Your sweater is on backwards." As he grills her, he zooms in on her, keeping her face off-center, blurry grey-trunked trees filling most of the screen. The blur is the mystery around them. Cinematographer Maryse Alberti creates the illusion that the film is being made by kids, but also avoids the nauseating hand-held stuff that dogs the found-footage style.

When the twist comes, and you knew it was coming because Shyamalan is the director, it legitimately shocks. Maybe not as much as "The Sixth Sense" twist, but it is damn close. (The audience I saw it with gasped and some people screamed in terror.) There are references to " Halloween ", "Psycho" (Nana in a rocking chair seen from behind), and, of course, " Paranormal Activity "; the kids have seen a lot of movies, understand the tropes and try to recreate them themselves. 

"The Visit" represents Shyamalan cutting loose, lightening up, reveling in the improvisational behavior of the kids, their jokes, their bickering, their closeness. Horror is very close to comedy. Screams of terror often dissolve into hysterical laughter, and he uses that emotional dovetail, its tension and catharsis, in almost every scene. The film is ridiculous  on so many levels, the story playing out like the most monstrous version of Hansel & Gretel imaginable, and in that context, "ridiculous" is the highest possible praise.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

The Visit (2015)

Rated PG-13 disturbing thematic material including terror, violence and some nudity, and for brief language

Kathryn Hahn as Mother

Ed Oxenbould as Tyler Jamison

Benjamin Kanes as Dad

Peter McRobbie as Pop-Pop

Olivia DeJonge as Rebecca Jamison

Deanna Dunagan as Nana

• M. Night Shyamalan

Cinematography

• Maryse Alberti
• Luke Franco Ciarrocch

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The Visit (2015) Ending Explained

The Visit (2015) is a horror thriller movie written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan . We see Shyamalan’s writing skills in Split (2016) , Devil (2010) and Old (2021) . So it goes without saying that there is a big plot twist at the end of The Visit.

The Visit Ending Explained and Plot Story in Details

* * * Spoiler Alert – If you haven’t seen the movie yet, turn back now! * * *

The movie starts with siblings Becca & Tyler. They are getting ready for a 5-day trip. The siblings are going to film this entire trip as a documentary. Their trip will be to their grandparents’ house.

Their mother Loretta is giving an interview. She says that 15 years ago she left home in anger. She never spoke to her parents after that. A few days ago, Loretta suddenly talked to her parents through the Internet. Loretta tells them about Becca and Tyler. They were very happy and invited them to travel for a few days. Because of this, Becca and Tyler are going on this 5-day trip to the grandparents’ house.

The next morning, they reach a certain destination by train. Their grandparents were waiting there. They all meet and are very happy.

Becca and Tyler call them Nana and Pop Pop. Grandparents are also happy with it.

After going home, strange things started to happen. Behavioral changes are especially noticeable in grandparents. Which creates a very uncomfortable environment for Becca and Tyler.

For example, Nana starts behaving strangely after nine o’clock every night. Sometimes she walks all over the house vomiting, sometimes she runs completely naked in the dark. Naturally, these scenes are deeply uncomfortable to watch.

On the other hand, Pop Pop’s behavior changes. He starts fighting with strangers on the street for no reason at all. He even started talking rudely to Becca & Tyler at home and kept banning them from moving and going to different places.

In a short time, Becca and Tyler realize there is a big mess in the house. Something is happening that they don’t understand. So, they just want to leave as soon as possible.

Becca and Tyler call their mom and tell her to hurry and take them.

This time the story of the movie takes a surprising turn. Loretta informs them that, the two people Becca and Tyler are currently with are not real grandparents.

That night, in the basement of the house, Becca and Tyler find the corpses of the real grandparents and two clothes of the mental hospital patients.

They realize that these two people are mentally ill, who escaped from a mental hospital and murdered their real grandparents. After getting their identity, they started staying in the house.

The fake grandparents realize the identity has been revealed to the brethren. So, they attack to kill them. But Becca and Tyler somehow defend themselves and manage to kill the liars.

Later, Loretta and the police arrived at the scene.

As seen at the end of the movie, Loretta is interviewed in the final scene of the documentary. Becca tells her that her parents have forgiven and Loretta understands that. They are all happy now.

The Visit Ending Explained and Plot Twist

The plot twist that was seen in the 2015 movie “The Visit” remains etched in people’s minds even after all these years. The movie seems to be a simple story from the beginning, but at the end, it turns to a completely different level.

Becca and Tyler’s mother are convinced they are not their grandparents and later find the bodies of their real grandparents in the basement of the house. There were the clothes of two mental hospital patients. Also, we found out earlier that their original grandparents were very good people. They used to do volunteer work in mental hospitals.

Putting these points together, it is clear that the fake grandparents are two patients who escaped from a mental hospital. They learn about Becca and Tyler’s trip from Fredrick Spencer and Mariabella Jamison .

Later on, two patients escaped from the hospital and came to their house and killed them. Then they hide the dead bodies in the basement of the house and take the identities of the owners.

Since Becca & Tyler had never seen Fredrick Spencer and Mariabella Jamison’s faces thus, they were put in danger such two psychotic liars & murderers. But at last, they manage to survive. The happy ending at the end of the movie proves it.

Original Title: The Visit

Other Titles: Los huéspedes (Mexico), La visita (Spain)

Genre: Horror/ Mystery/ Thriller

Runtime: 1hr 34min

Original Language: English

Written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Tagline: No one loves you like your grandparents.

Release date: September 11, 2015 (USA)

Origin Country: United States

Filming locations: Pennsylvania, United States

Awards: 01 Wins, 14 Nominations

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Previous Story

• Entertainment
• Movie Review

The Visit review: the most shocking M. Night Shyamalan twist is a good movie

• By Bryan Bishop
• on September 10, 2015 10:18 am

A decade ago it was impossible to discuss supernatural thrillers without invoking the name of M. Night Shyamalan. After exploding into the popular consciousness with The Sixth Sense , the writer-director staked his claim with carefully crafted follow-ups like Signs and Unbreakable , eventually leading Newsweek to dub him “The Next Spielberg.” But Shyamalan faltered soon thereafter, and by the time his sci-fi adaptation After Earth rolled around two years ago, his name was practically being hidden in studio marketing materials .

With irrelevancy lurking in the shadows, like one of his fictional boogeymen, the director needed to save his career. So Shyamalan switched things up — trying his hand at television with the quirky Wayward Pines , and leaving Hollywood behind altogether for his new movie The Visit . As the filmmaker told us in July , The Visit was a completely self-funded affair, with Shyamalan putting up the money so he could make a smaller film in relative secrecy without the interference of studios or outside influences. The result is the best snapshot we have of Shyamalan the filmmaker as he stands today.

Judging from the bonkers mix of horror and comedy that is The Visit , he may have gone totally insane — and that’s a wonderful thing.

The movie follows 15-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (a hilarious Ed Oxenbould). Their mother, played by Kathryn Hahn, is still suffering in the wake of her recent divorce, and to give everyone some space, the kids go off for a week to visit their grandparents for the very first time. Nana and Pop Pop (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) are warm, if not a bit quirky, at first, but as the visit stretches on, it becomes clear that something is very, very wrong.

Yes, The Visit is a found footage movie, and it’s the first clue that this is a break from the Shyamalan we’ve seen before. As a director, he built his career on meticulously crafted shots and camera moves that carried an almost mathematical precision, but that’s all thrown out the window here. Becca is an aspiring filmmaker, intent on documenting the visit for her mom, and as she enlists Tyler to help, the film takes on a chaotic visual energy that adds a layer of unease when contrasted with Shyamalan’s methodical pace. Where it differs from the Paranormal Activities of the world is that it’s actually beautiful at times; very often Shyamalan simply can’t help but find a gorgeous way to light a scene or evoke a mood, and it keeps the film fresh where the sub-genre has otherwise been pummeled into the ground and left for dead.

But visual technique is only worth so much, and what makes The Visit tick is the two young lead actors, who after a bumpy start settle into their self-conscious, found footage groove. DeJonge is grounded and believable as the older sister, her character endlessly precious and pretentious about her own filmmaking in what feels like Shyamalan having a laugh at himself for once. Oxenbould’s Tyler, on the other end, is the film’s comedic engine; a junior high suburbanite with hip-hop aspirations (he calls himself "T-Diamond Stylus") that deploys a comical adolescent bravado to cover up struggles with his parents’ separation.

Laughs and scares stack in a Jenga of oddball entertainment

That’s the other big surprise here: The Visit is actually funny , and not in a passing joke kind of way. It’s wild and outrageous, stacking laughs and scares atop one another in a giant Jenga of oddball entertainment. Contrasted with the overthought restraint of Shyamalan’s earlier work, The Visit is the Wild West; the kind of movie that uses a character’s unnerving penchant for skulking around nude as both a running joke and surprise scare, and that takes another’s obsessive tendencies and pays them off with a scatalogical gag that had me laughing and cringing in equal measure. It doesn’t always work — the mix is so bizarre that some jokes simply fail to land — but there’s a giddy energy that courses through the movie from beginning to end.

More than anything else, it feels like Shyamalan Unleashed, operating without the weight of expectations for the first time in years. The filmmaker had actually focused on smaller, character-driven films before The Sixth Sense changed his career trajectory, but ever since that early success, his movies seemed to chase the same formula, twist endings and all. The Visit doesn’t seem concerned with living up to those expectations — there’s no mistaking this for a Spielbergian tale — and it’s a fresher story for it.

If The Visit was some midnight movie festival discovery, we’d be talking about its odd weirdness and the potential of its creator; we’d ask if they could take the promise of this small, indie film and transition into the land of big-scale studio movies. Oddly enough, it’s the same question that should be asked of Shyamalan now. But for the moment, he appears to be keeping things small. His next film is set to be another collaboration with Jason Blum, the low-budget horror producer behind Insidious and the Paranormal Activity films, and while people will certainly have higher expectations his next time out, I hope we see more of this weirder, care-free Shyamalan. He may not be making The Sixth Sense anymore, sure, but for the first time in a very long time, he’s making movies that are actually fun .

The Visit opens Friday, September 11th.

Verge Video: The Verge's interview with M. Night Shyamalan

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What to Know

The Visit provides horror fans with a satisfying blend of thrills and laughs -- and also signals a welcome return to form for writer-director M. Night Shyamalan.

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M. Night Shyamalan

Olivia DeJonge

Ed Oxenbould

Deanna Dunagan

Peter McRobbie

Kathryn Hahn

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Spoiler Space: The Visit

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Related Content

One interesting thing about The Visit —the first M. Night Shyamalan movie since The Village to turn on a third-act plot twist—is the lengths to which the movie goes to keep the audience from reaching what should be the most logical conclusion. Hints about a family secret and unexplained events that suggest everything from supernatural ritual to extraterrestrial control work the kids’ (and, by extension, the audience’s) imaginations, but when they tell Mom about it over Skype—briefly swinging the laptop over to the window to show her that Pop Pop and Nana are outside—she responds with the obvious answer that the viewer probably hasn’t had time to think of: “Those aren’t your grandparents.”

No, of course they’re not. They’re just two elderly people who happened to be standing at the train station awkwardly holding a sign with Becca and Tyler’s names on it, whom the kids have accepted as their grandparents because they wanted to. Found-footage movies generally operate under the logic that people behave more or less normally when there’s a camera around all the time. The Visit ’s neatest tweak on the genre is that everyone is consciously playing for the camera—even Becca, who reframes into a tight close-up as she puts her hand over Nana’s early on.

Nana and Pop Pop—violent escapees from a nearby mental hospital who forced their way into the home of two volunteers, the real grandparents—are both trying to keep up the appearance of sanity and normalcy, but are doing a terrible job. “You know, I used to be an actor” becomes a running gag, uttered by random strangers—an Amtrak conductor, a neighbor who comes by while Nana and Pop are out—who then proceed to ham it up for Becca and Tyler. Shyamalan is a notoriously economical writer, with little in the way of the extraneous. (See: Signs .) Here, all the references to performance—whether it’s Tyler’s “ethnically confused” rapping or Becca directing her brother to unpack his suitcase without looking at the camera—converge in a climax where the kids are forced to act out Nana and Pop Pop’s deranged idea of “normal” family night while they wait for the local cops to arrive.

There’s plenty of other stuff, too; whether it’s Becca’s low self-esteem, Tyler’s offhand recollections of disappointing their dad at a pee wee football game, or the neighbors who drop off food while the imposter grandparents aren’t home, everything happens for a narrative reason. And then there’s the treasure trove of other Shyamalanisms: the focus on divorce and marital turmoil; the references to hippies-turned-authoritarians, alien invasion stories, and ’70s pop culture; the obsession with water (see: Unbreakable , Signs , Lady In The Water ), which manifests itself in the imposter grandma’s belief in an alien species that can only be contacted by being drowned in a well; and the home invasion premise (see: Signs , the “Orange Man” sequence in Unbreakable , the flashback in After Earth ), which the movie hides until the third act.

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Well, it's not in the same league as The Sixth Sense , but director M. Night Shyamalan ends a long dry spell with The Visit. It's a blend of mirth and malice that combines Grimm fairy tales with the found-footage gimmick of Paranormal Activity . A mom (Kathryn Hahn) sends her two kids (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould), both experts with digital cameras, to visit her estranged parents. It's all smiles until Grandma (Deanna Dunagan, wowza) gets naked and Grandpa (Peter McRobbie) does strange things with his adult diapers. No spoilers, except to say that cheap thrills can still be a blast. Not enough to make up for Shyamalan's awful After Earth , but it's a start.

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The Visit Was Almost Connected To M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable Trilogy

This post contains spoilers for "The Visit."

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Visit" was initially titled "Sundowning," although it could've just as easily been called, "How M. Night Got His Groove Back." The 2015 film saw the "Sixth Sense" and "Signs" director return to his moody thriller roots after helming a pair of critically-panned big-budget misfires in the forms of "The Last Airbender" and "After Earth." By funding the movie on his own, Shyamalan gave himself the creative freedom to make what remains one of the weirdest and wildest creations of his career so far (which is quite the accomplishment, coming from the director of "Lady in the Water").

Framed as an amateur documentary made by 13-year-old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) and his 15-year-old sister Becca (Olivia DeJonge), "The Visit" follows Tyler and Becca on a week-long trip to meet their estranged grandparents for the first time. Upon accompanying "Nana" (Deanna Dunagan) and "Pop Pop" (Peter McRobbie) to their remote farmhouse, Tyler and Becca are quick to realize there's something ... off about their hosts. Like so much of Shyamalan's work, "The Visit" plays out as a twisted fairy tale from there, as Tyler and Becca slowly uncover the horrifying truth: Nana and Pop Pop are actually a pair of imposters who escaped from the psychiatric hospital where their real grandparents worked and murdered them in order to take their place.

While there's no overlooking  the ageism inherent to the film's premise, "The Visit" benefits from having a dark sense of humor and succeeds in keeping you wondering if there might be a supernatural explanation for Nana and Pop Pop's behavior, right up until the big twist. Ultimately, however, the movie seems to take place in a grounded universe much like our own — although, it turns out, Shyamalan very nearly retconned that years later with 2019's "Glass."

Superheroes exist... and so do evil grandparents

M. Night Shyamalan's Eastrail 177 trilogy, which gets its name from the train line that connects his 2000 film "Unbreakable" with 2017's "Split" and "Glass," resembles "The Visit" in that it starts out taking place in what appears to be the real world. Except, in that case, it turns out the trilogy's universe is home to people with super-human abilities right out of a comic book, like near-physical invulnerability and heightened intelligence. Another thing they share in common? They all take place in or near M. Night's old stomping grounds in Philadelphia, just like the vast majority of his oeuvre.

Has Shyamalan ever toyed with the idea of having all his movies exist in the same version of Philly? He was, after all, the filmmaker who recognized that superhero comic books are the modern-day equivalent of ancient mythology with "Unbreakable," a whole eight years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe took over Hollywood. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter , M. Night admitted he wasn't ahead of the curve when it came to the shared universe trend. Still, that didn't stop him from considering making the events of "The Visit" canon to the Eastrail 177 trilogy:

"If I was smart enough to have thought about it 20-some years ago, I would've done it, but I wasn't smart enough to think about it. There was one tie-in that I almost did. It was in 'Glass' when they all got to the mental institution. I was going to tell a story about 'The Visit' and how two people escaped from that same hospital."

'I chickened out'

"Glass," as M. Night Shyamalan noted, has "Unbreakable" leads David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) being taken to the same psychiatric hospital, Raven Hill Memorial, as "Split" character Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), on the grounds that their "superpowers" are really just delusions brought about by unresolved trauma and mental illness. According to Shyamalan, he came precariously close to including a direct reference to the plot of "The Visit" in his script. "I was going to do it, but I chickened out. So I didn't do it," he confessed.

Directors peppering their films with nods or direct links to their other movies is nothing unusual, mind you. Quentin Tarantino has been doing it his entire career and we don't have time to dive down the rabbit hole that is the Pixar Shared Universe theory. It's mostly just good fun, and it sounds as though Shyamalan wasn't really thinking much deeper than that with his abandoned shout-out to "The Visit" in "Glass." But might it have benefitted the movies from a creative perspective all the same?

My inclination is to say it wouldn't. "The Visit" continues Shyamalan's examination of aging, mortality, and death in his work , which extends to films like "The Sixth Sense" and "Old" but also goes back as far as his first-ever theatrical release, 1998's "Wide Awake." The movie, which was notoriously mangled by producer Harvey Weinstein in post-production, centers on Joshua (Joseph Cross), a 10-year-old boy who's thrown into a spiritual crisis by the death of his grandfather. "Wide Awake" might be a far cry from the sadistic and comedic tone of "The Visit," but so far as thematic parallels go, the pair are arguably more alike than the latter and "Glass." So maybe it's best M. Night "chickened out."

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‘abigail’ review: dan stevens and melissa barrera in an exuberantly over-the-top vampire horror-comedy.

Criminals get more than they bargained for when they kidnap the daughter of an underworld figure in the new Radio Silence film featuring Alisha Weir in the title role.

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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Lupita nyong'o recalls crush on leonardo dicaprio, crying inconsolably during 'titanic' on first date, hunter schafer faces horrors at german resort in neon's 'cuckoo' trailer.

It’s a deliciously silly conceit, and the filmmakers — whose previous hits include Ready or Not , 2022’s Scream and Scream VI — run with it, demonstrating such an exuberant commitment to the genre that the movie industry may be facing a shortage of fake blood.   

Once her true identity is horrifyingly discovered, the criminals respond exactly as most people would. “Okay, what do we know about vampires?” one of them asks, before they reasonably go looking for vampires, wooden stakes, etc. Unfortunately for them, Abigail proves more powerful and resourceful than most of the undead, revealing a particular talent for bargaining with her would-be captors before dispatching them. In the sort of little-girl voice that would be heartbreaking if you didn’t know she was capable of biting your head off.

Vampire movies are, of course, a dime a dozen (the most recent major studio example being The Last Voyage of the Demeter ), but few are as gleefully anarchic as this one. For instance, I can’t recall any others in which a pre-teen Nosferatu, clad in a tutu, dances a pas de deux with a headless corpse.

None of it would work as well as it does without Weir’s mesmerizing turn in the title role. The young actress, who previously demonstrated her virtuosity in the film version of Matilda the Musical , is so frightening and sardonically funny as the pint-sized bloodsucker that Bela Lugosi must be turning over in his grave from jealousy. Assuming, of course, that he’s still in it.

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‘The Stranger’ Review: Somewhere Over the Freeway

In this tense thriller on Hulu, Maika Monroe plays Clare, a Kansas transplant in Los Angeles who parallels Dorothy in Oz.

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By Natalia Winkelman

“The Stranger” is a tense if tidy thriller that chronicles a ride-hail driver’s journey to surveillance hell and back. Her survival against all odds mirrors that of the movie itself: The film’s footage originally premiered in 13 short-form episodes in 2020 on the streaming service Quibi, several months before it shut down .

The recut version (on Hulu) bears little trace of its earlier form, although its life span across algorithm-driven streaming companies does cast the villain’s tech preoccupations — “whoever figures out the mathematical formula determining the losers and the winners in life will rule” the world, he declares — in a new, meta light.

Written and directed by Veena Sud (“The Killing”), the film follows Clare (Maika Monroe), a recent transplant to Los Angeles who falls into a freeway nightmare after her ride-hail passenger, Carl (Dane DeHaan), identifies himself as a serial killer. He claims he will murder her unless she tells him a good story.

If this opening sounds cliché, the film at least seems aware of the pitfalls. Sud creates parallels between Clare in Hollywood and Dorothy in Oz, assigning Clare a Kansan back story, a yapping terrier and a guileless attitude. And DeHaan embodies the tech-savvy Carl as a pasty, smirking male chauvinist who is sillier than he is scary.

It follows as something of a surprise, when, over the course of the second act, the film builds to a deeply agitated mood. Sud pulls off the tonal shift by keeping Carl largely offscreen; his looming absence, alongside Monroe’s knack for portraying paranoia, simmers with menace.

The Stranger Not Rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Hulu.

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• Two siblings become increasingly frightened by their grandparents' disturbing behavior while visiting them on vacation.
• Two children spend a week at their grandparents' house while their single mom goes on a relaxing vacation with her boyfriend. Becca decides to film a documentary about her grandparents to help her mom reconnect with her parents, and to find out some things about her parents as well. While filming, Becca and her little brother Tyler discover a dark secret about their grandparents.
• Siblings Becca and Tyler visit their grandparents for the first time ever. Their single mother decides not to accompany them because she's had problems with them in the past. Becca decides to make a documentary about the grandparents to reconnect them with their daughter. During filming, Becca and Tyler discover that their grandparents are not only acting weird but also hiding a dark secret. — Sophia Villatoro
• Teenage Becca and her younger brother Tyler live with their single mother, who left home 15 years ago and is estranged from her parents. Now they've found her online and want to meet their grandchildren, so they invite them to spend a week at their farm while their mother goes off with her boyfriend Miguel. Wannabe rapper and aspiring filmmaker Becca are welcomed by their grandparents and Becca decides to make a documentary of their visit. Soon they see strange behaviors and discover dark, disturbing secrets about their grandparents. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Teenage siblings Becca and Tyler go to stay with grandparents they've never met. Their mother stays behind because of her dark past with her parents. After a few nights the kids find out their grandparents have a dark, deadly secret.
• The film starts with 15-year-old Rebecca 'Becca' (Olivia DeJonge) interviewing her mother, Paula (Kathryn Hahn) for a documentary she's making about meeting her grandparents for the first time. Paula explains that as a teenager, she fell in love with her substitute teacher, and her parents didn't approve. Something happened when she was 19 that caused her to not want to see her parents again, for the last 15 years. She points out that her husband eventually fell in love with another woman he met at a Starbucks, and moved to Palo Alto. Becca asks her to go back and explain what exactly happened to cause the years of non-communication, and her mom tells her she won't tell her; if her grandparents want to give her that information, it's up to them. She tells them even though she hasn't talked to them in years, she knows they are nice, and they still volunteer at the local hospital. MONDAY MORNING We meet Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), Becca's younger brother, while they drive to Grand Central Station. He is age 13 and talks like a wannabe rapper, complaining that he's got three girls on deck and is upset he won't be able to text all week, due to having no cellphone reception where the grandparents live. Their mom hugs goodbye at Grand Central, and they board a train. On board, Tyler shows off his freestyling skills by rapping for the camera. Becca mentions that she agreed to the trip because their mom hasn't been able to connect with her new boyfriend, and a five-day cruise might help them get closer, (as in getting laid and having steamy, passionate, wild sex day in and day out!!). They get to Pennsylvania where their grandparents live, and they're waiting for them as they get off the train. The grandparents, John "Pop-Pop" (Peter McRobbie) and Doris "Nana" (Deanna Dunagan), seem friendly enough and take them back to their house. Tyler does a freestyle rap using Nana's suggestion of pineapple upside down cake. Becca discusses her documentary and her love of making movies. Tyler and Becca get settled into their room upstairs, which used to be their mother's. They play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets the bed and who gets the sofa, and Becca gets the bed. She tells Tyler about the old time song she's going to play over some of the footage when there's a happy conclusion to the week. She gives Tyler a second camera so he can film additional footage. Tyler films Pop-Pop mysteriously working in the shed. He calls out to him and Pop-Pop sees him but doesn't respond. Tyler coerces Becca to play Hide and Seek underneath the house. They crawl around, and then suddenly Nana is down on all fours behind Tyler. She races after him, and then Becca, each scurrying to get away from her as she seems demented and off, repeating "I'm going to get you" as she scurries after the kids. They escape from underneath the house, and Nana laughs, her hands sullied, seemingly aware of the game and simply trying to participate. She walks away, revealing the roughhousing has caused her dress to ride upwards, exposing her bare butt. A man comes to the door and asks to talk to their grandparents. They tell him they're not there. He says he knows them from Meadow Shade, the hospital they volunteer at a few days a week, and he has some gossip to tell them about the latest drama going on down there. Tyler decides he's going to investigate what's in the shed. He sneaks inside and says it "smells like ass". He finds in the corner a pile. He gets closer to see what it is and discovers it's used adult diapers. He runs out screaming. Inside, Nana explains to him that Pop-Pop is incontinent, and a lot of adults have to wear diapers. He hides them in the shed because he's ashamed, then he burns them. She then continues giving Becca tips on how to make cookies. That night, Pop-Pop comes into their room and tells them that there is mold in the basement, and they should not go down there. He also tells them that everyone follows the same schedule, so lights have to be out at 9:30. They agree but are annoyed, especially since there is no WiFi, and they can't use any electronics. Tyler decides to start using pop stars names instead of swearing in his raps and says if he stubs his toe, it sounds cooler to shout out "Shakira!" than a cuss word (This is a motif that is carried out throughout the movie with him shouting out Sarah McLachlan and Katy Perry in times of annoyance or danger). The two can't sleep, and it's now 10:23 PM. Becca says she's going to sneak out to get one of Nana's cookies. She opens the door and sees Nana walking in the dark, projectile vomiting. She quickly shuts the door. TUESDAY MORNING The next morning, Pop-Pop and Nana are outside with breakfast on the table. Nana apologizes because shes got hot oil all over Becca's computer but really only the webcam. Becca says she will probably be able to scrub it off with enough effort. The kids later ask Pop-Pop if Nana is sick. They are told Nana experiences something called "sundowning", which is a form of dementia that happens when the sun sets. It's the equivalent of talking in one's sleep and not to be concerned, but it's best for them to stay in their room during the night. He says Nana is convinced there are bad things inside her, so she throws up to get rid of them. As he's explaining this, he's putting on a tuxedo. They ask him if he's going somewhere, and he tells them there's a costume ball at the train station he's late for. He then realizes that he's confused and takes the tuxedo off. Pop-Pop takes Becca and Tyler through the town. They play a game where they make up stories about people who live in the buildings including the closed police station. When they try to make up a story about a tall building, Pop-Pop tells them its Meadow Shade where they volunteer, and he'll show it to them when he gets his Meadow Shade badge from home. They go to the park to play, but Pop-Pop tells them they have to leave because they're being followed. The kids see a man across the street using his cell phone, not paying attention to the three of them. Pop-Pop runs over and begins to assault the man, yelling at him. Becca and Tyler convince him to leave the man alone, and Pop-Pop apologizes to them. Back home, Becca is in the kitchen with Nana. She asks her if she can interview her, but Nana does not want to be on camera. Instead, she asks for Becca's help cleaning the oven. Becca cleans with just her arm, but Nana tells her to lean into it. Nana then convinces her to get completely inside. While she's fully submerged in the oven, Nana bounces up and down excitedly. Becca reappears, and Nana tells her she is ready to be in her movie. Becca interviews Nana by asking her warm-up questions. When she asks Nana what happened 15 years ago to cause her not to speak to her daughter, Nana starts going berserk, shaking violently, and screams that she no longer wants to be in Becca's movie. Outside, Tyler interviews Becca asking what animal shed want to be (a dolphin), then why she likes the pizza guy despite him having bad acne (he has kind eyes.) Then he asks her why she can't look at herself in the mirror, pointing out when she brushes her hair, she does it with her back to the mirror. And when she brushes her teeth, she looks down. She hints that it's because their dad abandoned the three of them years ago, and she has felt rejected. Tyler defends his dad, saying there was a time when he was eight when he was playing peewee football. His team was up by three, and it was the fourth quarter and they were set to win as long as nobody scored in the final minutes. A big kid came running towards him but instead of blocking him, he just froze. Everyone started screaming at him but he was completely frozen, immobile, which is what happens when he's afraid. But his dad never judged him for it. But he sometimes blames that for being why his dad went away. In the editing software, she's piecing together on her computer, Becca films herself in front of an obstructed slideshow of pictures of her brother, her, and their father. She says that while she's trying to tell the story of her mom's parents, she will not be including anybody from the past that she doesn't consider worthy of acknowledgment. That night, at 10:47 PM, they hear a scary sound coming outside their locked door. The two want to film what's on the other side, so Tyler tells Becca to open the door. She refuses. He then says if she holds the camera, hell open the door. He does, and they reveal a naked Nana clawing at the door opposite them, scratching like a frantic dog. He shuts the door and declares that he's now partially blind. WEDNESDAY MORNING The next morning, Becca interviews Pop-Pop, and he tells her how he used to have a great job, but he used to see a white figure with yellow eyes at his job. Nobody else could see it, but he was insistent it was there. So he was eventually fired. He warns Becca that she, too, will see the white figure with yellow eyes one day. She tells him he seems sad. Tyler tries to convince Becca to set the camera up in the living room so it can film what happens at night. She says she can't film their grandparents unless one of them is there otherwise it's unethical. She explains they're both experiencing signs of early onset schizophrenia. A neighbor named Stacey comes over, telling them their grandparents volunteered at the hospital when she was in rehab, and she baked treats to thank them. The kids get an Ethernet cord and now talk to their mom on Skype. Tyler tells her Nana is acting weird. The mom tells them "they're old, and that's just how old people act". Becca defends them and says they are weird but nice. Tyler and Becca both agree that this is a 1 on the scale of problems. Their mom comments how she wishes she could see them (but can't because their webcam is blocked from Nana's mishap in the kitchen). Their mom leaves to watch her boyfriend in a Hairy Chest contest on the cruise ship. That night, at 10:16 PM, they hear an odd commotion outside the door. They want to know what Nana is doing this time but are too scared to look. Becca decides just to open the door and film for a short while, for the documentary sake. When she opens the door, they see Nana running past, with both arms behind her back, rushing past them, in both directions. Just as she's about to crawl towards the camera, they shut and lock the door. THURSDAY MORNING The next morning, the four of them go out into the woods. Becca says she doesn't want to leave without getting an elixir for Mom. While the grandparents are ahead on the trail, Tyler begins to mimic Nana's running with her arms behind the back only to get caught by Nana, who tells them they're going to miss the family of foxes. They turn the corner and see Nana staring into a well. They ask her what she's looking at, but Pop-Pop tells them it's nothing. Tyler and Becca return to the well later to try to figure out what is hidden inside. But all they pull up is water. Becca goes in the shed and finds Pop-Pop with a rifle in his mouth. He declares he's just cleaning it and then mimics cleaning it. Later that evening, Becca is in the living room and hears Nana laughing hysterically. She decides to show what kind of television show makes her Nana laugh, hoping it's the same one her mom loves. But she finds Nana rocking in a chair, facing the wall. She asks Nana what she's laughing about and is told the naughty spirits are inside her, and she laughs to keep them at bay. She then tells her a story about how there are people in the water that were stolen by people from another planet. These people will later be collected and sent back to this planet but for now, they're at the bottom of water. Becca tries to interview her again, but she goes crazy when she is asked about the night that caused them to become estranged. When Becca presents it as a story about a girl who fell in love with an older man, whose family did not approve, and what she would say to the girl, Nana tells her I would tell the girl "I'm sorry." Becca now has her elixir, an apology from Nana. Outside the window, they see Nana and Pop-Pop in a heated argument with their neighbor, Stacey. They wonder what they are fighting about. Becca decides Tyler is right and that they should set up the camera in the living room to see exactly what goes on at night. Becca also wonders what's in the basement given that they were told not to go down there. At night, Tyler is freaking out because he touched something slimy on the toilet handle and can feel it seeping into his skin. Becca gets tissues and helps wipe it off. Time passes, and they fall asleep. In the living area, Nana opens and slams the basement door several times. She then rushes around the room, crawling like a dog then appears..... RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HIDDEN CAMERA and screams. She picks up the camera and then films herself going into the kitchen where she grabs a butcher knife. She makes her way up to the kids' bedroom and begins pounding at their door. Becca and Tyler wake up, startled. They can hear Nana trying to get in but just stay still. FRIDAY MORNING: The next morning, they watch the footage and see that Nana was trying to kill them. Becca tells them that their mom is back from her vacation that day so they just have to avoid their grandparents all day until she can come and get them. They throw the ball around and every time the grandparents come by, they tell them "We're playing. This is how kids play." Inside, they try to avoid their grandparents by going out to play but Nana asks if Becca can help clean the oven first. Becca leans in, but Nana tells her to go in further. Tyler objects but Nana tells him they've done this before. Becca finally climbs all the way in and Nana pushes her fully inside and shuts the door, telling her she wants to do something real quick and wipes down the handle. Tyler screams at her to open up the oven, and she does. Becca is shaken up, and they quickly go outside and play. They wait until the grandparents are out front and then get on Skype, hoping to sneak in a call without the grandparents being aware. The oil has now been scrubbed off of the webcam so their mom can see them, too. The mom is back home and tries telling them about her vacation and a fight with her boyfriend, but they quickly tell her that she needs to come and pick them up right now. She tells them, "Do you know how long it'd take to drive from here to there?" but they tell her to get in the car immediately and make her way to them. They say that their grandparents are scaring them; Nana tried to kill them with a butcher knife, and Pop-Pop put a gun in his mouth and she's afraid he's going to hurt himself. Tyler films the grandparents from the window so his mom can see them. The mom is now white-faced and tells them she has to tell them something and for them to listen. She says: "THOSE ARE NOT YOUR GRANDPARENTS!!!!" She asks if they've been staying with them all week and tries to call the local police but gets a recorded message (the station is closed). The mom complains that the hick town has an incompetent police department, and she's going to drive to come get them and will continue to try to call the police on the way. Heading out, she tells them to get somewhere safe but just then the grandparents return, and they shut down Skype. The grandparents suggest having a board game night, but the kids say they want to check something outside while the grandparents figure out the teams. They head for the yard only to see..... STACEY HANGING DEAD FROM A TREE! Nana appears and tells them they already have the teams... Old versus young. The kids are forced to play Yahtzee with the fake grandparents, who eerily pretend everything is normal, Nana complaining how competitive Pop-Pop is. They begin to play the game, but the grandparents are becoming more demented. Pop-Pop begins dressing up for the costume party again. Becca excuses herself from the game saying she's got to film something real quick. Pop-Pop is suspicious and angry. Nana gets excited and starts eating cookies frantically. She turns to the camera Tyler has placed on the table and screams "YAHTZEE!" Becca goes down to the basement, explaining to the viewer that she thinks her real grandparents have been trapped down there, and that's why Pop-Pop told them to stay away. She begins calling out for the real Nana and Pop-Pop but doesn't hear a response. In the corner, she sees a dumpster and hurries over to it. Inside are family photos of her real grandparents. She also sees something from Meadow Shade which she now learns is a MENTAL HOSPITAL. She digs some more and finds a hammer with blood and white hair on it and then sees..... THE CORPSES OF AN OLD WOMAN AND OLD MAN! Immediately behind her, Pop-Pop has appeared. He explains that he and the woman they know as Nana were mental patients and their real grandparents were volunteers. When they told them about their upcoming visit with their grandchildren, the two imposters decided it would be fun to experience in their place. But he is now determined to kill Becca. He chases Becca up into her room and locks her in. But she manages to defend herself, then busts the lock and escapes. Its past 9:30 PM. Nana is beginning to "sundown" and starts crawling around the couches, chasing Becca. Meanwhile, Pop-Pop comes down to the kitchen with Tyler, who is frozen in fear, just like during the peewee game. Pop-Pop tells him he's under a spell and tells Tyler he never liked him. He goes behind the kitchen counter and removes his pants while the frozen Tyler looks on. Simultaneously, Becca continues to be chased by Nana. Becca's hiding in the corner facing the mirror but as normal, she doesn't look at herself, so she's oblivious that Nana's creeping up on her. Nana smashes Becca's face into the mirror and pieces of glass shatter all around them. Becca picks up a shard of glass as Nana jumps on top of her, clawing at her. ' In the kitchen, Pop-Pop has now revealed that he's removed a dirty diaper. He comments that he's noticed Tyler doesn't like germs and then shoves the dirty adult diaper into Tyler's face. Meanwhile, Nana is on top of Becca, trying to kill her, but Becca stabs Nana to death with the glass shared. In the kitchen, Becca encourages Tyler to snap out of his frozen state, and he does, charging at Pop-Pop again and again and shouting as if he's tackling the big player on the peewee league. He has so much adrenaline that he pummels Pop-Pop to the ground and then smashes the refrigerator door against his head several times (unseen to the audience). The kids run outside to find their mom and police cars out front. They hug their mom as the old time music that Becca promised to play at an important moment in her film plays. Back home, the mom tells Becca that she used to be a great singer, and she could tell her mom was proud of her when she'd sing around the house as a kid. The fight happened because they didn't approve of her husband and when her mom blocked the door to keep her from leaving, she hit her mom and in response, her dad hit her. Stunned by the event, she stormed out and even though her parents tried to reconnect with her, she never talked to them again. She tells Becca not to hold on to anger. In response, we see the slideshow of Becca's dad that she previously said was banned from her documentary, played in full. As the credits roll, we see Becca brushing her hair while looking at herself in the mirror while Tyler performs a rap to camera about the events that took place over those five days, including getting a used adult diaper shoved in his face and how it took two bars of soap to feel clean again. He says it did not taste like chicken.

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Best Choice Ever Ep 13 Recap & Spoilers: Xu Kai opens up to Yang Mi About His Past

By Srimoyee Datta

The ongoing modern C-drama Best Choice Ever released episode 13 on April 14, 2024. It features prominent actors Yang Mi and Xu Kai in the main roles. The episode primarily focuses on Yao Zhi Ming (Xu Kai) telling Cheng Huan (Yang Mi) about his past. Cheng Huan comes to visit Zhi Ming at the hospital. She tells him how many people called to inquire about his condition. Zhi Ming does not believe her.

Cheng Huan gets curious and asks about his other family members. Zhi Ming tells her that his father abandoned his mother and ended up going to prison. His mother lost her life after getting into an accident. He tells her that he only has his grandmother as his well-wisher.

While driving back from the hospital, Zhi Ming apologizes to Cheng Huan about the bidding ceremony. The apology catches her off-guard. Grandma Mai, on the other hand, is happy to see them getting along.

Cheng Huan bumps into Zhu Bao Qiao at work. Cheng Huan introduces herself as the new property manager. Bao Qiao is surprised to see that Cheng Huan has been demoted from her previous position.

Cheng Huan receives praise from her co-workers. Meanwhile, Mr. Xin, Jia Liang’s father, visits the building and meets up with Bao Qiao, his mistress. Cheng Huan accidentally sees them sharing intimate moments and gets flustered. 

Best Choice Ever ep 13: Yang Mi’s house gets flooded

Meanwhile, Zhi Ming also catches Mr. Xin dragging Bao Qiao out of the building. Bao Qiao invites Cheng Huan to her room for a meal. Cheng Huan asks her if she intends for her to see Mr. Xin and Bao Qiao together. Bao Qiao reveals that she has been in a relationship since she graduated from college. But Mr. Xin has been delaying the marriage.

Bao Qiao reminds her that they were good friends in college. Cheng Huan tells her that instead of taking shortcuts, one should focus on working hard. Qiao Bao questions her relationship with Jia Liang. She urges her not to expose her relationship to the Xin family. Cheng Huan leaves the room angrily.

Meanwhile, an anonymous tenant sends a debit card to Cheng Huan. She successfully guesses who it is and calls Mr. Xin. He asks her to accept it as a gift and forget about the incident. Before Cheng Huan can say anything, he hangs up.

In episode 13 of Best Choice Ever, Cheng Huan and her brother receive calls and have to rush home. It turns out that a pipeline has busted, leaving their apartment flooded. Cheng Huan takes her parents to a hotel for the night. She cleans the whole apartment with the help of her brother. They reminisce about their younger days.

The next day at work, Zhi Ming hears about the situation and offers to accommodate the Mai family in his hotel. But Cheng Huan refuses as they can’t afford it. Zhi Ming then sends some engineers who can renovate the place at a low price. Meanwhile, Cheng Huan’s brother endures a hard time at work as his superiors continue to pressure him. He decides to quit.

Best Choice Ever is available to stream on Tencent Video and WeTV throughout the week.

Srimoyee is a Chinese drama news writer. She fell in love with Chinese dramas and movies after stumbling upon Wong Kar-wai's works. She is also into anime, Kpop and Korean dramas. iKON and B.I bring her comfort.

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