the last visit movie

The Ending Of The Visit Explained

Contains spoilers for  The Visit

M. Night Shyamalan is notorious for using dramatic twists towards the endings of his films, some of which are pulled off perfectly and add an extra layer of depth to a sprawling story (hello, Split ). Some of the director's other offerings simply keep the audience on their toes rather than having any extra subtext or hidden meaning. Shyamalan's 2015 found-footage horror-comedy  The Visit , which he wrote and directed, definitely fits in the latter category, aiming for style over substance.

The Visit follows 15-year-old Becca Jamison (Olivia DeJonge) and her 13-year-old brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) when they spend the week with their mother's estranged parents, who live in another town. Loretta (played by WandaVision 's Kathryn Hahn ) never explained to her children why she separated herself away from her parents, but clearly hopes the weekend could help bring the family back together.

Although The Visit occasionally toys with themes of abandonment and fear of the unknown, it wasn't particularly well-received by critics on its initial release, as many struggled with its bizarre comedic tone in the found-footage style. So, after Tyler and his camera record a number of disturbing occurrences like Nana (Deanna Dunagan) projectile-vomiting in the middle of the night and discovering "Pop Pop"'s (Peter McRobbie) mountain of used diapers, it soon becomes clear that something isn't right with the grandparents.

Here's the ending of  The Visit  explained.

The Visit's twist plays on expectations

Because Shyamalan sets up the idea of the separation between Loretta and her parents very early on — and doesn't show their faces before Becca and Tyler meet them — the film automatically creates a false sense of security. Even more so since the found-footage style restricts the use of typical exposition methods like flashbacks or other scenes which would indicate that Nana and Pop Pop aren't who they say they are. Audiences have no reason to expect that they're actually two escapees from a local psychiatric facility.

The pieces all come together once Becca discovers her  real grandparents' corpses in the basement, along with some uniforms from the psychiatric hospital. It confirms "Nana" and "Pop-Pop" escaped from the institution and murdered the Jamisons because they were a similar age, making it easy to hide their whereabouts from the authorities. And they would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.)

However, after a video call from Loretta reveals that the pair aren't her parents, the children are forced to keep up appearances — but the unhinged duo start to taunt the siblings. Tyler in particular is forced to face his fear of germs as "Pop Pop" wipes dirty diapers in his face. The germophobia is something Shyamalan threads through Tyler's character throughout The Visit,  and the encounter with "Pop Pop" is a basic attempt of showing he's gone through some kind of trial-by-fire to get over his fears.

But the Jamison kids don't take things lying down: They fight back in vicious fashion — a subversion of yet another expectation that young teens might would wait for adults or law enforcement officers to arrive before doing away with their tormentors.

Its real message is about reconciliation

By the time Becca stabs "Nana" to death and Tyler has repeatedly slammed "Pop-Pop"'s head with the refrigerator door, their mother and the police do arrive to pick up the pieces. In a last-ditch attempt at adding an emotional undertone, Shyamalan reveals Loretta left home after a huge argument with her parents. She hit her mother, and her father hit her in return. But Loretta explains that reconciliation was always on the table if she had stopped being so stubborn and just reached out. One could take a domino-effect perspective and even say that Loretta's stubbornness about not reconnecting and her sustained distance from her parents put them in exactly the vulnerable position they needed to be for "Nana" and "Pop-Pop" to murder them. 

Loretta's confession actually mirrors something "Pop-Pop" told Tyler (before his run-in with the refrigerator door): that he and "Nana" wanted to spend one week as a normal family before dying. They should've thought about that before murdering a pair of innocent grandparents, but here we are. 

So, is The Visit  trying to say that if we don't keep our families together, they'll be replaced by imposters and terrify our children? Well, probably not. The Visit tries to deliver a message about breaking away from old habits, working through your fears, and stop being so stubborn over arguments that don't have any consequences in the long-run. Whether it actually sticks the landing on all of those points is still up for debate.

Director Abdulmohsen Aldhabaan on Shooting ‘Last Visit’ in Saudi Arabia With a Mostly Female Crew

By Nick Vivarelli

Nick Vivarelli

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When young Saudi Arabian director Abdulmohsen Aldhabaan set out to make his debut feature “Last Visit” filmmaking and movie theaters were still banned in his country.

That changed suddenly in late 2017 when Saudi’s 35-year-old religion-related ban was lifted as part of social and economic reforms. So the director and his producer immediately turned in their screenplay to authorities and applied for a shooting permit, which they got despite the fact that their father-and-son drama depicting generational conflict pushes boundaries in several ways.

Thematically “Last Visit” exposes “masculine culture and patriarchy as I know it,” says Aldhabaan, adding that the 16-year-old son in his film who is named Walid (played by Abdullah Al-Fahad) simply can’t relate to Saudi Arabia ‘s conservative traditions.

“With kids his age in Saudi today, it’s not even a matter of revolting against the past,” he says. “They actually just don’t understand it.”  

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Walid and his father Nasser (played by Osama Alqess) travel from a big modern city to a rural village where Nasser’s own father is on his deathbed in the home of his uncle and two male cousins. There Walid refuses to adhere to prayer and other conservative customs, isolating himself from the other men in his family by wearing a huge set of wireless headphones.

Though you practically see only men on screen throughout the whole film, “the majority of the crew were women,” the director notes, adding that when they shot outdoors the presence of these women, some of whom did not wear headscarves, “was problematic.”

At first “people were upset, and the town revolted on social media with posts such as: ‘these people are coming to our town, and they are making cinema, which is dangerous!’,” says producer Mohammed Alhamoud.

Having a regular shooting permit really saved them. “Without it we never would have finished the movie,” he notes. “We had a lot of outdoor scenes and we didn’t want people to harass us.” That fear soon subsided, though, to the point that by the end of the shoot some of the people who had complained had become extras.

Aldhabaan’s “Last Visit” journey started with his becoming an ardent cinephile by watching movies on VHS and DVD that he selected largely thanks to an online forum through which he learned “about Bergman and Scorsese.” Then in 2006 he started working as a film critic and reporter, catching his films in nearby Bahrain. In 2008 with Alhamoud and others Aldhabaan co-founded the Riyadh-based Talashi Film Group, a collective of film buffs.

“Last Visit,” which launched from the Karlovy Vary fest and is now competing in Marrakech , is likely to get Middle East distribution though it’s still not certain whether and when it will play in Saudi.

“Before we produced the film it passed censorship, but we have not yet submitted the finished product,” says Alhamoud.

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Osama Alqess (Nasser 'Father') Abdullah Alfahad (Son 'Waleed') Fahad Alghurariy (Uncle 'Mansour') Shoojaa Nashat (Officer) Mousaed Khaled (Strange man) Taher Ahmed Abdullah Al-Hammadi (Nawwaf) Hamad Almutaani (Hadi) Maram Alzghoul Shady Eldanf

Abdulmohsen Aldhabaan

During a trip with Waleed, his adolescent son, a middle-aged father, Nasser, receives news of his father's serious illness. He turns in the direction of his rural hometown south of Riyadh. The relationship between father and son changes when they arrive in this isolated town, as the disappearance of a child under unknown conditions is overshadowed by Nasser's efforts to communicate with his introverted son, even if it means imposing his own will on him. Waleed rebels against this guardianship and rejects it amidst the tense atmosphere of his dying grandfather in waiting.

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2019 ‘آخر زيارة’ Directed by Abdulmohsen Aldhabaan

Not long after Nasser sets out with his adolescent son to attend a wedding he finds out that his father is dying. Unfavourable circumstances not only affect the original purpose of their trip but also begin to impact the relationship between Nasser and his son, Waleed. Indeed, the interaction with their relatives exposes a serious underlying problem: much to his father’s disapproval, Waleed doesn’t identify with the strong traditions that have been upheld for generations. Through its story of a family encounter the film adopts a realistic approach to gradually uncover the divide between the rural community and the more liberal-minded inhabitants of Riyadh. In so doing the work presents a critique of deeply rooted Islamic customs and seeks to establish the extent to which patriarchy determines paternal love.

Osama Al-Qass Abdullah Alfahad Fahad Alghurariy Shujaa Nashatt Mousaed Khaled Mousaed Khaled

Director Director

Abdulmohsen Aldhabaan

Producer Producer

Mohammed Alhamoud

Editor Editor

Fakhreddine Amri

Saudi Arabia

Releases by date, 30 jun 2019, releases by country.

76 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Younis ★★★

الفيلم كان اطول من اللازم فيه لقطات طويلة مالها اي داعي، واللي يقوم عليه الفيلم الا وهي علاقة الاب وولده كانت سيئة جدًا ولا انعملت بالشكل الكويس خلال الفيلم كله شفنا مشاهد حوارية قليلة جدًا بين الاب وولده والحوارات كانت غير واقعية بصراحة وماتقدمت بشكل كويس من الممثلين نفسهم واتوقع سبب ابتعادهم عن الحوارات هو هذا الشيء، تصوير اجواء القرية والاهتمام بتفاصيلها وعلاقة الاب فيها كلها كانت ممتازة 

الفيلم مش سيء ولكن كنت متأمل منه اكثر بكثير

Review by NeoKhaledism ★★★

أتابع فهد الأسطا من مدة طويلة، وسبق وشاهدت مسلسل ٤٢ يوم اللي كان من كتابته وإخراج عبدالمحسن الضبعان فلذلك كنت متأمل شيء من الفلم ولكني أُحبِطت مع الأسف. 

الفلم يلعب على خطين درامية واضحة، وهي علاقة الأب-الابن وعلاقة المدينة-القرية وكلها مواضيع جدًا مهمة لم تُطرق بالشكل الكافي خصوصًا محليًا. 

الفلم رتمه بطيء جدًا جدًا حد الملل، لقطات طويلة غير مفهومة لدرجة إني حسيت إنها مجرد حشو عشان تصير فوق ٧٠ دقيقة ويقدرون يشاركون بالمهرجانات، لا يوجد توظيف درامي لمسار القصة بشكل تفاعلي واضح، من المشهد الأول وأنا عارف أنه فيه برود بالعلاقة بين الأب وابنه ولكن هالبرود بقي كما هو بدون تصعيد درامي محبوك.

طريقة كتابة وتنفيذ وتوظيف الخطوط الدرامية اللي يلعب عليها الفلم كانت سيئة جدًا وأفسدت من الفكرة الموضوع اللي أعتبره مثير للاهتمام. 

محبط جدًا الصراحة.

Review by Majeed Saihaty ★★★½

#اخر_زياره اب و ابنه يتجهون إلى زيارة الجد المريض لتتبين العلاقة المعقدة بينهم. غالباً تربية المدينة الحديثة بها عقد نفسيه لا تتوالم مع اهالي القرى المحافظة ، حتى تشعر بأن ابنك يحتاج لصفعه يعرف و يفهم كيف يوزن نفسه اين كان و يعرف بأن لكل مقام مقال ، و ايضاً على الاب ان يربي حاله كيف يتعاطى مع الامور ، لهذا تجد فجوات عظيمة بين جميع اطراف العائلة لا حل لها الا وضع تربية القرى في المدن

مخرج واعي و قدر ان يفرض شخصيته و يخلي المشاهد يوصل لما بين سطور النص بتصاعد بطيء و جميل. 7/10

Review by Anas ★★★ 1

شفي أمه الولد منفس احترم نفسك ياكريه

Review by ‮شذى‬ ★★★★★

رغم أن الخلفية الموسيقية الوحيدة للفيلم كانت صوت العصافير والطبيعة -والتي عادة ماتساعدنا على الاسترخاء والهدوء- فالفيلم كان مشحونا جدا وطبيعة العلاقة بين الأب وابنه التي يحاول الفيلم تصويرها -رغم محدودية الحوارات - كانت الحدة هي قاعدتها الأساس،وهو ماشعرت به فعلا من خلال الأداء الرائع للممثلين. القصة بسيطة جدا لكنها تلقي ظلال من الضوء على تأثير التنشئة على الأجيال المختلفة وكيف يحدث أن نتناقل أخطاء الآباء مع أبناءنا بلا إدراك منا،وأيضا يقارن المقارنة القديمة جدا بين مجتمعي القرية والمدينة الذي يكون الناس في الأول أسرة واحدة همهم وحزنهم واحد. رغم الثقل الذي أخلفه الفيلم إلا أني استمتعت بالأداء والإخراج والواقعية .

Review by Abdulaziz Adel ★★★

مالنا نفس للمراجعات المطولة ولكن الفيلم يستدعي العودة.

أولا أزعم بأني شاهدت الكثير من الأعمال السعودية وجميعها بعين المؤمل والمبتهل والمنحاز الا أن التجارب السابقة كانت مخيبة للأمل.

الزيارة الأخيرة كانت مختلفة، باعثة لركام الأمل، وأود التطرق للفيلم من جوانب عديدة، ولكن ترتيب الأفكار يتطلب وقتا ومجهودا أخشى أن يتم وأد المراجعة بسببهما.

سأبدأ من البداية، "فيلم أضاف لي بُعدا جديدا في السينما" أحد المتسمرين أمام الفن السابع يدعوني لمشاهدة الفيلم. أثاراتني الدعوة وبصيص الأمل فشرعت فيه.

بمجرد بدايته أدركت البعد المقصود، فيلم يصورنا جميعا، هذا أنا وأنت وهذا ذاك، يجسد الفيلم المرحلة عن طريق العلاقات الثلاثة المختلفة ما بين [الابن-الأب-الجد] ولكن بطريقة حقيقة واقعية فليس ثمة أرضية مشتركة للحديث ولا اهتمامات جامعة، سكة طويلة وصمت أطول، تباين في تراكيب…

Review by Moubark \w/ ★★

لقطات طويلة صامته بلا أي هدف لدرجة اني نسيت اني اشاهد فيلم وحسبت اني اشاهد وثائقي عن أصوات عالم العصافير

Review by Abdulrahman ★★★

فيلم جيّد،  برأيي كان بيكون افضل لو اخذوا الوقت في استكشاف علاقة الأب/الإبن.. وعلاقة الأب بالقرية،وقصة الطفل.

Review by Reaih ★★½

فيلم رائع!. حسيت بالكتمة من كثر ما ان تجسيد علاقة الاب بابنه واقعي جدًا

Review by thegreatestgirl ½ 2

Review by dana ★★★

first time hearing my city mentioned in a film lol

Review by Aziz Madhi ★★★★

شيء يدعو للفخر ان هذا العمل منا وفينا ويحكي قصة عنا بطريقة تلامس مشاعرنا تجاه ديارنا. هذه هي الافلام اللي نتطلع لها وهي التي من ترسم معالم الفيلم السعودي.

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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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2015, Mystery & thriller/Horror, 1h 34m

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Critics Consensus

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. Read critic reviews

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The visit videos, the visit   photos.

Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) say goodbye to their mother as they board a train and head deep into Pennsylvania farm country to meet their maternal grandparents for the first time. Welcomed by Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie), all seems well until the siblings start to notice increasingly strange behavior from the seemingly charming couple. Once the children discover a shocking secret, they begin to wonder if they'll ever make it home.

Rating: PG-13 (Some Nudity|Brief Language|Terror|Thematic Material|Violence)

Genre: Mystery & thriller, Horror

Original Language: English

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Producer: M. Night Shyamalan , Jason Blum , Marc Bienstock

Writer: M. Night Shyamalan

Release Date (Theaters): Sep 11, 2015  wide

Release Date (Streaming): May 17, 2016

Box Office (Gross USA): $65.1M

Runtime: 1h 34m

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Production Co: Blinding Edge Pictures, Blumhouse

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Olivia DeJonge

Ed Oxenbould

Deanna Dunagan

Peter McRobbie

Kathryn Hahn

Celia Keenan-Bolger

Samuel Stricklen

Patch Darragh

Jorge Cordova

Steve Annan

Man on the Street

Benjamin Kanes

Ocean James

Young Becca

Seamus Moroney

Young Tyler

M. Night Shyamalan

Screenwriter

Marc Bienstock

Steven Schneider

Executive Producer

Ashwin Rajan

Maryse Alberti

Cinematographer

Luke Franco Ciarrocchi

Film Editing

Naaman Marshall

Production Design

Scott G. Anderson

Art Director

Christine Wick

Set Decoration

Amy Westcott

Costume Design

Douglas Aibel

News & Interviews for The Visit

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Critic Reviews for The Visit

Audience reviews for the visit.

Super creepy. Nice twist at the end.

A disturbing and creepy premise. It'll keep you watching until the very end!

The Visit was a not Shyamalan's greatest work but it worked in its low budget way. The acting was horrendous and the plot was predictable, though the camerawork was at least steady to not make it so shaky.

Risible "return to form" (it's not), featuring two INCREDIBLY irritating performances/characters at the centre. The found footage/documentary style grates and is noticeable only for its complete lack of style, the attempts at comedy are woeful and there is no suspense or shocks. The "twist", supposedly hiding in plain sight, is exactly what one supposes it might be from the first 10 minutes.

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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 (2015)

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The Visit streaming: where to watch online?

Currently you are able to watch "The Visit" streaming on Max, Max Amazon Channel, Cinemax Amazon Channel, Cinemax Apple TV Channel. It is also possible to buy "The Visit" on AMC on Demand, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store as download or rent it on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Spectrum On Demand online.

Where does The Visit rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Streaming charts last updated: 1:21:23 AM, 04/15/2024

The Visit is 3021 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 975 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than I Am Woman but less popular than Blue Valentine.

A brother and sister are sent to their grandparents' remote Pennsylvania farm for a week, where they discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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The visit ending explained: is the m. night shyamalan movie based on a true story.

M. Night Shyamalan's twist-filled 2015 shocker The Visit had audiences guessing until the very end, but is the found footage horror film a true story?

• "The Visit" is a twist-filled thriller that earned its scares through a plausible story and clever use of found footage genre.
• Despite being eerily plausible, "The Visit" is actually a work of pure fiction and not based on a true story.
• The film explores themes of aging, fear, and generational trauma, while also highlighting the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation.

M. Night Shyamalan's twist-filled thriller The Visit kept viewers guessing all the way up to the shocking conclusion, but is the found footage horror hit based on a true story? Released in 2015, The Visit follows teen siblings Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) as they are sent to spend a week with their estranged grandparents. Naturally, strange things are afoot, and the teens must learn the shocking truth about their relatives. As with all of Shyamalan's horror movies, The Visit built up to a shocking twist that many didn't see coming, but it cleverly incorporated humor in a way that left many perplexed by its tone.

Despite a largely mixed critical reaction (via Rotten Tomatoes ), The Visit was a bona fide financial success (via Box Office Mojo ) and it stands as one of M. Night Shyamalan's highest-grossing movies . Unlike many of Shyamalan's other films which incorporate fantastical elements, The Visit earned its scares by being an entirely plausible story. Visually speaking, Shyamalan used the found footage genre deftly to convey a deeper meaning, and he got genuinely creepy moments from what could have easily been goofy. The compelling mix of plausibility and realism had many wondering whether The Visit was actually based on a true story.

Every Character M. Night Shyamalan Played In His Own Movies

The visit is not based on a true story.

Despite being eerily plausible, The Visit was actually a work of pure fiction and had no connection to real life. The script was penned by M. Night Shyamalan himself, with many of the movie's more positive reviews calling it a return to his former glory. Nearly all the writer/director's films have been works of his own imagination and in an interview with Geeks of Doom he said " That is the primal thing of it, that we are scared of getting old. Playing on that is a powerful conceit ". The director would return to that theme a few years later in 2021's Old but to a less effective extent.

The Grandparents Twist Explained

Throughout the film, Becca and Tyler are unsure about the behavior of their Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) and Nana (Deana Dunagan), who have seemingly grown worse as the story progresses. Obviously, something wasn't right about the elderly couple, but the pieces finally clicked when Becca discovered the remains of her real grandparents stashed away in the basement. It is revealed that Pop Pop and Nana are actually escaped patients from the local mental health facility and that they have killed Becca and Tyler's grandparents to assume their lives. It is unclear whether the two escapees would have posed a threat to the kids if they hadn't nosed around.

If there is one thing that the multi-talented Shyamalan is best known for it is his films' abundant use of shocking twists towards the end of his stories. Nearly every M. Night Shyamalan twist has kept audiences guessing, and The Visit was unique because it truly earned its shocking climax. Unlike earlier films which stuck a twist in just to fulfill the obligation, The Visit naturally built towards the twist, and it was a crucial part of the plot, unlike so many throw-away gimmick twists of the past.

Why The Visit Is A Found Footage Movie

Thanks to blockbuster horror hits like Paranormal Activity , the found footage genre started to expand in earnest at the beginning of the 2010s. However, by 2015 and the release of The Visit , the style had largely fallen out of favor. Despite this downturn in popularity, The Visit nevertheless opted for an approach that innovated the found footage tropes by injecting a bit of humor and eschewing the self-serious tone. From a story perspective, The Visit is a found footage movie because it is about Becca's quest to chronicle her family for a documentary, but the choice actually goes deeper.

Unlike other directors who chose found footage as a cheap way to save on the movie's budget, Shyamalan intellectualized the style by making it crucial to the plot. In the same Geeks of Doom interview, the director mentioned " The camera is an extension of those characters...It is manifesting in literal cinematography in this particular movie ". Additionally, Becca's abundant camera usage actually factors into the plot, such as when she shows the footage to her mother, which further integrates it into the fabric of the film.

The First "Found Footage" Movie Came 38 Years Before The Blair Witch Project

The significance of tyler’s phobias.

Horror movies are all about exploiting common phobias , and The Visit used Tyler's irrational fears as a chance to spook viewers and say something about the themes as well. Tyler is shown to be a bit of a germaphobe, and he also has a fear of freezing to death. While both have rational elements and point back to the omnipresent fear of death from which all phobias stem, Tyler's fears also speak to the idea that the elderly are frightening because they are reminders of death. The slow degradation of the body through aging is a lot like freezing to death, and it is clear that Tyler sees his elderly grandparents as unclean which activates his germ phobia.

The hilariously gruesome scene in which Pop Pop rubs his dirty adult diaper in Tyler's face forces the younger man to confront his fears, and it empowers him later when he finally dispatches the imposter grandpa. It is likely not a coincidence that Tyler kills Pop Pop by slamming his head in the refrigerator, as the ice box is an extension of Tyler's fear of freezing. He literally kills his tormentor with a symbol of the thing that mentally torments him.

How Loretta’s Past Affected The Kids

At the beginning of the film, Becca and Tyler's mom Loretta (Kathryn Hahn) explains that she hasn't spoken to her parents in 15 years because she eloped with one of her high school teachers when she was only a teenager. Instead of facing her problems like an adult, Loretta instead allowed her kids to act as a bridge between the generations, inadvertently sending them to live with two violent escapees from the local mental health ward. Loretta would later reveal that Nana and Pop Pop aren't her parents in one of Shyamalan's most terrifying scares , but she was away on a cruise and couldn't come to their aid.

This forces her kids to mature faster than she ever could, and they go on the offense as they are tasked with escaping from the murderous impostors occupying their grandparent's home. At the end of the film, Loretta explains her last interaction with her parents turned violent, which sheds a bit of light on why she couldn't just face up to the past. In some ways, Loretta's choices as a teenager eventually led to the precarious situation that Becca and Tyler ended up in, and she passed a bit of generational trauma on to them.

Why Becca Puts Her Father In The Documentary

Having survived the harrowing ordeal, Becca's documentary finally begins to take shape at the very end of The Visit . She is given the chance to cut in footage of her estranged father, and though Loretta informs her she doesn't have to, Becca opts to put him in. This choice shows that Becca has matured significantly since the titular visit, and she has come to the realization that forgiveness really is the best path. Loretta could never forgive her parents, and it robbed her of a chance for reconciliation. By putting her dad in the documentary, Becca left that door open for her future self and maybe her own children too.

How Many M. Night Shyamalan Movies REALLY Have Twists

The real meaning of the visit’s ending.

From a horror perspective, the ending of The Visit is all about the fear of death as personified by the elderly. Nana and Pop Pop are terrifying embodiments of the eventual degradation of the body, though they also fill the role of the conventional horror antagonist. However, from a more thematic side, The Visit is also about forgiveness and reconciliation, as the harboring of deep-seated pain can eventually lead to a bad outcome. Even if it isn't literally an encounter with escaped murderers, it is at least a path of nothing but pain and loss.

From football hero to murder suspect: An O.J. Simpson photo timeline

Simpson earned fame through football and show business, but all that was forever changed when his ex-wife and her friend were brutally knifed to death in June 1994.

O.J. Simpson was the star tailback for college football’s powerful University of Southern California in the late 1960s.

Simpson then played 11 NFL seasons, nine of them with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as “The Juice” on an offensive line known as “The Electric Company.”

Simpson married Nicole Brown in 1985. They had two children, Justin and Sydney, and divorced in 1992.

A passerby found Brown Simpson’s body near a gate to her West Los Angeles condominium in June 1994. Police found Ronald Goldman’s body in shrubbery nearby.

Live TV coverage of Simpson's arrest after a famous slow-speed chase marked a stunning fall from grace.

One of Simpson’s lawyers, Johnnie Cochran, coined a phrase that would endure in pop culture: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

A criminal court jury found Simpson not guilty of murder in 1995, but a civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to family members of Brown Simpson and Goldman.

In 2008, a jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other felonies after he led five men into a confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room.

Imprisoned at age 61,  he served nine years  in a remote northern Nevada prison, including a stint as a gym janitor.

The Associated Press

Matt Nighswander is a Senior Photo Editor at NBC News Digital.

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Fallout Show Vaults Explained: Vault 32, Vault 31, and How Many Are There?

Vaults on vaults on vaults.

This post contains spoilers for the Fallout show on Prime Video .

Can’t have Vault-Tec without vaults! And, like your standard, everyday vault, these vaults are full of secrets. And also a whole bunch of human beings, mutants, and sometimes an errant corpse (or 50) every now and again. Fallout on Prime Video gives us a whole new glimpse at Bethesda’s universe , giving us a detailed look at Vault Dweller life before and after the apocalypse. Like the people who inhabit them, each vault is a little bit (or a lotta bit) different from the last. Let’s take a look at the locked up little homesteads we’re introduced to in Fallout Season 1!

Objectively the most important vault in Season 1 of Fallout, Vault 33 is where we spend the majority of our time. At least, so far as the vaults are concerned. Home to the MacLean family (consisting of Ella Purnell’s Lucy, Kyle MacLachlan’s Overseer Hank, and Moises Arias’ Norm) as well as a whole host of home-grown farm folk, Vault 33’s primary crop is corn and its appearance takes after the Nebraskan countryside. All of its occupants also have a strange affinity for jello cake.

This vault has been relatively free of hardship throughout its 200+ year run, but it did suffer a brief famine that resulted in quite a few casualties, including Lucy and Norm’s mother. At least so they think…

You know what they say! When you’re tired of bangin’ your cousin, look no further than Vault 32. (Surely someone must have said this…) Of course, mind the raiders. Even if the death of the vault wasn’t even said raiders’ fault.

Vault 32 is a picture of what happens when famine goes wrong. While at first it’s believed that Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) ravaged the vault, Norm and Chet (Dave Register) discover later in the season that the vault fell long before being opened to the outside world. In it, they find half eaten corpses, as well as a whole host of apparent suicide cases as the Vaulties tried to find whatever way they could to stave off the hunger.

Obviously, all of this was covered up by the Overseers.

The picture of what happens when “home grown” is taken a little bit too far. Sure, they don’t necessarily grow the folks, but they do dethaw them whenever Vault 33 requires a new overseer. Turns out, Vault 31 was the key to Vault-Tec’s evil plan. Or at least the human part of it. Before bringing about the apocalypse — twice — the high-ranking members of Vault-Tec cryogenically froze themselves, with the exception of Michael Asper’s Bud Askins who, instead, put his brain in a little robot dude so he could live on forever and unfreeze his counterparts whenever a new Overseer was required.

Ah, the ever-curious Vault 4 . Midway through the Fallout series, we learn that this was the home of the scientists. In an ad for Vault-Tec, Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard praises the scientists, calling the small family the “real heroes.” Unfortunately, it appears that ethics didn’t come standard with their scientific curiosities. After decades of terrible experiments, the mutants created by the scientists rose up and overtook Vault 4, eventually opening it up to the wasteland and accepting Shady Sands survivors into their midst. Their Overseer may be a tad racist against surface dwellers, but Vault 4 is where Lucy learns to understand her own prejudices as well!

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How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam

A mexican drug cartel is targeting seniors and their timeshares..

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A massive scam targeting older Americans who own timeshare properties has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars sent to Mexico.

Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The Times, tells the story of a victim who lost everything, and of the criminal group making the scam calls — Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most violent cartels.

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Tanya finds her summer plans canceled when her mom jets off for a last-minute retreat and the elderly babysitter who arrives at her door unexpectedly passes away. Tanya finds her summer plans canceled when her mom jets off for a last-minute retreat and the elderly babysitter who arrives at her door unexpectedly passes away. Tanya finds her summer plans canceled when her mom jets off for a last-minute retreat and the elderly babysitter who arrives at her door unexpectedly passes away.

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• 4 User reviews
• 11 Critic reviews
• 61 Metascore

• Tanya Crandell

• Party Guest

• Zack Crandell

• Melissa Crandell

• Rose's assistant designer

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Joanna Cassidy : As the fashion executive who meets Nicole Richie 's character Rose at the end of the fashion show. Cassidy played the role of Rose in the original Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) .
• Connections Remake of Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991)

User reviews 4

• sirgarrykay
• Apr 15, 2024
• How long is Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead? Powered by Alexa
• April 12, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Santa Clarita, California, USA
• SMiZE Productions
• Treehouse Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 39 minutes

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