It Came From The Cineplex: The Visit

The Visit was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Wow, has any director ever had as rapid a fall from grace as Shyamalan? He hit a home run his first time at bat back in 1999 with The Sixth Sense. The film was a surprise megahit, grossing over $600 million against its $40 million budget, and firmly established Shyamalan as an up and coming powerhouse director in Hollywood. Unfortunately The Sixth Sense turned out to be more curse than blessing, as he's never quite been able to match that early success.

Shyamalan has fast become the Dr. Richard Daystrom of Hollywood (one hundred points to anyone who gets that reference!). He peaked way too early, as each of his followup efforts has been more critically panned then the last and have continued to make less and less money. Yet somehow, against all logic and reason, he keeps on getting work.

Additionally, The Sixth Sense pigeonholed Shyamalan as "The Guy Who Does The Surprise Twist Endings," as audiences expected each subsequent film to feature a similar startling climax. Unfortunately the problem with surprise endings is they're not hard to figure out if you're expecting one.

After several spectacular flops in a row, The Visit seems to be Shyamalan's attempt at dialing things down and getting back to his roots. It's a simple, low budget film that I'm sure he hopes will get his career back on track. Did he succeed? Eh... the best I can say is that it's OK. It's marred by the cursed found footage format, annoying child characters, a dull middle and a puzzling identity crisis. Other than that, it's not bad!

I'm honestly not sure what this film is trying to be. Is it a horror movie or a comedy? All horror films need a couple of scenes of comic relief to help break up the tension, but The Visit goes way overboard. It almost seems like a black comedy, but I have my doubts Shyamalan intended it that way. For every genuinely creepy moment it manages to generate, it turns right around and undoes them with an ill-conceived comedy bit.

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD, INCLUDING A REVEAL OF THE SURPRISING TWIST ENDING! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

The Plot:

As the film opens, fifteen year old Rebecca and thirteen year old Tyler are leaving for a week long trip to visit their grandparents. The kids' mother Paula eloped when she was a teen, and hasn't seen or spoken with her parents for the past fifteen years. This visit will be the first time the kids have ever met their grandparents. Remember that, it's important!

Rebecca is a film school hopeful and is documenting the trip with her video camera. Her brother Tyler fancies himself a would-be rap star, which isn't the least bit annoying. That was sarcasm, son.

The grandparents, known as Nana and Pop Pop, meet Rebecca and Tyler at the train station and take them to their isolated farmhouse. When the kids ask what they do, they mention they work at a local mental hospital a few days a week as counselors. They give the kids a couple of house rules: bedtime is at 9:30 pm, and never go into the basement, which is full of mold. Hmm...

Later that night Rebecca sneaks out of her room to grab a late night snack. She sees Nana walking through the kitchen projectile vomiting. The next morning she tells Pop Pop what she saw, and he says Nana just had a short bout with the stomach flu and is fine.

The kids Skype their mother and tell her what's happening. Paula, who's on a cruise with her boyfriend, blows off their concerns and says their grandparents are just old.

The kids begin noticing more bizarre behavior from their grandparents. Nana scratches at the walls while naked, sits in a chair facing a wall while laughing at nothing, and sleepwalks through the house while carrying a large butcher knife. Pop Pop keeps getting dressed for a party that doesn't exist, attacks a random man on the street and sticks a shotgun in his mouth while "cleaning" it.

The kids Skype Paula again and show her footage they've recorded of Nana and Pop Pop's disturbing habits. Paula is terrified when she sees the film, revealing those aren't her parents, and tells the kids to get out of the house immediately. 

Rebecca and Tyler try to leave, but the fake Nana and Pop Pop insist they play Yahtzee. During the game Rebecca excuses herself and goes down into the forbidden basement, where she finds the dead bodies of the real Nana and Pop Pop, along with uniforms from the mental hospital. She realizes that the impostors are mental patients who escaped the hospital, tracked down Nana and Pop Pop, killed them and assumed their identities (for some reason).

Fake Nana and Pop Pop attack the kids and try to kill them. Rebecca manages to stab Fake Nana with a shard of glass from a broken mirror. Tyler overpowers Fake Pop Pop and repeatedly slams his head in the refrigerator door. They run outside just as Paula and the local police arrive.

In a completely unnecessary tag scene, Rebecca interviews her mother for her documentary. Paula says the day she left home, she struck her mother and her father hit her, which is what led to the fifteen years of estrangement. She realizes that her parents immediately forgave her and would have gladly welcomed her back into their lives. She tells the camera (and Rebecca) to "let go of the anger."

In an even more unnecessary credits scene, Tyler performs a mind-numbing rap about overcoming his germophobia or some awful crap.

Thoughts:

• As M. Night Shyamalan twist endings go, this one's fairly simple and pretty well done. The clues are all there, and once you know the secret they're all pretty obvious.

For the record I thought I knew what the twist was going to be, but I guessed wrong. Instead of the grandparents being escaped mental patients, I thought their bizarre behavior would turn out to be fake, as Rebecca edited her footage to make it seem like something was amiss, to spice up her otherwise dull documentary.

• Take a look at that poster. Note that at the top is says, "From the director of The Sixth Sense and Signs."

The Sixth Sense was released in 1999, and Signs in 2002. That's sixteen and thirteen years ago, respectively. Gosh, I wonder why they'd reference movies that came out so long ago? Why don't they trumpet that The Visit is from the visionary director who also gave us such beloved cinematic classics as The Village, Lady In The Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth?

The poster also says The Visit is from the producer of Paranormal Activity and Insidious. I assume they're talking about Jason Blum here. I've brought this up before but it bears repeating— does this trick ever work? I have a feeling the general movie-going public has no clue what a producer actually does. Even if they do, what's the thinking here? That someone will see this poster and say, "Man, that guy that produced the HELL out of Paranormal Activity! This movie must be even better!"

• This is technically a found footage film, even though the characters are actually filming a documentary. As such, it contains everything I hate about the genre: shaky camera work, a lack of elaborate makeup and special effects, a dull, grounded story and worst of all, idiotic characters who unrealistically continue filming when they should be running for their lives.

The sooner this miserable film genre dies, the better.

I would have enjoyed the movie much more if it had just been filmed as a traditional narrative. 

• When you write a film containing just five characters, you'd better damn well make sure they're all likable, since the audience will be stuck with them for the majority of the run time. The Visit fails in this regard.

Nana and Pop Pop are weirdos who turn out to be murdering psychopaths, so right off the bat they're out. Paula has a dark undercurrent about her and a convenient tendency to blow off her kids' concerns that made me instantly dislike her. 

Tyler was just plain annoying, as his feeble and dated attempts at 1990s rap were absolutely cringeworthy. Every word out of his mouth seemed like something a clueless adult would think a "cool" kid would say. 

The only halfway likable character in the film was Rebecca. Her pretentious film school schtick seemed somewhat authentic, like something a teen would actually be into. 

• As I said earlier, this film suffers from a serious lack of identity. It's advertised as a horror film, but it contains far more laughs than scares. Was I supposed to be laughing or screaming? I have no idea. Even director M. Night Shyamalan doesn't know. In an interview he admitted that he had trouble keeping the tone consistent throughout the film. No sh*t, M. Night! He claims the first cut resembled an "art house film" (whatever that means), while the second cut became a comedy. He claims he finally struck a balance in the third cut.

Personally I think he needed a fourth cut that toned down the laughs. On the rare occasion he managed to come up with a scene that was genuinely creepy, he immediately undercut it with a lame bit of comedy.

For example, Tyler observes Pop Pop sneaking into a dilapidated shed several times a day, and sneaks in to investigate. What could be inside the shed? The bodies of Pop Pop's victims? A Satanic altar? Nude photos of Bea Arthur? It's an effectively spooky scene until Tyler discovers Pop Pop is incontinent and is storing his soiled adult diapers in the shed. Com-O-Dee!

Similarly, the kids hear a strange noise in the house at night, and when they slowly open the door they see Nana, completely naked, scratching frantically at the walls. It's a disturbing and horrifying scene, until Tyler runs back to his room shouting, "I'm blind! I'm blind!" after seeing his grandmother naked.

It's hard to take what few scares there are seriously when they're followed by sitcom humor.

• Movie trailers are designed for one reason, and one reason only— to get butts in seats. To that end, trailers will often mislead the audience, promising one kind of film and delivering another. See Crimson Peak for a prime example of this kind of trailer misdirection.

The trailer for The Visit is somewhat guilty of this as well. Take a look at the above image. The scene at the top is taken directly from the trailer. Note how it's been color graded to look dark, moody and spooky, implying in no uncertain terms that this is a horror movie.

Now look at the bottom image, which is how the scene actually looks in the film. Note how bright and cheerful it is. The whole damned movie has this same happy, saturated color palette. 

I have to wonder how many people the trailer lured into the theater, making them think they were in for an unrelenting horror masterpiece instead of a black comedy.

• All through the film Tyler is a germaphobe, unable to touch even a doorknob without covering it with a tissue.

Near the end of the film, Fake Pop Pop shoves a loaded adult diaper in his face, just like Moe throwing a pie at Curly's head. During the end credits, Tyler then raps about how he's no longer afraid of germs.

So there you have it! Apparently the cure for germaphobia is smearing crap on the patient's face!

The Visit is M. Night Shyamalan's attempt at returning to form, but ultimately fails due to its found footage format and a schizophrenic tone. With a normal narrative structure and a focused director, it could have been an effective little thriller. I give it a C+.

Wotta Waste!

Here's one last Halloween post before I stop talking about it until next year. Last week I was strolling through my local Target store, and noticed their huge selection of Halloween-themed greeting cards. Did I say huge? I meant vast.

All I can say is why?

Who the hell sends out Halloween cards? I certainly don't, and I can't remember ever getting one in the mail, ever. Am I the oddball here? Does everyone else sit down and address their Halloween cards every October 1st? Somehow I doubt it. 

I could maybe imagine some clingy, needy mother sending out Halloween cards to her ungrateful kids in a desperate attempt at guilting them into a phone call or text, but even that's a stretch.

This is obviously a manufactured need on the part of Hallmark and all the other card companies. They no doubt analyzed their sales charts and noticed that profits took an alarming dive every October. So they started pumping out Halloween cards, hoping the public would see them and think they're supposed to buy and send them to one another, even though no one in their right mind would ever do such a thing.

Every time I see the huge amount of Halloween cards sitting there I get a sick feeling in my stomach. What a complete and utter waste! Think about the tons upon tons of them that go unsold and are sent back to the card company or hauled away to the dump.

Think about all the other things that paper could have been used for. Infinitely more useful things, like newspapers, phone books and Thanksgiving cards!

Doctor Who Season 9, Episode 7: The Zygon Invasion

I've said it a couple times now, but so far Season 9 of Doctor Who is a vast improvement over last year's. Seriously, Season 8 was so uneven (and in some cases spectacularly bad) that I almost stopped watching the show. Fortunately they've turned things around just in time. So far this year's scripts have all been better written and Peter Capaldi seems to have loosened up quite a bit and finally settled into the role. The Zygon Invasion continues this trend, as it's another pretty darned good episode.

It seems impossible, but this is only the third appearance of the Zygons in the entire series, both old and new! They first appeared way back in 1975 in the Fourth Doctor adventure Terror Of The Zygons. They then lay dormant until 2013's The Day Of The Doctor. And even then they weren't the focus on the episode.

I have no idea why the Zygons have been so underrepresented on the show. Maybe their elaborate makeup makes them too expensive to use often, or maybe it's tough to come up with a good Zygon plot, who knows? I suppose it's a good thing they've been used so sparingly through the years, else they could have become as overexposed and lame as the once-awesome Weeping Angels.

Believe it or not, this episode was written by Peter Harness, who penned last season's dreadful Kill The Moon, which I still consider the all time worst hour of Doctor Who ever. So what the hell happened? Why was Kill The Moon a failure on every conceivable level, but this episode was pretty solid? Was Harness suffering from a brain aneurysm when he wrote Kill The Moon?

Even though I enjoyed this episode, something about it seems awfully familiar. Maybe that's because the plot is pretty much identical to the 1988 movie Alien Nation. In that film, a damaged spaceship carrying hundreds of thousands of alien slaves unexpectedly lands in the Mohave Desert on Earth. With nowhere else to go, the aliens, dubbed Newcomers, have to assimilate into Earth culture. A Newcomer crime lord begins manufacturing a drug that's harmless to humans, but mutates his fellow aliens into frightening creatures in order to take over the planet. 

Additionally, the episode eerily parallels current world events. The whole "accepting Zygons into society" thing is analogous to the Syrian refugee crisis which England is presently experiencing. There's no way the production team could have known that would happen when the episode was filmed months ago, so I'm assuming it was a coincidence.

Lastly, the episode is also very similar to what's going on in the Middle East right now. The Zygons have a secret base in "Turmezistan," one of those made up Middle Eastern countries that fill the globes of TV series that don't want to use an actual place. 

Most of the Zygons live peacefully among humanity, but a radical group has emerged, determined to wipe out their supposed oppressors. They even have a flag covered in curly alien script. These radical Zygons then release videos of captives reading lists of demands right before they're executed. Then the Doctor warns against a UNIT strike, saying that the problem is "a radicalization of the younger brood. If you start bombing you'll radicalize the lot"

Gosh, I'm not quite sure, but I think maybe there's a slight possibility the show may be trying to comment on current world events here.

If you've ever been watching Doctor Who on a lazy Saturday evening and thought, "I wonder how this show feels about the whole ISIS thing," then this is the episode for you.

OBVIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Plot:

Back in The Day Of The Doctor, the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors forced humans and the Zygons into signing a peace treaty. 

During the negotiations, UNIT scientist Osgood was perfectly duplicated by a Zygon. A while later one of the Osgoods was killed by Missy (don't ask). Despite that, there are once again two Osgoods. Whether one is human and one Zygon, or they're both one or the other, they refuse to confirm, saying they're both now hybrids.

Two years after the treaty was signed, 20 million Zygons are using their shape-shifting powers to assume human form and peacefully assimilate into our society. The treaty is in danger of collapsing though, due to the actions of a radical band of Zygons who resent their human hosts. As one of the Osgoods is captured by the Zygon splinter group, she contacts the Doctor and sends him a message that reads "Nightmare Scenario."

The Doctor receives the message and heads for Earth. There he encounters two Zygon high commanders (disguised as seven year old girls!) who tell him to let them handle the dangerous radicals. They both exclaim "Truth Or Consequences," which is apparently the new Zygon motto.

Meanwhile the Zygon radicals are taking their prisoners to Turmezistan. The Doctor goes there to rescue Osgood himself. He does so by invoking his status as President Of The World (that was bestowed upon him in Death In Heaven) and commandeering his own version of Air Force One. 

The Doctor and UNIT surround a church they suspect is filled with Zygons. They swarm out of the church, disguised as the UNIT soldiers' loved ones and lure them in, where they're immediately killed. The Doctor finds Osgood in the church, but she still won't reveal if she's human or Zygon. He heads back to UNIT in his plane with her.

Clara realizes that Truth Or Consequences is also the name of a town in New Mexico. Sensing a connection, Kate Stewart travels there to check it out. She finds the town deserted except for one lone sheriff, who of course turns out to be a Zygon and attacks Kate.

Clara says behind in England at UNIT Headquarters with Kate's assistant Jac. They discover that elevators all over London are secretly taking humans to a vast underground chamber. Clara and Jac take a squad of UNIT soldiers into one of the underground Zygon lairs. There Clara discovers a duplicate of herself inside a pod. Jac looks on in horror as she realizes that the Clara in the pod is the original, and the one she's been with all day is a Zygon duplicate.

This Clara duplicate renames herself Bonnie (?) and orders Jac and the UNIT squad killed. She then calls the Doctor and tells him that Clara and Kate are dead, and he's lost the war. She then fires a homing missile at his plane. The Doctor watches helplessly through the window as the missile approaches.

Thoughts:

• OK, we're told that after the Doctors helped initiate the peace treaty, 20 million Zygons began living peacefully on Earth, taking the form of the nearest human being. So... does that mean there are 20 million people out there with exact doubles? How do the Zygons make a living and survive in our society? How the hell could this screwball plan possibly work? The writer apparently has no idea either, as the matter is never addressed and any questions are hand-waved away.

I have a feeling a good number of these duplicated humans probably met with unfortunate "accidents" as their Zygon doubles slipped seamlessly into their lives.

• When the two Osgoods make their video regarding the Zygon crisis, they sit in front of a container they call the "Osgood Box," which the Doctor gave them and supposedly contains a mysterious something that can end the conflict.

The Osgood Box looks a lot like The Moment, the Gallifreyan doomsday weapon from The Day Of The Doctor. Somehow I doubt the Doctor would give the two of them that much power.

• When the Doctor rescues Osgood, he asks her if she's human or Zygon. She refuses to answer, saying only that she's a Human/Zygon hybrid. The hybrid thing is definitely the overriding theme this season, and has been mentioned in virtually every episode. I wonder where they're going with this?

One thing I hope they're not going to revisit: In the Doctor Who TV movie that aired back in 1996, the Eighth Doctor told his new companion Grace Holloway that he was "half human on his mother's side." This little tidbit of information was news to fans who'd been watching the series for decades, and sent howls of protest through fandom.

The ill-advised idea was promptly dropped and has never been mentioned again, which is as it should be. I'm hoping they're not dredging it up again, and aren't going to reveal that the Doctor's a Human/Time Lord hybrid.

• The goddamned sonic sunglasses are still around, as is the Doctor's horrible sequined top.

• Man, once Peter Capaldi got permission to play his guitar on the show, he went all out. He's played it in at least four out of the seven episodes so far this season. Not that I'm complaining mind you, as I'm all for this incarnation of the Doctor loosening up as much as possible. I just thought I'd point it out.

• When the Doctor decides to rescue Osgood in Turmezistan, he flies there in his presidential plane. So why didn't he just pop over in the TARDIS, and be there in seconds? 

Because of plot trickery, that's why. If he used the TARDIS, then we couldn't have the big cliffhanger where Fake Clara fires a missile at his plane. 

• Kate Stewart mentions that the previous Zygon invasion happened in the 1970s or 1980s. She's done this before (in The Day Of The Doctor?), and it's a reference to the "UNIT Dating Controversy." See, the Third Doctor had a series of adventures with UNIT that aired in the 1970s, but were set "sometime in the near future." In fact those episodes when out of their way to never mention the actual date. This is why Kate can't seem to pin down the exact year of the Zygon invasion.

• Kate also mentions that she wishes UNIT still had their supply of Z-67, a nerve gas that literally turns Zygons inside out (!). It was developed by "Naval surgeon." Kate never actually mentions him by name, but it's obvious she's talking about Harry Sullivan here. He was a companion of the Fourth Doctor for a short time. 

Unfortunately for Kate, the Z-67 was stolen from UNIT by "someone with a TARDIS."

• Osgood continues her fondness for Doctor-centric clothing, this time wearing a shirt with question marks on the collar. The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors all sported that unfortunate fashion trend. I'm glad it's gone, and hope it never returns.

• What the hell was wrong with Kate Stewart in this episode? She seemed positively sedated in her New Mexico scenes, like she was barely able to summon the energy to speak. Was actress Jemma Redgrave jet-lagged after flying to America to shoot that sequence?

• When the Doctor's interrogating Osgood, he says she must be the human one, because Zygons can't maintain a duplicated form without keeping the original around. 

Osgood then tells him that the Zygons have upgraded their abilities, and can now duplicate human forms at will. Then at the end of the episode we see the original Clara being kept inside a Zygon pod.

So which is it? Do Zygons need a human host to duplicate or don't they? According to the episode the answer seems to be— both!

• I have to admit I didn't see the Clara duplication coming. I went back and rewatched the episode to see where they made the switch. It was right after Clara came home and found the crying boy in her stairwell. She goes into his parents' apartment to investigate and sees the father carrying the hysterical boy away, while the mother calmly looks on.

We then abruptly cut to Clara striding confidently out of their apartment, as she stops to pull her hair into a ponytail! There's no way the real Clara would have left a child in jeopardy like that. Looking back it's so obvious she was a Zygon in that scene, but it was so well done I just didn't pick up on it. Kudos to the actors and director!

• So why does Clara's Zygon duplicate call herself Bonnie? Is there some significance to that name? The only Bonnie I can think of associated with the series is actress Bonnie Langford, who played the Sixth and Seventh Doctors' companion Mel (and is widely considered the all-time worst companion in the show's fifty-plus year history).

• I can't say for sure, but something about this scene looked a bit off. It kind of looks a green screen shot, as if the Zygons were all pasted onto the background. I'm betting the BBC only has two or three of the elaborate and no doubt expensive Zygon suits, so they had to shoot each one several times and composite them into a crowd scene.

• I have no idea how they're going to wrap up such a messy premise next week. How the hell are they going to reconcile 20 million Zygons hiding in plain sight all over Earth? Something tells me the unseen contents of the Osgood Box will play a role. Maybe we'll even see the gas that Harry Sullivan invented!

Happy Change All The Damn Clocks In Your House Day!

I probably won't have time to post much here today, as I'm spending the day resetting the clocks in my house. I finally finished up in the kitchen, bathroom and the living room, and decided to take a brief rest. I'm almost in the home stretch!

Crap. I just remembered all my watches and the clock in the car. It's gonna be midnight before I get to bed! Actually I should say it'll be 1 am, but I'll be pretending it's midnight.

Faithful readers of my blog know my feelings toward Daylight Savings Time, so I won't dredge up the matter again.

I will say though that it seems like by now we ought to have clocks that reset themselves. Right now I've got a goddamned miniature computer in my pocket, but we can't invent a clock that moves its hand backwards by an inch twice a year?

I'm thiiiiis close to leaving my clocks on the same time year round and informing everyone they'll just have to deal with me being an hour early eight months out of the year.