DISCLAIMER: This is less of a review than a blatherfest, so just know that going in. I don’t intend to give anything resembling a coherent critical assessment – this is just fingers flying free on the keyboard during the October Challenge, where I never take this much time or space to talk about any one certain movie. But I’m going to make the exception here. Because I have some things to say.
Like many folks, I had no idea that this new Blumhouse film was another M. Night Shyamalan effort, a director whose output following his 1999 breakout film has been a unbroken streak of continual disappointments, dropping in satisfaction almost like clockwork (though I admit to liking Unbreakable more than The Sixth Sense nowadays, it wasn’t always that way). Signs had more than its share of logistic flaws, The Village was an extended B-grade Twilight Zone episode, Lady in the Water was pretentious and scattershot, and The Happening was – following the opening 10 minutes of mass suicides – forehead slappingly awful. So I gave up. The Last Airbender? Didn’t bother. After Earth? No thanks. It was a sharp move on Jason Blum’s part to minimize MNS’s presence in the marketing materials because, like Nicholas Cage, seeing his name on the marquee is actually more deterrent than attraction these days. The secret didn’t stay under wraps for long, obviously, but I was hearing positive buzz about The Visit before I heard it was another Shyamalan effort, so that says something.
