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The Visit (2015) Parent Guide

Unfortunately, this film struggles to deliver the fear factor that has been seen in other productions write and/or directed by m. night shyamalan..

For two teenaged children (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould), a visit to Grandma’s house turns out to be more dangerous than it did for Little Red Riding Hood, when it becomes apparent that the elderly woman and her husband (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) are not the sweet little old couple they first appear to be.

Release date September 11, 2015

Run Time: 94 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by rod gustafson.

It’s been a few years since M. Night Shyamalan has attempted to spook audiences. With The Visit the director takes some pages from the classic children’s story Hansel and Gretel and adds a dash of Little Red Riding Hood to create a film that places two kids into grandma and grandpa’s strange abode.

Teenage Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are frequently assuring their mother (Kathryn Hahn) that all will be fine if she takes some time away from them to go on a cruise with her boyfriend. Mom is still nervous about the arrangement of leaving her children with her parents, from whom she’s been estranged for the past fifteen years. At the same time Becca, who, like her brother, has never met her grandparents, is anxious to have an adventure and try out her hand at filming the experience as a documentary.

The kids are advised to go to bed at 9:30 and stay in their room. But when peculiar noises begin to keep them up at night they venture out to see what’s happening. Peering down the steps Becca is startled to see her grandmother rapidly pacing back and forth and then suddenly vomiting. Another night Tyler cracks open the bedroom door and finds a naked Nana (of which we share a rear view) scraping at the wall. Grandpa also has issues. His frequent visits to an old shed trigger Tyler’s curiosity and end up sending the boy’s germ phobia into overdrive.

When questioned individually Pop Pop explains his wife is struggling with symptoms of dementia and that the kids should not be alarmed. In similar manner, Nana talks to them about Pop Pop’s incontinence issues and how he is embarrassed by the problem. The discussions help Becca to settle into the week, however Tyler is still agitated by their behavior, which seems to become more extreme with each passing day.

The casting of these young protagonists may imply this film is suitable for similar aged audiences. Parents will want to be cautious with this assumption. These kids will find themselves in a serious situation that, while not often explicitly violent, may be bothersome for many—especially for young viewers with family members experiencing mental illness. A couple of scenes of abuse and images of dead corpses are brief but disturbing, as is a scene where a germ-sensitivity is exasperated by having the sufferer’s face maliciously covered in fecal matter. There are also some profanities and brief sexual banter.

Unfortunately this film also struggles to deliver the fear factor hoped for by the writer of the amazingly suspenseful The Sixth Sense . Instead, the bulk of this screenplay meanders at a slow pace until we reach the final concluding moments. Looking back we recognize the scare is dependent on audiences buying into many assumptions and coincidences that don’t hold up well during after-movie discussions.

The production does deliver some jump moments and even tries to convey a moral message as a take away from Grandma’s house. But with the script moving across the line that separates scaring children versus abusing them, The Visit becomes a destination you will likely want to pass by.

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Rod Gustafson

The visit (2015) rating & content info.

Why is The Visit (2015) rated PG-13? The Visit (2015) is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for disturbing thematic material including terror, violence and some nudity, and for brief language.

Violence: A man knocks over and hits another man whom he suspects is spying on him. One character smears feces on another. Elderly characters behave strangely, including forgetting dates, becoming paranoid, laughing hysterically, running around naked, crawling on the floor, pacing aimlessly and making peculiar requests (such as asking a child to get in the oven). A man is seen with a gun in his mouth. Characters are threatened with a butcher knife. Corpses are shown and a body is seen hanging from a tree. Characters are in peril, which results in a fight for their lives—bloody injuries are shown. Deaths are implied. A domestic fight is discussed.

Sexual Content: A romance between a high school student and a teacher is discussed. A teen boy makes sexual comments, as well as using sexual slurs and slang terms in the lyrics of his rap music. Teens briefly banter about sexual topics. An unmarried couple goes on vacation together. An elderly couple kisses and hugs affectionately. A shirtless thirteen-year-old boy films himself and makes comments about being sexually alluring. An adult male participates in hairy chest competition. A woman is seen in a bikini. An elderly woman is seen with her bare buttocks exposed, and later completely naked (shown from the back) – to which a teenaged boy expresses repulsion. Incontinence is discussed and dirty adult diapers are shown. A character vomits.

Language: A sexual expletive is uttered and a sexual finger gesture is shown. Mild and moderate profanities, scatological slang, and terms of deity are used. Some vulgar sexual comments and slang terms are heard. Mild name-calling occurs. A child uses names of celebrities as a substitute for swearwords.

Alcohol / Drug Use: Characters smoke cigarettes.

Page last updated July 17, 2017

The Visit (2015) Parents' Guide

What things about this script make the story appear credible? What things seem implausible? How do these elements make the movie feel either more or less believable?

Both Nana and Pop Pop are behaving strangely. Each takes time to explain to their grandchildren what the other is suffering from. The conditions mentioned are actually real, and are often forms or symptoms of dementia . Learn more about sundowning and incontinence .

How have past disappointments affected the relationships of this family? How have they impacted the individuals? Which of the characters hope that a reunion will repair some of the damage. What lessons might they learn from their past problems? How easy do you think it is to heal from this kind of trauma?

The most recent home video release of The Visit (2015) movie is January 5, 2016. Here are some details…

Home Video Notes: The Visit Release Date: 5 January 2016 The Visit releases to home video (Blu-ray or DVD) with the following extras: - The Making of The Visit - Becca’s Photos

Related home video titles:

M. Night Shyamalan also wrote and directed The Sixth Sense , Signs and The Village . Ed Oxenbould can be seen in light-hearted children’s movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day .

"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME

The Visit | 2015 | PG-13 | - 4.6.5

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A teen girl records a teen boy as he poses in front of his mirror, showing his chest, while he is saying he is candy for the ladies. An elderly woman wearing a long skirt turns and walks away and we see a buttock up to the waist through a long tear in the material. A teen boy hears gurgling and banging, opens his bedroom door and we see an elderly woman standing across the hall in full back nudity, scratching at a doorframe, her buttocks jiggling. An elderly woman wears a long sleeveless nightgown that is opaque. In three laptop-screen full views during Internet chats, a woman leans forward toward the camera and she is wearing a V-necked top that reveals significant cleavage and in one of the shots we see the edges of her bra. In a laptop communication, a woman dances with a dance class on a cruise ship and they are all wearing bikinis or bikini tops and shorts (we see cleavage along with the bottoms of two pairs of buttocks). ►  A woman tells her 15-year-old daughter that she fell in love with one of her high school teachers (the girl's dad) and eloped with him at age 19, had two children with him, and then he fell in love with a woman he met at Starbucks and left her and their kids. A teen boy tells his teen sister that she does not have any boobs yet. A boy teases his teen sister about her liking the pizza delivery boy and she becomes tearful. In a laptop chat, a woman is on a cruise ship and says that there will be a Hairy Chest Contest, but we do not see it. ►  A man stands in the background behind a kitchen counter and we hear him remove and drop his shoes as his right hand moved as if pulling down his pants (no flesh is visible); the man places a folded adult diaper on top of the counter (implication is that it is his).

VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - An elderly man walks into a basement, sneaks up on a teen girl and grabs her; he says that a woman and children are in suitcases at the bottom of a pond, where the teen girl is going to join them; he forces her into a bedroom and locks her in with an elderly woman, who covers herself in a sheet like a ghost, crawls under the bed, snorts and reaches out several times, then sneaks up to the girl and grabs her, smashes the girl onto a mirror (it cracks loudly in several places) and then throws her onto a bed, strangling her as the girl screams for several seconds; the girl stabs the woman with a piece of broken glass and escapes by breaking the handle off the door (we see some blood on the teen girl's face, a pillow, and the older woman's face). A teen boy lies on a kitchen floor with his face reddened by bruises and an elderly man pulls him up by the hair, stands him by the sink and smashes a dirty adult diaper in his face; a teen girl enters and jumps on the man's back, the man grabs her and throws her to the floor as she screams and the boy jumps on the man while screaming unintelligible words several times and smashes the man into a cabinet in the background; the man's head lands on the floor behind the kitchen counter, the boy shouts in anger, and then he opens and slams the refrigerator door on the man's head six times (we cannot see it). ►  A teen girl walks into a farmhouse basement and sees three large gas cans that look like they are sitting in pools of blood; she finds a bloody hammer, two mental institution uniforms and the bludgeoned bodies of an elderly man and an elderly woman (we see the dead faces, gray with bruises and dried blood on their cheeks and foreheads). A teen boy and a teen girl open a door in an old farm house and see a woman hanging dead from a tree in the background of the scene and they slam the door shut. ►  A teen boy and a teen girl set up a camera to film the first floor of a farmhouse at night; they see an elderly woman slam a closet door over a dozen times before she finds the camera and screams into it in close-up, takes up a large knife and attempts to break down the door of a bedroom, but is unsuccessful (she kicks the door twice before giving up and the scene ends). A teen boy and his teen sister chase each other through the crawl space under a large house and an elderly woman on all fours, her long gray hair covering her head, crawls after each youth fast, scaring them until they hyperventilate and the girl shouts in fear as the woman calls out, "I'm gonna getcha!"; the girl scrambles out and falls onto her face as the elderly woman crawls out, stands, laughs and announces lunch. ►  A elderly woman asks a teen girl to crawl completely inside an oven to clean it in a couple of scenes and one time the woman slams the metal door shut with the girl inside, wipes it clean for several seconds, then opens it and lets the startled girl out. A teen girl finds an elderly man with a rifle and he says twice that he is only cleaning it. A teen girl jumps out of a closet and startles her younger brother. ►  A woman arrives at a farmhouse to visit with an elderly couple and does not leave again; she argues with an elderly couple outside and from inside the house by a window and we can hear muffled voices. On a town sidewalk with a teen boy and a teen girl, an elderly man runs across the street, knocks down a man and shouts, "Stop following me!" An elderly woman hits herself on the forehead with an open hand. A teen girl asks an elderly woman why her mother and she did not speak for 15 years and the woman begins to look angry, then screams and shudders, flinging her hands around for several seconds. ►  An elderly man takes a used adult diaper (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), unfolds it so the camera views the feces inside, and says, "You have a problem with germs, don't you?" and with the back of the boy's head to the camera, he rubs the diaper on the boy's face and the camera cuts away (we don't see the feces on the face). A teen girl walks downstairs one night and finds an elderly woman projectile vomiting at the foot of a long staircase (we see brown and yellow goo hitting the floor twice as the old woman moans) and an elderly man later says it was a "24-hour stomach thing" and old people sometimes get sick. A teen boy says that he wonders if dead bodies are in a farm shed and when he walks inside it, he finds a table covered with white plastic bags and buzzing flies; he picks up one bag and it unfolds to show feces on an adult diaper causing him to drop it, gasp, cough and run out of the shed. ►  A teen boy and a teen girl see an elderly woman wearing a long nightgown running back and forth through a hallway a few times, after which she lowers herself to all fours and crawls around like a bug. An elderly woman walks through a hallway as if in a trance. An elderly woman stands in a catatonic trance with one arm raised for several seconds, until her husband leads her out of the room. ►  A teen girl finds an elderly woman sitting in a rocker facing a wall, rocking and laughing; she tells the girl that she has a deep darkie and ties her headscarf tightly around her eyes, but the girl pulls off the scarf and the woman says, "You have to laugh to keep the deep darkies in a cave." An elderly woman tells a teen girl that a pond is home to alien creatures who put humans into a deep sleep and place them on the bottom of the pond for storage until time to take them to their home planet. Teen siblings show their mother her parents via a laptop camera and the mother looks horrified; she tells the kids those people are not her parents, calls the police, gets a voice message and tells her children that she is going to pick them up as fast as she can. A man tells a teen girl that he was fired from a factory because he saw a white thing running around the floor at night and a few nights later, he tells her it is out in a field at home, but we never see it. We hear that when a father left his 8-year-old son and 10-year old daughter, the boy became germaphobic and the girl refused to look at herself in a mirror ever again. An elderly man and an elderly woman tell two children not to go into the basement of their farmhouse, because the mold there will sicken them; the children are also not to leave their shared bedroom after 9:30 pm for any reason. A man says that a woman is "sun downing," causing her to imagine that her eaten food is trying to get out of her body. A teen girl cries because their father left them. A teen girl looks up Sundown Syndrome and tells her brother that an elderly man and an elderly woman are suffering from a chemical reaction to the sun going down, becoming paranoid and angry. An elderly woman tells a teen boy that an elderly man wears adult diapers and is ashamed to do so, so he collects the soiled diapers in the shed and burns them later in a field. A teen girl asks her mother why her grandparents are estranged from them and the mother replies that at age 19 she struck her mother, her father struck her, they all stood in shock for several seconds and the daughter left; the daughter refused to respond to her parents' attempts to contact her to reconcile and now they are dead. A mother and her teen daughter hug each other and cry. ►  A teen boy wipes doorknobs with a handkerchief in several scenes and he has a panic attack, complaining that he is out of tissues and touched a toilet handle, making him feel the germs all over his hands (we cannot see anything on his hands). ►  A boy films himself with his mouth open wide, his tongue out and slobbering, saliva spewing.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word, 1 obscene hand gesture, 2 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, 4 mild obscenities, name-calling (Ho, old people, old coot, confused old fools, insane, crazy, fat, weird, blind, stupid, douche, brats), exclamations (wow, I don't give a ..., what the ..., shut up), female pop star names are used by a boy as cursing (Shakira, Carrie Underwood, Laura McLaughlin, Shania Twain), 1 religious profanity (GD), 2 religious exclamations (God, For Heaven's Sake).

SUBSTANCE USE - An elderly woman's nightstand contains several prescription bottles and a lotion tube with unreadable labels, we hear that a woman took medications and underwent therapy for four years, we hear that a woman in her thirties was in drug rehab, an elderly couple mention a Magic Elixir (we never see it), and a young teen boy mimics smoking a marijuana cigarette in front of a high school. A woman smokes a tobacco cigarette outside her house, and an elderly woman smokes at her dining room table.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Mental illness, physical confrontation, murder, families, relationships, love, marriage, abandonment, fidelity, forgiveness, reconciliation, germ phobia.

MESSAGE - Always make room for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated , Special , Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.

REVIEWS See ratings & reviews at Critics.com

WEB LINKS Official Site    IMDb

FILTER by RATINGS Did you know you can now filter searches by any combination of ratings? Just go to our search page or use the search bar, with or without a keyword, from the top navigation menu. Move sliders from 0-10 in any combination, check and uncheck MPAA ratings and use keywords to further filter results -- please let us know what you think.

THE ASSIGNED NUMBERS Unlike the MPAA we do not assign one inscrutable rating based on age but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY , VIOLENCE/GORE & LANGUAGE on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest depending on quantity & context | more |

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Movie Reviews

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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

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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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• DVD & Streaming
• Comedy , Horror , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

• September 11, 2015
• Olivia DeJonge as Becca; Ed Oxenbould as Tyler; Kathryn Hahn as Loretta (Mom); Deanna Dunagan as Nana; Peter McRobbie as Pop Pops

Home Release Date

• January 5, 2016
• M. Night Shyamalan

Distributor

• Universal Pictures

Movie Review

It’s not that Becca and Tyler are really excited about taking a trip to see their estranged grandparents. After all, they’ve never even met them before. In fact, since their mom stormed out of her parents’ lives when she was 19, she hasn’t really seen or spoken to them either. But Nana and Pop Pops have repeatedly reached out in hopes of meeting the kids. And from Becca’s perspective, this trip, this newly forged connection could be a perfect opportunity.

Namely, that it will allow Becca to procure the “elixir” her mom so desperately needs.

To most people that kind of talk probably sounds overly dramatic. But that’s the kind of introspective, bright and thoughtful teen Becca is. She’s determined to record their whole trip as a sort of cinéma vérité that will serve the dual purpose of school project and, well, mythical quest.

You see, ever since her father found “something better” and walked out on them all a few years back, everything in their family has been on a downward spiral. Her young brother is oddly germophobic. Becca has become sort of adverse to looking in the mirror. Worse, Mom can’t seem to break out of a pattern of self-defeating choices.

If, in the course of this interview-based documentary video, Becca can help her grandparents and her mom see just how much they miss each other, just how much they need each other, why, Becca’s pretty sure that could set everything on the right path again. It would be the magical healing elixir that her family needs.

That shouldn’t be too hard to make happen, should it? I mean, that’s what families are supposed to do. No matter how harshly Mom has spoken of her parents in the past, they can’t be that bad! Surely they can forgive and forget.

They’re not monsters, after all.

Positive Elements

Becca’s efforts to get the forgiveness elixir for her mom is both selfless and lovingly thoughtful. And at one point Mom even admits that forgiveness and reparation with her parents have always been within her reach. She recognizes, finally, that it was pride that made her refuse to grasp onto them. She encourages her daughter to never make that same mistake. “Please don’t hold on to anger, Becca” she tells the girl.

Both Becca and Tyler fight to protect each other.

Sexual Content

We see that Mom and her newest boyfriend are enjoying a week away together at a beach retreat getaway. During a Skype session, Mom dances around in a bikini top. Nana accidentally displays her bare backside and, on another occasion, is seen fully nude from the rear. Tyler poses in a video clip with his shirt off, reportedly offering a little “candy for the ladies.” He raps about puberty and his appeal to “skanks” and “hos” at his school. Women ogle shirtless men who are showing off in a contest.

Violent Content

Pop Pops explains that Nana suffers from a specific dementia (called “sundowning”) that only takes hold of her at night. We see her running around the house slamming and scraping at the walls. As the condition worsens, she pounds herself in the head, swings a knife threateningly and smashes Becca face-first into a mirror (which shatters). The kids catch Pop Pops with a shotgun barrel in his mouth.

One woman is hanged. Another is stabbed repeatedly with a large shard of glass. We see a hammer covered in caked blood and hair, and two decaying corpses. Both kids are battered and pummeled—thrown to the ground, bloodied with blows and dragged by the hair. A man is tackled, kicked and has his head slammed repeatedly into a refrigerator door (just out of the frame).

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word and two s-words join one or two uses each of “h—,” “a–” and “b–ch.” God’s name is combined once with “d–n.” Tyler flips his middle finger at his sister. He decides he wants to use female pop star names instead of swear words, turning artists such as Shakira and Katy Perry into joke-focused cusses.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Nana smokes a cigarette. Tyler mimes smoking a joint.

Other Negative Elements

Vomit and excrement are used for the dual purposes of humor and horror, with someone getting a face full of the latter.

What is it that teeters and totters a dramatic movie over into the realm of horror? Some filmmakers believe that push demands twisted depictions of horrid gruesomeness. Others opt for shocking creepy-crawlies that leap from the shadows and skitter across the ceiling.

Here, famed suspense director M. Night Shyamalan suggests that horror only requires a youthful point of view and a pair of grandparents showing the weaknesses of old age—frailties that include such things as the spits and spats of dementia and the embarrassing bodily rebellion of incontinence. And that quirky concept, quite frankly, is what gives The Visit its initial sense of humor and freshness in this genre.

(Though freshness is perhaps the wrong descriptor when we’re talking about soiled adult diapers, isn’t it?)

The Visit ends with some solidly wise advice. And it’s certainly more palatable than your average bloodcurdling, R-rated gush-in-the-nighter. But like all horror pics, the things that disquiet us most must be amplified before they reach mall multiplexes. Which means odd nocturnal movements become frantic and crazed. Awkward dribbles become spews. Before you know it, the zest of an original perspective explodes against the screen in predictably wincing and foul and violent ways.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Film Review: ‘The Visit’

M. Night Shyamalan returns to thriller filmmaking in the style of low-budget impresario Jason Blum with mixed results.

By Geoff Berkshire

Geoff Berkshire

Associate Editor, Features

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After delivering back-to-back creative and commercial duds in the sci-fi action genre, M. Night Shyamalan retreats to familiar thriller territory with “ The Visit .” As far as happy homecomings go, it beats the one awaiting his characters, though not by much. The story of two teens spending a week with the creepy grandparents they’ve never met unfolds in a mockumentary style that’s new for the filmmaker and old hat for horror auds. Heavier on comic relief (most of it intentional) than genuine scares, this low-budget oddity could score decent opening weekend B.O. and ultimately find a cult following thanks to its freakier twists and turns, but hardly represents a return to form for its one-time Oscar-nominated auteur.

In a way, it’s a relief to see Shyamalan set aside the studio-system excesses of “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth” and get down and dirty with a found-footage-style indie crafted in the spirit of producer Jason Blum’s single location chillers. (Blum actually joined the project after filming wrapped, but it subscribes to his patented “Paranormal Activity” playbook to a T.) Except that the frustrating result winds up on the less haunting end of Shyamalan’s filmography, far south of “The Sixth Sense,” “Signs” and “The Village,” and not even as unsettling as the most effective moments in the hokey “The Happening.”

That’s not to say “The Visit” is necessarily worse than some of those efforts, just a different kind of animal. The simplicity of the premise initially works in the pic’s favor as 15-year-old aspiring documentarian Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her 13-year-old aspiring-rap-star sibling Tyler (Ed Oxenbould of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”) say goodbye to their hard-working single mom (Kathryn Hahn, better than the fleeting role deserves), who ships off on a weeklong cruise with her latest boyfriend. The kids travel by train to rural Pennsylvania to meet Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie), the purportedly kindly parents Mom left behind when she took off with her high-school English teacher and caused a permanent rift in the family.

Becca plans to turn the whole experience into an Oscar-caliber documentary (proving she sets her sights higher than Shyamalan these days) and also an opportunity to exorcise the personal demons both she and Tyler carry around in the wake of their parents’ separation. Unfortunately for the kids, their grandparents appear to be possessed by demons of another kind — although it takes an awfully long time for them to grow legitimately concerned about Nana’s nasty habit of roaming the house at night, vomiting on the floor and scratching at the walls in the nude, and Pop Pop’s almost-as-bizarre behavior, including stuffing a woodshed full of soiled adult diapers, attacking a stranger on the street and regularly dressing in formal wear for a “costume party” that never materializes.

Ominous warnings to not go into the basement (because of “mold,” you see) and stay in their room after 9:30 (Nana’s “bedtime”) fly right over the heads of our otherwise pop-culture-savvy protagonists. Becca even stubbornly refuses to use her omnipresent camera for nighttime reconnaissance, citing concerns over exploitation and “cinematic standards” — one of the lamest excuses yet to justify dumb decisions in a horror narrative — until the weeklong stay is almost up.

Shyamalan has long been criticized for serving up borderline (or downright) silly premises with a straight face and overtly pretentious atmosphere, but he basically abandons that approach here in favor of a looser, more playful dynamic between his fresh-faced leads. At the same time, there’s a surreal campiness to the grandparents’ seemingly inexplicable behavior, fully embraced by Tony winner Dunagan and Scottish character actor McRobbie, that encourages laughter between ho-hum jump scares. Their antics only reach full-blown menacing in the perverse-by-PG-13-standards third act. (The obligatory reveal of what’s really going on works OK, as long as you don’t question it any more than anyone onscreen ever does.)

Even if there’s less chance the audience will burst out in fits of inappropriate chuckles, as was often the case in, say, “The Happening” or “Lady in the Water,” Shyamalan still can’t quite pull off the delicate tonal balance he’s after. Once events ultimately do turn violent — and Nana does more than just scamper around the floor or pop up directly in front of the camera — the setpieces are never as scary or suspenseful as they should be. Even worse are the film’s attempts at character-driven drama, including a couple of awkward soul-baring monologues from the otherwise poised young stars, and a ludicrous epilogue that presumes auds will have somehow formed an emotional bond with characters who actually remain skin-deep throughout. One longs to see what a nervier filmmaker could have done with the concept (and a R rating).

The technical package is deliberately less slick than the Shyamalan norm, although scripting Becca as a budding filmmaker interested in mise en scene provides d.p. Maryse Alberti (whose numerous doc credits include multiple Alex Gibney features) an excuse to capture images with a bit more craft than the average found footage thriller. Shyamalan purposefully decided to forego an original score, but the soundtrack is rarely silent between the chattering of the children, a selection of source music and the eerie sound editing that emphasizes every creaking door and loud crash substituting for well-earned frights.

Reviewed at Arclight Cinemas, Hollywood, Sept. 8, 2015. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 94 MIN.

• Production: A Universal release of a Blinding Edge Pictures and Blumhouse production. Produced by Jason Blum, Marc Bienstock, M. Night Shyamalan. Executive producers, Steven Schneider, Ashwin Rajan.
• Crew: Directed, written by M. Night Shyamalan. Camera (color, HD), Maryse Alberti; editor, Luke Ciarrocchi; music supervisor, Susan Jacobs; production designer, Naaman Marshall; art director, Scott Anderson; set decorator, Christine Wick; costume designer, Amy Westcott; sound (Dolby Digital), David J. Schwartz; supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer, Skip Lievsay; visual effects supervisor, Ruben Rodas; visual effects, Dive VFX; stunt coordinator, Manny Siverio; casting, Douglas Aibel.
• With: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn, Celia Keenan-Bolger.

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Movie Review: The Visit (2015)

• Movie Reviews
• 12 responses
• --> September 12, 2015

I love M. Night Shyamalan movies and I have no qualms about admitting that I’m a fan. I was hooked from “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable,” and I stand by my contention that “The Village” is a fantastic film that was poorly and incorrectly marketed as a horror film when it’s clearly not. And . . . get ready for this one: I adore “Lady in the Water.” Yes, yes, I understand many of you are groaning in pain right now, but I loved the lack of the audience-expected twist, and I loved that it was a straight-up fantasy film set in contemporary times. However, eventually fans are disappointed by their directors, so when “ The Happening ” . . . um, happened . . . I was hugely let down, and this is where Shyamalan lost me; I never bothered to see “ The Last Airbender ” or “After Earth” as I joined the majority of the filmgoing world that felt he’d lost his touch. Until now. Wherever the heck he went, whatever soul-searching he went through, whatever he’s been doing — holy Toledo, it worked. The Visit is one of Shyamalan’s best films.

Shyamalan has made his career on dodging pigeonholes — each film is a different type. “The Sixth Sense” was his thriller, “Unbreakable” was a superhero movie before that was even a fully-developed genre, and “Signs” was his sci-fier. “The Village” was a period piece, followed by his fantasy “Lady in the Water.” Today, it’s clear Shyamalan has been paying close attention to the last fifteen years of horror and suspense, because with The Visit he’s given us one of the best found-footage horror films I’ve seen in years.

A “documentary” filmed and edited by fifteen-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge, “The Sisterhood of Night”), The Visit chronicles a week-long visit by Becca and her thirteen-year-old brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould, “ Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ”). The film opens on an interview with their mother (Kathryn Hahn, “ Tomorrowland ”), who explains that she fell in love with their now-absent father when she was nineteen. She references a very bad afternoon that was the catalyst for her fifteen year separation from her parents, and tells Becca that their grandparents were actually the ones to finally reach out after so long.

In the hopes of reconciliation, Mom agrees to allow Becca and Tyler visit their grandparents in the country for a week while she takes a short vacation with her new boyfriend. Excited by the opportunity, budding filmmaker Becca brings her cameras and enlists Tyler as her B-camera operator.

Typical found-footage exposition carries us to Masonville, PA by train, and the story picks up quickly once the teens arrive at the farm. Becca and Tyler are welcomed by sweet homemaker Nana (Deanna Dunagan, “Just Like a Woman”) and hardworking, old-school Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie, “ Inherent Vice ”) who share their lives with them during the day, and tuck them in for the night at 9:30pm. Over the next few days, Becca and Tyler witness incredibly strange behavior from their Nana and Pop Pop — Nana shuffles through the house at night, and Pop Pop is extremely secretive about a shed on the property — but each explains away the behavior with excuses of elderly sundowning and embarrassment about getting older. Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg, and Becca and Tyler find themselves encountering stranger and more unsettling behavior as the week goes on.

With The Visit , M. Night Shyamalan has written and directed an incredibly well-crafted found-footage film. The juxtaposition of tension and comic relief is staggeringly masterful, especially since found-footage has been so overdone (poorly), and he wields the unfamiliar setting of the farmhouse powerfully against both Becca and Tyler and the audience. The four main characters are stellar personalities, and each one stands out for a different reason: Becca is the young filmmaker who takes her work very seriously, carefully crafting frames and cinematic scenes for her documentary; Pop Pop takes extreme pride in being a strong farmworker, but struggles greatly with his increasing age; Nana is kind and fun-loving, baking cookies and playing hide and seek with her grandchildren, but fights to retain control of her faculties in the evening. Finally, there’s Tyler, who absolutely steals the show. At first, he’s just a caricature — a thirteen-year-old kid who thinks he’s the next successful rap artist — but as the film continues, he very quickly becomes the best character onscreen. Oxenbould breaks out from the screen with Tyler’s quick wit, hilarious self-retakes, and decision to give up cursing, substituting the names of female pop artists for four-letter words. He is the crux of the essential comic relief; with each scene of extreme tension and suspense, Shyamalan pairs a scene with Tyler acting like the little brother you wouldn’t mind tagging along. Without him, the movie would lose half its effect.

There are so many fantastic things about this movie that it’s impossible to fully explain the experience without spoiling plotpoints. This is absolutely a film you must see in the theater, and with a crowd of people if you can. Seeing The Visit is like seeing “The Blair Witch Project” or “ Paranormal Activity ” in the theater again; the best part of seeing an incredible horror film is enduring the tension and enjoying the laughs that follow. Everyone is still and silent until the tension breaks, and everyone relaxes together, laughing at how high out of their seats they jumped. As a seasoned horror fan, I was thrilled by how effectively Shyamalan directed these moments again and again and again. There are bona fide jumps, there are incredibly creepy moments throughout, and most impressive is how simple, yet potent, each scare really is.

M. Night Shyamalan has taken a genre that has gotten old very, very quickly, and has given us a film that not only revitalizes the enjoyment of seeing a horror movie in the theater; it has definitely revitalized his career. No matter when or why you gave up on his movies, you must give this one a watch. The Visit is “The Sixth Sense” good and this ex-fan is absolutely back on board, excited to see what comes next.

Tagged: family , farm , found footage , grandchildren

School teacher by day. Horror aficionado by night.

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'Movie Review: The Visit (2015)' have 12 comments

September 12, 2015 @ 1:55 pm craz

M. Night Shyamalan finally made a good movie again. This movie has a great mix of scares and laughs and his trademark surprise wasn’t forced in for the sake of having a twist.

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September 12, 2015 @ 2:27 pm Tomahawk

It’s a good movie but I can’t help but think it would be better received if Shyamalan’s name wasn’t attached to it.

September 12, 2015 @ 2:43 pm Miranda

I’m going to see it tomight

September 12, 2015 @ 3:30 pm Jackson Gee

It’s a solid horror film. Not the scariest around but it’s got a good creepy suspenseful vibe going for it. I hope Shyamalan can capitalize on this rediscovery of his talent.

September 12, 2015 @ 8:02 pm soapdish

Or just stop trying so hard. Keep it simple and good things will come of it.

September 12, 2015 @ 10:22 pm bazzarus

Rediscovery? Other than Avatar, he’s been directing films his way. His trivialization is from people just hating on him to hate on him.

September 12, 2015 @ 3:51 pm golden lass

I went in with the lowest of expectations because Shyamalan burned me one to many times. I’m happy to report it’s his best film since Signs but I’m still going to remain cautious for his next title – I’m not convinced he won’t fall into his old habits.

September 12, 2015 @ 5:17 pm fashionably_denim

Stick to horror M. Stay away from cartoon properties and actors last named Smith.

September 12, 2015 @ 5:29 pm blink183

LisaPas, outstanding review. I’ll be paying The Visit a visit during the week!

September 12, 2015 @ 8:45 pm tviolinist

kid is funny but a lousy rapper. found footage shlock is as irritating as ever. movie is nothing special, good for a one time watch maybe

September 13, 2015 @ 7:41 am bloodparty

It’s not Shyamalan’s best nor do I think it is he ‘rebirth’ but it is the best horror film of the year when you consider the ‘big-name’ competition: Insidious: Chapter 3, Sinister 2, The Lazarus Effect, and Poltergeist.

September 13, 2015 @ 7:13 pm Last Impulse

Visit is just as overhype as all the other Shylaminamindingdong stuff.

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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 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 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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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.

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.

Reviewed by: Raphael Vera CONTRIBUTOR

children in danger/peril

Hansel and Gretel fairy tale

family relationships

estranged relationships between parents and adult children

dark secrets

FEAR, Anxiety and Worry —What does the Bible say? Answer

demons in the Bible

“No one loves you like your grandparents”

Review updated 9.15.2015

B ecca, age 15 (Olivia DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler, age 13 (Ed Oxenbould) have never seen their estranged grandparents, so when their Mom (Kathryn Hahn), who has not heard from them since she left home at 19, is suddenly contacted by them, they jump at the chance to meet them.

Grandparents Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) seem to fit the mold of a happy elderly couple in the sunset of their lives, living way out in the countryside, however unusual noises outside the kids’ bedroom after their strict curfew of 9:30pm begin to make them wonder just how strange their grandparents really are?

Pop Pop seems to be a mostly solitary figure while Nana, to put it in the words of the kids is, “weird by day, and even weirder by night” as she bumps, crawls and scratches around the house as well as right outside the kids bedroom door.

“The Visit” is portrayed exclusively from the kids’ point of view, as they are filming the trip “documentary style,” so the audience gets to experience their stay alongside them, sharing in their growing feeling of mystery and fear . While the movie does explore the damage wrought by broken relationships, including the kids’ father abandoning them, it is primarily a horror film with a slow paced build up of creepiness, clues and the requisite red herrings, before the inevitable reveal and twist in the final act. A shocker by film’s end, “The Visit” will likely be considered mostly tame by today’s desensitized horror fans, until its nail biting climax, but rest assured it pushes the envelope of the “PG-13” rating as far as it can go with subject matter.

Objectionable Content

Violence: Heavy. Most of the violence occurs in the last third of the film and includes fighting, bludgeoning, stabbing, vomiting, hanging and visuals of blood-covered weapons and feces-covered objects, the most egregious being thankfully blurred in the foreground. As suggested earlier, the violent content is less frequently seen than in the average horror film today, but it is still disturbing and more appropriate for an “R” rating.

Language: Heavy. Virtually all the bad language comes from Tyler and includes the following: f-word (1), sh** (2), hell (2), bit** (2), as* (1), as*h*** (1), skanks (2), ho (2), b**bs (1), douche (1), cr*p (1), and he used his middle finger once as an obscene gesture. The Lord’s name is taken in vain: g*d-d*mn (1), oh g*d (1), and Jesus (1).

Sex/Nudity: Moderate to heavy. The mom is on a cruise with her boyfriend during the kids’ visit, and since they use Skype (video conferencing) men and women are seen in normal poolside attire. The only nudity comes from Nana, during two totally unnecessary scenes. Once she is viewed crawling out from under the house after playing “extreme” hide-and-seek, and her right butt cheek is shown, and once at night when we see her full naked backside, while she is manically scratching a wall.

“The Visit” notably managed to touch on a few themes of importance that deserve to be mentioned.

Broken spirit: Often unexamined, the affects an abandoning father has on his kids are apparent during “The Visit.” In Tyler’s case, he has become a germaphobe, while Becca has serious self-esteem problems. A father’s primary ministry is to his wife and children, and if he is not there, brokenness is invited. Fortunately, if we seek Him, we often find God in the midst of our trials, and He truly can heal all things.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” — Psalm 147:3 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” — Psalm 51:17

Tyler and Becca both love their mom and, except for some minor kidding early on, the kids have nothing but love and respect for her, which makes for a refreshingly different and unusual familial portrayal—behavior that God promises to bless.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise: ‘that it may be well with you and you may live long on the Earth’.” — Ephesians 6:1-3

Forgiveness: Becca’s real purpose for the documentary is to heal the wounds that have kept her mom and her grandparents separated all these years. The Bible tells us that this is what God wishes all of us would do for each other.

“For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ , who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

Grace: The mom had left her parents on very bad terms, but makes an incredibly profound statement when she admits to Becca that going to her parents seeking forgiveness on her behalf wasn’t necessary because, “It was there whenever I wanted it.” Not so different from the choice we all should make to seek God’s mercy , and it will be given, just as The Word tells us.

“If we confess our sins , He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” — 1 John 1:9 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners , Christ died for us.” — Romans 5:8

“The Visit” has a well thought out script, along with believable, well acted performances by newcomers DeJonge and Oxenbould, as well as Dunagan in the role of the nightmare grandmother. Suspense and mood rule the day until the final chapter, when Director M. Night Shyamalan takes it fully into all too familiar horror film territory. A redemptive and emotional close, not nearly to the level of Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense,” it is a low key film for this genre with the disturbing storyline and visuals making this an adults only picture, while its dark, demonic overtones make “The Visit” a trip Christians should not be taking .

Violence: Heavy / Profanity: Heavy / Sex/Nudity: Moderate to heavy

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers .

PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.

Thousands Of Families To Visit Aggieland For Family Weekend

The Texas A&M University community will come together with Aggie families April 12-14 to celebrate traditions, student organizations, athletics and more.

Over the years, Family Weekend has grown into an event packed with activities that highlight the Texas A&M campus and community with students’ families. It is a time for students to celebrate their families while sharing their experiences on campus.   

“Family Weekend is an opportunity for students and families to experience Aggie traditions, the campus, and their experiences at Texas A&M together,” said Alex Hersperger, coordinator of family programs for the New Student and Family Programs office, which coordinates Family Weekend. The office, a Division of Student Affairs department, also hosts several events throughout the weekend, including Family Weekend Tailgate and Dueling Pianos. 

Aggie Parent and Family Ambassadors, a recognized student organization within New Student and Family Programs, will host a Welcome Wagon on campus Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to greet Aggies and their families. Members of the group will hand out schedules, vouchers for a free Family Weekend T-shirt, and other goodies. 

The weekend kicks off with Ring Day   from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday. The Aggie Moms’ Boutique , a Family Weekend signature event, will be set up on the second floor of the Memorial Student Center (MSC) in the Bethancourt Ballroom from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.  

The 2024 Aggie Muster Reflections Display will be in the MSC Flag Room starting Friday and will stay up through Aggie Muster on April 21. The display serves as a living memorial of all the Aggies on the Campus Muster roll call.  

Friday will conclude with a 10 p.m. Yell Practice at Kyle Field. Hosted by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs and led by the Yell Leaders, Family Weekend Yell Practice is an opportunity for families to experience a classic Aggie tradition with students. This event is free and open to the public. Kyle Field’s clear bag policy will be in effect.. 

Saturday will feature events around the Bryan-College Station community. Local farmers and artisans will set up at the Brazos Valley Farmers’ Market in Downtown Bryan, and Kappa Alpha Theta will host its annual Rock the CASA 5K , both starting at 8 a.m. 

Downtown Bryan will also offer outdoor family fun at the Downtown Bryan Street and Art Fair , starting at 10 a.m. Saturday. Artists from across the region will come together with live music, free family activities and hands-on art demonstrations. 

Also Saturday, Join the Office of the President, New Student and Family Programs and MSC Townhall for the Family Weekend Tailgate in Aggie Park from noon to 2:30 p.m. There will be yard games and live music.Family Weekend Tailgate is a public, come-and-go event; registration is free but not required. 

The Corps of Cadets will host events throughout Family Weekend, starting with Family Review and Unit Awards on Friday. Saturday events include the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band Awards , Fish Drill Team Demonstration and the Parsons Mounted Cavalry Family Weekend Review . 

For the full lineup of Family Weekend events, visit familyweekend.tamu.edu/events .

Media contact: Corie Ritter, [email protected] , 979-845-1677

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The Tearsmith parents guide: Is there nudity in the new Netflix romantic drama film?

By crystal george | apr 4, 2024.

April has officially started, and one of Netflix's new releases this month is the romantic drama film The Tearsmith . It's now streaming on Netflix, and I'm sure many parents have questions regarding this new movie. It's marketed as a teen flick, so there might be some parents out there who are curious to know if it's actually appropriate for their kids to be watching. No worries! We shared the parents guide and age rating right below.

The Tearsmith is an Italian Netflix original movie helmed by Alessandro Genovesi from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eleonora Fiorini. It's also based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Erin Doom.

It tells the story of two troubled teens who become entangled in a forbidden romance. Nica and Rigel grew up together in the same orphanage, though their experiences there were not good at all. They didn't necessarily like each other either. One day, Nica gets adopted by a loving family. Things seem to be looking up for her finally. Well, that's until she finds out the same family has adopted Rigel. As they get used to their new normal, they find themselves having a hard time fighting the irresistible attraction they feel towards each other. How will they deal with these complicated feelings? Will they give in? The only way to find out is by watching The Tearsmith on Netflix .

What is The Tearsmith rated?

Although The Tearsmith is considered a teen movie, it wasn't given an age rating that matches up. Teen films on Netflix are usually rated PG-13 or TV-14. But for this romantic drama film, it is rated TV-MA, which means it's meant to be watched by mature audiences only. This age rating also means that the movie may not be suitable for kids under 17.

It was given a TV-MA rating for strong language and nudity. This type of content is obviously not appropriate for younger audiences, and some parents might not want their teenagers watching content like this either. That's why we always recommend that parents check out a show or movie themselves before letting their kids watch it.

When it comes to nudity, there are several scenes in The Tearsmith showing a shirtless male character. There's also one scene showing a topless female character. You're able to see the character's breasts. While there aren't any super explicit sex scenes, there are several scenes showing a male character passionately kissing and touching all over a female character's body. You can expect to see kissing between characters as well. It's also important to mention that there's one scene that can be triggering for some viewers since it involves a character being sexually assaulted by another character. It's not a long scene, but it is included in the movie.

Blood is shown in the film as well, but nothing too serious. There's a scene where two characters engage in a physical fight. One character is left with a bloody nose due to the fight. There's also another scene showing two characters injured with bloody faces from fighting. However, this fight isn't shown, and the blood on their faces is dried up.

Lastly, when it comes to strong language, there's only one time I can remember hearing profanity in this film. It's when a character repeatedly says "F*ck you" to another character. So, I wouldn't really say language is something to worry about. But overall, this movie should be okay for older teens to watch. I'm talking 17 years old and up.

Check out the gripping official trailer for a sneak peek of the film!

The Tearsmith is now available to stream on Netflix.

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Prosecutors will seek 10 to 15 years in prison for Crumbley parents at sentencing

Prosecutors on Wednesday said they will ask a judge to sentence the Michigan parents convicted in their son’s deadly school shooting to 10 to 15 years in prison each, according to copies of the prosecution memos obtained by NBC News.

James and Jennifer Crumbley , both found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials, are facing up to 15 years in prison per the four counts — each representing a student killed by their son, Ethan, in 2021.

In Michigan, Oakland County prosecutors said, felonies that rise out of the same event must run concurrently, so the most the judge can impose is 15 years in total.

The prosecution in its sentencing memos argued to Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews that the parents' cases called for sentences that exceed the advisory guideline range.

In each of the cases, prosecutors wrote that the parents' "gross negligence changed an entire community forever."

They both could have prevented the shooting with "tragically simple actions," prosecutors wrote, adding that they "failed to take any action when presented with the gravest of dangers."

The Crumbleys are set to be sentenced on the same day — April 9 — in an Oakland County court. It was not immediately clear if it would be at the same time, although families of the slain students are expected to read victim impact statements and court officials may choose to have the parents appear together for logistical purposes.

The sentencing would be the first time the Crumbley parents — who can't communicate with each other from jail — could potentially see each other since they attended joint hearings before their trials were severed.

The sentencing memo for James Crumbley referenced alleged threats he made against the prosecutor, saying “his jail calls show a total lack of remorse” and “he blames everyone but himself.”

The memo details the expletive-ridden threats in which he directly addressed the prosecutor on multiple recorded jail calls. In one call before the trial, he said, “Karen McDonald, you’re going down.” In other calls, he threatened retribution.

The sentencing caps a winding legal saga as Ethan pleaded guilty as an adult to the shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit and was sentenced to life in prison. The charges brought against James Crumbley, 47, and Jennifer, who turned 46 on Monday, were the first time in the U.S. the parents of a shooter were held legally responsible for a mass school shooting committed by their child.

Following James Crumbley's conviction last month, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said the charges against the parents were based on evidence that the parents failed to adequately store a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun their son had access to, and therefore, could have stopped the looming attack. They were not accused of knowing about the rampage beforehand.

"I hope it leads to more prevention of gun violence," McDonald told NBC News of the dual conviction. "I hope it leads to people taking more responsibility."

McDonald declined to address the threats that James Crumbley allegedly made from jail during an interview immediately after the trial, but her office said in a later statement that "those threats are serious, and they also reflect a lack of remorse and a continued refusal to take accountability for his part in the deaths" of students Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17.

Sources close to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to NBC News that Crumbley allegedly told his sister over the course of multiple jailhouse phone calls that he was going to make it his goal in life to destroy McDonald.

In an interview with NBC News before details of the alleged threats became public, James Crumbley's lawyer, Mariell Lehman, said she and her client had "a disagreement about what was said and the nature of that stuff."

The sentencing memo also cites James Crumbley's belief, made in a pre-sentence report, that he was wrongly convicted and should be sentenced to time served.

"I feel horrible for what happened and would do anything to be able to go back in time and change it! But I can’t. And I had nothing to do with what happened," James Crumbley wrote, according to the prosecution memo. "I don’t know why my son did what he did. HE is the only one who knows."

Prosecutors wrote the request showed a"shameless lack of remorse" and was "a slap in the face" to the victims and their families.

Neither Lehman nor a lawyer for Jennifer Crumbley have said whether they plan to appeal the historic convictions.

They declined to comment on the prosecutor's sentencing memorandum Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Oakland County Prosector's Office released copies of an agreement with two Oxford school employees who testified in the parents' trials. The "proffer" letters, a contract that typically allow witnesses to provide information without it being used against them in criminal proceedings, were signed in December 2021 as prosecutors built their case against the parents in the immediate months after the shooting.

The prosecutor's office has steadfastly claimed that no witnesses were ever given immunity in response to local media reports that the prosecution gave assurances that their interviews with investigators wouldn’t be used against them.

The letters state that there is "no promise of favorable consideration" when it comes to possible charges against school officials, but also include a paragraph noting that anything the school officials said in the proffer interviews could not be used to bring charges against them.

"The prosecutor has said from the beginning that she did not see sufficient evidence to support criminal charges against anyone at the school, and that position has never changed," Oakland County Chief Assistant Prosecutor David Williams said in a statement last month.

Guidance counselor Shawn Hopkins and former dean of students Nicholas Ejak both met with the Crumbley parents and their son in the hours before the shooting began. They testified about encouraging the parents to bring Ethan home after a teacher found a drawing of a gun containing the words "help me" and "the thoughts won't stop" on his math assignment.

They testified that no adult ever checked Ethan's backpack for a gun the morning of the shooting, and Ejak told jurors that he even joked with a teacher about how heavy the bag was at one point. Hopkins said he thought Ethan would be better off staying at school instead of being home alone if his parents went back to work.

"Both witnesses subsequently testified under oath without any promises or protection, and they were given nothing for their testimony," Williams said.

Erik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.

Selina Guevara is an NBC News associate producer, based in Chicago.

Alan Cohen is a producer for NBC News.

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