13. The Visit - The Moment Where The Film Wasn't Actually That Bad, Unfortunately
Its a common misconception that the steady decline in quality of M. Night Shyamalans films over the last fifteen years has been reflected in the box office of his films. Thats not the case. 2006s Lady In The Water is the only one of his films that has come close to being a flop, making back its production budget in cinemas in the ten weeks that it was on general release. All of the rest have made a reasonable to huge profit, including this years low budget effort, The Visit. Despite that, Shyamalan has been savaged in reviews so often - and with good reason, as anyone whos seen the cinematic abortions The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth can attest - that people were genuinely hoping that studios would simply stop financing his work, as a public service more than anything else. And then The Visit showed up on cinema screens, and well, its not brilliant, but its not the festering pile of bloody turds we were all hoping for. In fact, its irritatingly actually pretty watchable, and on many levels, quite good. Such a shame. Given that it also made about a hundred million dollars in theatres on just a five million dollar budget, it seems that Shyamalans films are now likely to continue to be financed for some years to come. We were so close, guys. We were so close...
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
