9 Movies That Were Responses To Other Films

4. The Visit Was M. Night Shyamalan's Apology For After Earth

M. Night Shyamalan is a textbook example of a filmmaker who peaked too early, earning two Oscar nomination for 1999's The Sixth Sense, and effectively living in its shadow ever since.

Shyamalan's output became increasingly terrible and desperate throughout the late 2000s as he tried to salvage his career with bigger-budget gambles, culminating in the hideous 2013 Will and Jayden Smith-starring sci-fi bomb After Earth.

After this, Shyamalan smartly took a minute to examine his career and decided to return to his lower-budget roots, rebounding with the 2015 found footage horror flick The Visit.

With a largely unknown cast, mere $5 million self-funded budget, general lack of CGI bombast, more pared-down approach to thrills and a less outrageous plot twist, The Visit was a firm rebuke to not just everything wrong with After Earth, but pretty much everything that defined all of the director's post-Sixth Sense failures.

Was it a great movie? No, but he demonstrated some real self-awareness by figuring out what was going wrong for him, delivered a solid effort and then followed it up with an even better film, last year's terrific Split. Who doesn't love a redemption story?