“The Visit is possibly the best M. Night Shyamalan movie since The Sixth Sense.
I’m serious. It’s that good, though why don’t I start at the beginning.
When I first saw the trailer for The Visit I died just a little bit inside. M. Night Shyamalan with The Sixth Sense showed such promise that when I saw his other movies, like The Village, Signs, The Happening–oh my god, The Happening!–I’ve pretty much accepted that all that promise, all that potential, was done (The Village and Signs weren’t so much bad than predictable though The Happening? i’m getting a migraine just thinking about it).
And I mean the stick a ‘fork in his ass’ type of done.
I could see it now…two kids go to visit their grandparents, add a twist; grandparents end up being monsters, zombies, whatever, and movie ends.
But Shyamalan does something brilliant here, and the trailer is a part of it. He crafts a movie experience (I hate when people call sitting on your ass watching a movie an ‘experience.’) that ends up being the most meta movie that I have ever seen because it’s not only about what you see on the surface. It’s about Shyamalan himself, and how he has come to know that his shtick was growing a bit tired, so he changes it up in a BIG way.
I mean it. There are few movies that I have seen this year that I have enjoyed as much. It initially looks like what l we’ve come to expect from him, with the addition of a found footage element (which isn’t a good thing. See: Area 51).
But once the awesomeness that’s The Visit comes up and slaps you upside the head, there’s no way that you can call it anything else but remarkable.
The movie takes your expectations and tells you to go fuck youself, because it’s going to do whatever it wants, and you’re going to sit there and like it.
And you know what? I think you will because I know I did.
SCREENPHILES 
It’s interesting that you thought that The Visit was scary (other critics have mentioned this) though I think that that was it’s least interesting aspect.
For me what was most interesting about the movie was that it was hilarious. I mean I was literally laughing out loud more often that I have for movies that are supposedly comedies, never mind horror movies.
And that’s when it hit me. The Visit was more a commentary on M. Night Shyamalan, which is why it took his usual tropes he typically employed, but instead used them to create the greatest of all twists: Namely he delivered a horror-comedy, not what he’s typically known for.
Which is why I thought it was a remarkable movie, namely it was the most meta thing I have seen in years.