In 2015, the found footage movie was basically on the way out. Given a resurgence in popularity in 2009 by Paranormal Activity, the subgenre hit its peak in popularity in 2012 with The Devil Inside and Chronicle. After that, audiences began abandoning the genre, as seen by the increasingly challenged box office runs of titles like Devil’s Due and Project Almanac. Even January 2014’s Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, though profitable, made less than half of what Paranormal Activity 3 made a little over two years earlier. The bloom was off the rose as major studios shifted over to other types of genre movies to imitate.
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Before the found footage genre went into hibernation, though, it had one more big hit left in the tank. Not only would this September 2015 feature be a moneymaker, but it would revive a radioactive filmmaker previously thought to be officially finished. That title would be M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, one of the final hits in the post-Cloverfield/Paranormal Activity found footage cinema boom.
Why The Visit Was So Integral To Shyamalan
After scoring four consecutive box office hits starting with The Sixth Sense, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan began a lengthy financial and artistic cold streak with 2006’s Lady in the Water. This extremely tedious stab at “a bedtime story” underperformed financially, becoming one of the year’s most derided mainstream releases. From there, Shyamalan helmed two of the most reviled blockbusters in history: The Last Airbender and After Earth.
These two action-oriented projects were devoid of any of the thriller elements or wild creative swings that defined earlier Shyamalan films, including Lady in the Water. A man known for audacious features like Unbreakable was now making hollow retreads of Nickelodeon cartoons. A decade of poor cinema tainted Shyamalan’s reputation to the point that audiences allegedly booed his name appearing in the trailer for Devil (a film he only produced). Was there any way he could come back from this career nadir?
That’s where The Visit came into play. This was the first of his films Shyamalan financed himself, while also being his grand return to straightforward thrillers. Most importantly, as indicated by the found footage filming format, The Visit would be a deeply cheap production. While Airbender and Earth each cost $100+ million to produce, The Visit had a $5 million price tag.
This ensured Shyamalan could produce the title himself and exert more creative freedom on the proceedings. Whether you liked the film or thought it was trash, The Visit would be unabashedly Shyamalan in a way his big action blockbusters weren’t, and going this route worked like a charm for the director. The Visit was a major box office hit and grossed more domestically than costly studio pictures like After Earth, The Happening, and Lady in the Water.
Shyamalan’s Long-Term Benefits From The Visit
Better yet, The Visit was actually well-liked by critics and audiences alike. With this film, a filmmaker previously detested in Hollywood suddenly got his mojo back. With that, Shyamalan embarked right away on Split, which would become his biggest post-2002 movie ever at the domestic box office. That James McAvoy star vehicle inspired even more rapturously positive reviews and audience buzz, cementing the return of Shyamalan. Previously thought to be on the outskirts of Hollywood, this filmmaker was back in a big way.
The Visit also established a new mode for how Shyamalan could operate as a filmmaker; his works would now not only inhabit the familiar thriller realm but also be self-financed endeavors. This is the creative and financing model that inspired later Shyamalan films Old and Knock at the Cabin. Though none of this filmmaker’s post-2019 films have hit $100+ million domestic hauls like Split and Glass, Shyamalan hasn’t sunk back into Hollywood infamy.
On the contrary, he’s now got a long-term deal with Warner Bros. to write and direct movies for the studio. That pact produced 2024’s cult hit Trap as well as the upcoming Nicholas Sparks adaptation Remain. The Visit inspired a renaissance for a legendary genre movie filmmaker that doesn’t look to stop anytime soon. To think, that resurgence came thanks to such a low-budget feature and an entry in a subgenre that was on its way out. Before found footage cinema largely left theaters, though, it gave M. Night Shyamalan another lease on cinematic life that’s still impacting multiplexes to this day.
The Visit is now available for digital rental or purchase from Prime Video or Apple TV.
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