the visit the grandma running

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’ Ending Explained: Family Reunions Can Be Torture

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The Big Picture

• In M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit , the main characters discover that the grandparents they are staying with are actually dangerous imposters.
• The twist is revealed when the children's mother realizes that the people claiming to be their grandparents are strangers who have assumed their identities.
• The climax of the film involves a tense and dangerous confrontation between the children and the imposters, resulting in the reveal of the true identities of the grandparents.

M. Night Shyamalan is considered a master at delivering drop-your-popcorn-level twisty conclusions to his haunting films. People still talk about the end of The Sixth Sense as perhaps one of the greatest twists in the history of modern cinema. The jaw-dropper at the end of Unbreakable ranks close to the top as well. But there is another pretty decent curveball that the director tosses up in a lesser-known movie that is currently streaming on Max. In 2016's The Visit (which is currently streaming on Max ) he plays on the hallowed relationship between children and their doting grandparents. How could Shyamalan toy with the innocence of this? It is an excellent film that deftly blends found footage with the director's signature slow-burning tension to leave audiences with yet another "WTF?" moment . Let's dig into what exactly happens at the end of his underrated movie, The Visit .

Two siblings become increasingly frightened by their grandparents' disturbing behavior while visiting them on vacation.

What is 'The Visit' About?

Young Becca Jamison ( Olivia DeJonge ) and little brother Tyler ( Ed Oxenbould ) are sent away by their divorced mother Loretta ( Kathryn Hahn ) to finally meet and spend some time with their grandparents , Frederick, or Pop Pop ( Peter McRobbie ), and Maria, better known as Nana ( Deanna Dunagan ). They have a nice rural estate away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and it feels like this is going to be a heartwarming story of two generations of the Jamisons getting to know each other. It seems a bit odd that these two preteens have yet to meet their maternal grandparents, but Shyamalan explains that nicely in the first few scenes: Loretta has had a years-long falling out with her parents after leaving the family farm at the age of 19.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Eerie Found Footage Horror Movie Deserves Another Look

The 2015 film is currently scaring viewers on Max.

Loretta is still estranged from her parents but she wants her children to have a relationship with them — she only wants to go on a cruise with her new boyfriend and needs someone to watch the kids. So, the children have no idea what their Nana and Pop Pop actually look like. And you can feel something amiss from the very beginning of the film as the two precocious but excited kids set off to meet their grandparents. The entire film is told through the kids' (mainly Becca, an aspiring filmmaker) camcorder, as they have decided to document their trip. It's clear right away that Becca resents her father as a result of his abandonment, as she refuses to include any footage of her dad in her film.

Shyamalan Expertly Builds Tension in 'The Visit'

Upon the kids' arrival, Nana and Pop Pop seem like regular grandparents with regular questions like, "Do you like sports?" and "Why are your pants so low?" Nana tends to the chores like cooking and cleaning while Pop Pop handles the more rugged work outdoors like cutting wood. Naturally, Shyamalan tightens the screws immediately when the audience discovers that there is little to no cell phone reception, so he can isolate our four players into a single space. The Grandparents seem fairly easygoing but they have one strict rule — the kids must not come out of their bedroom after 9:30 pm. The very first night, Nana exhibits some bizarre behavior, walking aimlessly through the downstairs portion of the house and vomiting on the floor. However, the next morning she seems to be just fine.

Pop Pop explains to Becca and Tyler that she suffers from "sundowning" which is a very real diagnosis that usually affects the elderly . He tells them that at night Nana gets this feeling that something is in her body and just wants to get out. Pop Pop is clear and coherent, and yet again, we, along with our two young lead characters, assume the grandparents, while odd, are nothing to fear. A Zoom call with Loretta further assuages their fear by explaining away all the strange behavior as part of getting older. It's a back-and-forth that Shyamalan expertly navigates by pushing the audience only so far before reeling it back in with a logical explanation. But soon, things become inexplicably dire and dangerous.

"What's in the shed?" Tyler asks as he looks into the camera while contributing to Becca's documentary . "Is it dead bodies?" What he discovers is a pile of used, discarded adult diapers filled with Pop Pop's excrement. The smell sends Tyler reeling, and he falls out of the shed onto the snowy ground. This time, it's Nana who explains away Pop Pop's odd behavior. She tells her grandson that Pop Pop has incontinence and is so proud that he hides his waste in the shed. At this point, everything seems very odd to say the least, but there is nothing to suggest anything sinister is afoot . Not yet anyway. Even after he attacks a random stranger who he believes is watching him out on the streets on a trip into town, you still just think that maybe Pop Pop may just have a loose screw. However, the sense that these elderly people are something more than doting parents is intensified when Nana leaves Becca inside the oven for several seconds.

What Is the Twist at the End of 'The Visit'?

"Those aren't your grandparents?" Get the heck out of here! What?! Loretta finally sees the two people claiming to be her parents and tells Becca and Tyler via Skype that they aren't their beloved Nana and Pop Pop, but two complete strangers who have assumed their identities. Loretta immediately calls the police, but it will take hours for help to arrive at the remote farmhouse. Becca and Tyler are going to have to play along with these dangerous imposters. After the most tense and awkward game of Yahtzee in the history of board games, things get really, really ugly. Nana and Pop Pop haven't laid a hand on either of the kids in the movie so far. You can feel the slow and excruciating tension that Shyamalan is building . He knows that the audience is waiting for that "point of no return" moment when it is crystal clear that Becca and Tyler's lives are in danger. Becca manages to escape to the basement to discover the dead bodies of two elderly people murdered. Nana and Pop Pop are escaped mental patients from the nearby psychiatric hospital and have killed the real Jamison grandparents.

What Happens at the End of 'The Visit'?

Pop Pop realizes their cover is blown and becomes physical with Becca. He's upset that Becca is ruining Nana's perfect week as a grandmother. He tells her, "We're all dying today, Becca!" pushing her into a pitch-black upstairs room. Meanwhile, he grabs Tyler and takes him into the kitchen, and does one of the most foul and stomach-turning things ever in a Shyamalan film . He takes his used diaper and shoves it in the boy's face. He knows that Tyler is a germaphobe, and it is the most diabolical and traumatizing thing he could do to the boy. Becca is trapped upstairs with the sundowning Nana, fighting for her own life. After a struggle, Becca grasps a shard of glass from the broken mirror and is able to stab Nana multiple times in the gut.

She breaks the lock on the door and runs downstairs to help Tyler. She pulls "Pop Pop" off her traumatized younger brother. Suddenly, Tyler snaps out of his stupor and releases the pent-up anger of his football tackling lessons with his estranged father. He knocks Pop Pop to the ground and slams the refrigerator door on his head over and over . This is significant because earlier in the movie, Becca ribs Tyler about how he froze up during a big play in a youth football game, and this time he comes through to save Becca in the final kitchen scene conquering his biggest fears.

Loretta and the police arrive and the kids run frantically out of the house. The final scene has Loretta setting the record straight for the documentary about the traumatic moments surrounding her running away from home. 15 years before the events of the film, before Becca was born, Loretta fell out with her parents over her decision to marry her teacher. The argument led to Loretta and her parents getting physical with each other, and she left home that night and never responded to their attempts and pleas to reconnect. It's the most emotional scene in the film as Loretta is feeling a huge amount of guilt at never getting to say she was sorry for the strained relationship between her and her parents or getting to possibly hear an apology for the wrongs they also committed. Loretta tells Becca "Don't hold on to anger! You hear me?" The two then share a meaningful embrace. And the final shot is of the two kids with their dad on a birthday when they were much younger.

The Visit is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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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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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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• Two siblings become increasingly frightened by their grandparents' disturbing behavior while visiting them on vacation.
• Two children spend a week at their grandparents' house while their single mom goes on a relaxing vacation with her boyfriend. Becca decides to film a documentary about her grandparents to help her mom reconnect with her parents, and to find out some things about her parents as well. While filming, Becca and her little brother Tyler discover a dark secret about their grandparents.
• Siblings Becca and Tyler visit their grandparents for the first time ever. Their single mother decides not to accompany them because she's had problems with them in the past. Becca decides to make a documentary about the grandparents to reconnect them with their daughter. During filming, Becca and Tyler discover that their grandparents are not only acting weird but also hiding a dark secret. — Sophia Villatoro
• Teenage Becca and her younger brother Tyler live with their single mother, who left home 15 years ago and is estranged from her parents. Now they've found her online and want to meet their grandchildren, so they invite them to spend a week at their farm while their mother goes off with her boyfriend Miguel. Wannabe rapper and aspiring filmmaker Becca are welcomed by their grandparents and Becca decides to make a documentary of their visit. Soon they see strange behaviors and discover dark, disturbing secrets about their grandparents. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Teenage siblings Becca and Tyler go to stay with grandparents they've never met. Their mother stays behind because of her dark past with her parents. After a few nights the kids find out their grandparents have a dark, deadly secret.
• The film starts with 15-year-old Rebecca 'Becca' (Olivia DeJonge) interviewing her mother, Paula (Kathryn Hahn) for a documentary she's making about meeting her grandparents for the first time. Paula explains that as a teenager, she fell in love with her substitute teacher, and her parents didn't approve. Something happened when she was 19 that caused her to not want to see her parents again, for the last 15 years. She points out that her husband eventually fell in love with another woman he met at a Starbucks, and moved to Palo Alto. Becca asks her to go back and explain what exactly happened to cause the years of non-communication, and her mom tells her she won't tell her; if her grandparents want to give her that information, it's up to them. She tells them even though she hasn't talked to them in years, she knows they are nice, and they still volunteer at the local hospital. MONDAY MORNING We meet Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), Becca's younger brother, while they drive to Grand Central Station. He is age 13 and talks like a wannabe rapper, complaining that he's got three girls on deck and is upset he won't be able to text all week, due to having no cellphone reception where the grandparents live. Their mom hugs goodbye at Grand Central, and they board a train. On board, Tyler shows off his freestyling skills by rapping for the camera. Becca mentions that she agreed to the trip because their mom hasn't been able to connect with her new boyfriend, and a five-day cruise might help them get closer, (as in getting laid and having steamy, passionate, wild sex day in and day out!!). They get to Pennsylvania where their grandparents live, and they're waiting for them as they get off the train. The grandparents, John "Pop-Pop" (Peter McRobbie) and Doris "Nana" (Deanna Dunagan), seem friendly enough and take them back to their house. Tyler does a freestyle rap using Nana's suggestion of pineapple upside down cake. Becca discusses her documentary and her love of making movies. Tyler and Becca get settled into their room upstairs, which used to be their mother's. They play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets the bed and who gets the sofa, and Becca gets the bed. She tells Tyler about the old time song she's going to play over some of the footage when there's a happy conclusion to the week. She gives Tyler a second camera so he can film additional footage. Tyler films Pop-Pop mysteriously working in the shed. He calls out to him and Pop-Pop sees him but doesn't respond. Tyler coerces Becca to play Hide and Seek underneath the house. They crawl around, and then suddenly Nana is down on all fours behind Tyler. She races after him, and then Becca, each scurrying to get away from her as she seems demented and off, repeating "I'm going to get you" as she scurries after the kids. They escape from underneath the house, and Nana laughs, her hands sullied, seemingly aware of the game and simply trying to participate. She walks away, revealing the roughhousing has caused her dress to ride upwards, exposing her bare butt. A man comes to the door and asks to talk to their grandparents. They tell him they're not there. He says he knows them from Meadow Shade, the hospital they volunteer at a few days a week, and he has some gossip to tell them about the latest drama going on down there. Tyler decides he's going to investigate what's in the shed. He sneaks inside and says it "smells like ass". He finds in the corner a pile. He gets closer to see what it is and discovers it's used adult diapers. He runs out screaming. Inside, Nana explains to him that Pop-Pop is incontinent, and a lot of adults have to wear diapers. He hides them in the shed because he's ashamed, then he burns them. She then continues giving Becca tips on how to make cookies. That night, Pop-Pop comes into their room and tells them that there is mold in the basement, and they should not go down there. He also tells them that everyone follows the same schedule, so lights have to be out at 9:30. They agree but are annoyed, especially since there is no WiFi, and they can't use any electronics. Tyler decides to start using pop stars names instead of swearing in his raps and says if he stubs his toe, it sounds cooler to shout out "Shakira!" than a cuss word (This is a motif that is carried out throughout the movie with him shouting out Sarah McLachlan and Katy Perry in times of annoyance or danger). The two can't sleep, and it's now 10:23 PM. Becca says she's going to sneak out to get one of Nana's cookies. She opens the door and sees Nana walking in the dark, projectile vomiting. She quickly shuts the door. TUESDAY MORNING The next morning, Pop-Pop and Nana are outside with breakfast on the table. Nana apologizes because shes got hot oil all over Becca's computer but really only the webcam. Becca says she will probably be able to scrub it off with enough effort. The kids later ask Pop-Pop if Nana is sick. They are told Nana experiences something called "sundowning", which is a form of dementia that happens when the sun sets. It's the equivalent of talking in one's sleep and not to be concerned, but it's best for them to stay in their room during the night. He says Nana is convinced there are bad things inside her, so she throws up to get rid of them. As he's explaining this, he's putting on a tuxedo. They ask him if he's going somewhere, and he tells them there's a costume ball at the train station he's late for. He then realizes that he's confused and takes the tuxedo off. Pop-Pop takes Becca and Tyler through the town. They play a game where they make up stories about people who live in the buildings including the closed police station. When they try to make up a story about a tall building, Pop-Pop tells them its Meadow Shade where they volunteer, and he'll show it to them when he gets his Meadow Shade badge from home. They go to the park to play, but Pop-Pop tells them they have to leave because they're being followed. The kids see a man across the street using his cell phone, not paying attention to the three of them. Pop-Pop runs over and begins to assault the man, yelling at him. Becca and Tyler convince him to leave the man alone, and Pop-Pop apologizes to them. Back home, Becca is in the kitchen with Nana. She asks her if she can interview her, but Nana does not want to be on camera. Instead, she asks for Becca's help cleaning the oven. Becca cleans with just her arm, but Nana tells her to lean into it. Nana then convinces her to get completely inside. While she's fully submerged in the oven, Nana bounces up and down excitedly. Becca reappears, and Nana tells her she is ready to be in her movie. Becca interviews Nana by asking her warm-up questions. When she asks Nana what happened 15 years ago to cause her not to speak to her daughter, Nana starts going berserk, shaking violently, and screams that she no longer wants to be in Becca's movie. Outside, Tyler interviews Becca asking what animal shed want to be (a dolphin), then why she likes the pizza guy despite him having bad acne (he has kind eyes.) Then he asks her why she can't look at herself in the mirror, pointing out when she brushes her hair, she does it with her back to the mirror. And when she brushes her teeth, she looks down. She hints that it's because their dad abandoned the three of them years ago, and she has felt rejected. Tyler defends his dad, saying there was a time when he was eight when he was playing peewee football. His team was up by three, and it was the fourth quarter and they were set to win as long as nobody scored in the final minutes. A big kid came running towards him but instead of blocking him, he just froze. Everyone started screaming at him but he was completely frozen, immobile, which is what happens when he's afraid. But his dad never judged him for it. But he sometimes blames that for being why his dad went away. In the editing software, she's piecing together on her computer, Becca films herself in front of an obstructed slideshow of pictures of her brother, her, and their father. She says that while she's trying to tell the story of her mom's parents, she will not be including anybody from the past that she doesn't consider worthy of acknowledgment. That night, at 10:47 PM, they hear a scary sound coming outside their locked door. The two want to film what's on the other side, so Tyler tells Becca to open the door. She refuses. He then says if she holds the camera, hell open the door. He does, and they reveal a naked Nana clawing at the door opposite them, scratching like a frantic dog. He shuts the door and declares that he's now partially blind. WEDNESDAY MORNING The next morning, Becca interviews Pop-Pop, and he tells her how he used to have a great job, but he used to see a white figure with yellow eyes at his job. Nobody else could see it, but he was insistent it was there. So he was eventually fired. He warns Becca that she, too, will see the white figure with yellow eyes one day. She tells him he seems sad. Tyler tries to convince Becca to set the camera up in the living room so it can film what happens at night. She says she can't film their grandparents unless one of them is there otherwise it's unethical. She explains they're both experiencing signs of early onset schizophrenia. A neighbor named Stacey comes over, telling them their grandparents volunteered at the hospital when she was in rehab, and she baked treats to thank them. The kids get an Ethernet cord and now talk to their mom on Skype. Tyler tells her Nana is acting weird. The mom tells them "they're old, and that's just how old people act". Becca defends them and says they are weird but nice. Tyler and Becca both agree that this is a 1 on the scale of problems. Their mom comments how she wishes she could see them (but can't because their webcam is blocked from Nana's mishap in the kitchen). Their mom leaves to watch her boyfriend in a Hairy Chest contest on the cruise ship. That night, at 10:16 PM, they hear an odd commotion outside the door. They want to know what Nana is doing this time but are too scared to look. Becca decides just to open the door and film for a short while, for the documentary sake. When she opens the door, they see Nana running past, with both arms behind her back, rushing past them, in both directions. Just as she's about to crawl towards the camera, they shut and lock the door. THURSDAY MORNING The next morning, the four of them go out into the woods. Becca says she doesn't want to leave without getting an elixir for Mom. While the grandparents are ahead on the trail, Tyler begins to mimic Nana's running with her arms behind the back only to get caught by Nana, who tells them they're going to miss the family of foxes. They turn the corner and see Nana staring into a well. They ask her what she's looking at, but Pop-Pop tells them it's nothing. Tyler and Becca return to the well later to try to figure out what is hidden inside. But all they pull up is water. Becca goes in the shed and finds Pop-Pop with a rifle in his mouth. He declares he's just cleaning it and then mimics cleaning it. Later that evening, Becca is in the living room and hears Nana laughing hysterically. She decides to show what kind of television show makes her Nana laugh, hoping it's the same one her mom loves. But she finds Nana rocking in a chair, facing the wall. She asks Nana what she's laughing about and is told the naughty spirits are inside her, and she laughs to keep them at bay. She then tells her a story about how there are people in the water that were stolen by people from another planet. These people will later be collected and sent back to this planet but for now, they're at the bottom of water. Becca tries to interview her again, but she goes crazy when she is asked about the night that caused them to become estranged. When Becca presents it as a story about a girl who fell in love with an older man, whose family did not approve, and what she would say to the girl, Nana tells her I would tell the girl "I'm sorry." Becca now has her elixir, an apology from Nana. Outside the window, they see Nana and Pop-Pop in a heated argument with their neighbor, Stacey. They wonder what they are fighting about. Becca decides Tyler is right and that they should set up the camera in the living room to see exactly what goes on at night. Becca also wonders what's in the basement given that they were told not to go down there. At night, Tyler is freaking out because he touched something slimy on the toilet handle and can feel it seeping into his skin. Becca gets tissues and helps wipe it off. Time passes, and they fall asleep. In the living area, Nana opens and slams the basement door several times. She then rushes around the room, crawling like a dog then appears..... RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HIDDEN CAMERA and screams. She picks up the camera and then films herself going into the kitchen where she grabs a butcher knife. She makes her way up to the kids' bedroom and begins pounding at their door. Becca and Tyler wake up, startled. They can hear Nana trying to get in but just stay still. FRIDAY MORNING: The next morning, they watch the footage and see that Nana was trying to kill them. Becca tells them that their mom is back from her vacation that day so they just have to avoid their grandparents all day until she can come and get them. They throw the ball around and every time the grandparents come by, they tell them "We're playing. This is how kids play." Inside, they try to avoid their grandparents by going out to play but Nana asks if Becca can help clean the oven first. Becca leans in, but Nana tells her to go in further. Tyler objects but Nana tells him they've done this before. Becca finally climbs all the way in and Nana pushes her fully inside and shuts the door, telling her she wants to do something real quick and wipes down the handle. Tyler screams at her to open up the oven, and she does. Becca is shaken up, and they quickly go outside and play. They wait until the grandparents are out front and then get on Skype, hoping to sneak in a call without the grandparents being aware. The oil has now been scrubbed off of the webcam so their mom can see them, too. The mom is back home and tries telling them about her vacation and a fight with her boyfriend, but they quickly tell her that she needs to come and pick them up right now. She tells them, "Do you know how long it'd take to drive from here to there?" but they tell her to get in the car immediately and make her way to them. They say that their grandparents are scaring them; Nana tried to kill them with a butcher knife, and Pop-Pop put a gun in his mouth and she's afraid he's going to hurt himself. Tyler films the grandparents from the window so his mom can see them. The mom is now white-faced and tells them she has to tell them something and for them to listen. She says: "THOSE ARE NOT YOUR GRANDPARENTS!!!!" She asks if they've been staying with them all week and tries to call the local police but gets a recorded message (the station is closed). The mom complains that the hick town has an incompetent police department, and she's going to drive to come get them and will continue to try to call the police on the way. Heading out, she tells them to get somewhere safe but just then the grandparents return, and they shut down Skype. The grandparents suggest having a board game night, but the kids say they want to check something outside while the grandparents figure out the teams. They head for the yard only to see..... STACEY HANGING DEAD FROM A TREE! Nana appears and tells them they already have the teams... Old versus young. The kids are forced to play Yahtzee with the fake grandparents, who eerily pretend everything is normal, Nana complaining how competitive Pop-Pop is. They begin to play the game, but the grandparents are becoming more demented. Pop-Pop begins dressing up for the costume party again. Becca excuses herself from the game saying she's got to film something real quick. Pop-Pop is suspicious and angry. Nana gets excited and starts eating cookies frantically. She turns to the camera Tyler has placed on the table and screams "YAHTZEE!" Becca goes down to the basement, explaining to the viewer that she thinks her real grandparents have been trapped down there, and that's why Pop-Pop told them to stay away. She begins calling out for the real Nana and Pop-Pop but doesn't hear a response. In the corner, she sees a dumpster and hurries over to it. Inside are family photos of her real grandparents. She also sees something from Meadow Shade which she now learns is a MENTAL HOSPITAL. She digs some more and finds a hammer with blood and white hair on it and then sees..... THE CORPSES OF AN OLD WOMAN AND OLD MAN! Immediately behind her, Pop-Pop has appeared. He explains that he and the woman they know as Nana were mental patients and their real grandparents were volunteers. When they told them about their upcoming visit with their grandchildren, the two imposters decided it would be fun to experience in their place. But he is now determined to kill Becca. He chases Becca up into her room and locks her in. But she manages to defend herself, then busts the lock and escapes. Its past 9:30 PM. Nana is beginning to "sundown" and starts crawling around the couches, chasing Becca. Meanwhile, Pop-Pop comes down to the kitchen with Tyler, who is frozen in fear, just like during the peewee game. Pop-Pop tells him he's under a spell and tells Tyler he never liked him. He goes behind the kitchen counter and removes his pants while the frozen Tyler looks on. Simultaneously, Becca continues to be chased by Nana. Becca's hiding in the corner facing the mirror but as normal, she doesn't look at herself, so she's oblivious that Nana's creeping up on her. Nana smashes Becca's face into the mirror and pieces of glass shatter all around them. Becca picks up a shard of glass as Nana jumps on top of her, clawing at her. ' In the kitchen, Pop-Pop has now revealed that he's removed a dirty diaper. He comments that he's noticed Tyler doesn't like germs and then shoves the dirty adult diaper into Tyler's face. Meanwhile, Nana is on top of Becca, trying to kill her, but Becca stabs Nana to death with the glass shared. In the kitchen, Becca encourages Tyler to snap out of his frozen state, and he does, charging at Pop-Pop again and again and shouting as if he's tackling the big player on the peewee league. He has so much adrenaline that he pummels Pop-Pop to the ground and then smashes the refrigerator door against his head several times (unseen to the audience). The kids run outside to find their mom and police cars out front. They hug their mom as the old time music that Becca promised to play at an important moment in her film plays. Back home, the mom tells Becca that she used to be a great singer, and she could tell her mom was proud of her when she'd sing around the house as a kid. The fight happened because they didn't approve of her husband and when her mom blocked the door to keep her from leaving, she hit her mom and in response, her dad hit her. Stunned by the event, she stormed out and even though her parents tried to reconnect with her, she never talked to them again. She tells Becca not to hold on to anger. In response, we see the slideshow of Becca's dad that she previously said was banned from her documentary, played in full. As the credits roll, we see Becca brushing her hair while looking at herself in the mirror while Tyler performs a rap to camera about the events that took place over those five days, including getting a used adult diaper shoved in his face and how it took two bars of soap to feel clean again. He says it did not taste like chicken.

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Movies | ‘the visit’ review: to grandmother’s haunted house we go.

The early 2000s seem like several lifetimes ago, especially for the director who soared early in his career with “The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and, yes, “Signs,” and then spiraled into creative free fall through the likes of “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth.” But with the clever, cheeky and only slightly scary horror film “The Visit,” Shyamalan is partying like it’s 2000 all over again.

Fifteen-year-old budding documentary filmmaker Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her 13-year-old wanna-be rapper brother, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), are going to visit their grandparents, whom they’ve never seen. Mom (Kathryn Hahn) cut ties with her parents years ago when she ran off with her children’s father — who has since left her for another woman.

Grandfather, aka Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie), and Nana (Deanna Dunagan) have tracked their daughter down online and invited the children to stay for a week at their isolated farm in the Pennsylvania countryside where there’s no cellphone service. That means mom can take a break from parenting to spend some quality time with her boyfriend by going on a cruise. And, if mom and the kids need to talk, there’s always Skype.

Sounds like a good plan? Well, what part of “isolated farm” don’t you understand?

Of course, Pop Pop and Nana turn out to be as creepy as midnight in a graveyard. But it’s good that Becca has brought a couple of cameras and her laptop along to document all the strange things that go bump in the long night.

Since much of the film is from the viewpoint of her cameras, “The Visit” fits into the tiresome found-footage trend, but Shyamalan, who also wrote the script, unexpectedly injects it all with a wily sense of humor that works.

Much of the success of “The Visit” goes to the cast, specifically to the two young Australians DeJonge and especially Oxenbould (“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”). They display a very real sense of sibling chemistry and an almost improvisatory sense of comic timing that make their interactions a joy to watch even if what’s going on around them is typical haunted-house stuff. Seeing Tyler channel his inner Drake is worth the price of admission alone (be sure to stay for the beginning of the end-credits).

Likewise, McRobbie (“Boardwalk Empire”) and Dunagan (“Just Like a Woman”) play the grandparents with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek tone without spilling over into overkill. It’s a tightrope everyone manages to walk with skill.

Shyamalan is known for his patented twist endings but, thankfully, he seems less concerned about it this time, instead focusing on telling a good, fun story in place of just conjuring a good gimmick.

Granted, “The Visit” is lightweight. It doesn’t have the emotional resonance of “The Sixth Sense,” but it’s a welcome return to form for a director who seemed doomed to a future of resting on laurels and remembering better days.

With this and “Wayward Pines,” the well-received miniseries he recently produced, Shyamalan definitely has his groove back. Except, this time, everyone can tweet about it.

“The Visit” — Three stars

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for disturbing thematic material including terror, violence and some nudity, and for brief strong language)

Running time: 1:34

Opens: Friday

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The grandparents in the visit explained: breaking down the twist's clues & reveal.

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M. Night Shyamalan's Films Ranked From Absolute Worst To Best (Including Old)

Robert downey jr.’s 39-year-oid comedy created a weird paradox with a $52 million john hughes movie, 15 movie franchises where the first film isn't the best in the series.

Spoilers for M. Night Shyamalans' The Visit.

• Loretta's strained relationship with her parents and lack of photos and communication were clues to The Visit's twist.
• Becca and Tyler had never met their grandparents before and didn't know what they looked like.
• The grandparents had strange rules, and Nana's odd behavior during hide-and-seek hinted at their true intentions.

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit has every element that makes a Shyamalan horror movie, including a plot twist that was hinted at throughout the whole movie. After rising to fame in 1999 with The Sixth Sense , M. Night Shyamalan has continued to make movies, mostly horror ones that often include a twist and shocking reveal. Although these elements led to predictable and disappointing reveals and movies, there are others with interesting twists that added to the tension of the story, as was the case of the 2015 found footage horror movie The Visit .

The Visit follows siblings Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who live with their divorced mother, Loretta (Kathryn Hahn). Loretta hasn’t talked to or seen her parents in 15 years, but when they get into contact with her, Becca and Tyler convince her to let them visit them for a week. As they have never met their grandparents, Becca decides to make a documentary film of the experience. Once with their grandparents at their isolated farmhouse, it all seems normal at first but gets gradually stranger and more disturbing, leading to a shocking reveal: the “grandparents” aren't the real ones, and they killed Loretta’s parents to pose as them .

Our ranking of M. Night Shyamalan's best and worst films includes everything from his first debut drama to his most recent thriller, Old.

Loretta Had No Relationship With Her Parents In The Visit

Loretta didn’t even take her children to the farm..

The first big red flag in The Visit that pointed at this not being a typical trip to the grandparents’ house was Loretta’s relationship with them. At the beginning of The Visit , Loretta explained that she left her parents’ home after falling in love with Becca and Tyler’s father, whom her parents never approved of. Loretta didn’t share more details at first, but at the end of The Visit , it’s revealed that she had a major argument with her parents in which she hit her mother and her father struck her, and after that, she ignored all their attempts to contact her.

Loretta’s resentment and anger went as far as not showing her children photos of her parents , nor did she make the effort to accompany her children to her parents’ house – after all, it was their first time going there and meeting their grandparents. Loretta’s estranged relationship is one of the biggest and earliest clues to The Visit ’s big twist.

Becca & Tyler Had Never Seen Their Grandparents Before

Becca & tyler had no idea what their grandparents looked like..

Not making them part of her and her children’s lives, and not having any photos of them, made it so Becca and Tyler had no idea of what they actually looked like.

Loretta’s difficult relationship with her parents led to her not talking about them, not making them part of her and her children’s lives, and not having any photos of them, so Becca and Tyler had no idea of what they looked like. This certainly made it easier for the fake grandparents to lure Becca and Tyler in , but it was yet another hint at this not being a normal trip to visit the grandparents.

The Kids Weren’t Allowed To Leave Their Room After 9:30 pm.

The grandparents had a couple of rules that had to be followed..

The first rule was because the “grandparents” were hiding the bodies of the real ones in the basement.

Once at the farm, it seemed like a quiet and calm place and the grandparents seemed pleasant, but they had a couple of rules that Becca and Tyler had to follow. The first one was that they weren’t allowed to go into the basement because it had mold, and the second one was that bedtime was at 9:30 every day, and they weren’t allowed to leave their room after that. The first rule was because the “grandparents” were hiding the bodies of the real ones in the basement, but the second one was more complicated.

Nana acted erratically at night , projectile vomiting, running around the house, crawling like an animal, and ripping the walls while naked, among other disturbing things. Leaving their room after 9:30 pm would have not only endangered Becca and Tyler, but it would have also revealed there was something wrong with the grandparents.

Nana’s Odd Behaviour During Hide-and-Seek

One of the visit’s biggest scarejumps..

With not much to do at the farm, Becca and Tyler decided to play hide and seek under the house, but to their surprise, Nana was also there. Nana chased Tyler and Becca, crawling like an animal , and when they all got out, she acted as if nothing had happened and went back inside the house. That same behavior was repeated later on in the movie, further disturbing Becca and Tyler.

Pop Pop Attacked An Unknown Man On The Street

Pop pop believed he was being followed..

Another red flag in Pop Pop’s behavior (after the reveal of the shed with piles of soiled diapers) was when he and Nana took Becca and Tyler to see the school Loretta attended when she was younger. There, Pop Pop saw a man on the other side of the street and, believing he had been following them for a while, attacked him. It wasn’t until Becca stopped him that Pop Pop realized he didn’t know the man, and though this was brushed off by Becca and Loretta as “old people” behavior, Tyler knew something wasn’t right.

Nana “Accidentally” Covered Becca’s Laptop Camera With Dough

Nana temporarily left becca & tyler without their webcam..

Becca and Tyler kept in touch with Loretta through video calls every day while Loretta was on a cruise with her new boyfriend. One day, Nana apologized to Becca for ruining her laptop as she spilled dough on it and tried to clean it but couldn’t get rid of the dough on the camera. Loretta wasn’t able to see her kids because of this , but it was soon clear Nana did it on purpose so Loretta couldn’t see them and thus tell the kids they weren’t the real grandparents.

Dr. Sam’s Visit To Check On The Grandparents

Dr. sam’s visit was a big clue to what happened to the grandparents..

Had the grandparents been home when Dr. Sam arrived, The Visit would have ended earlier.

During their time at the farm, only two people came to visit. The first one was Dr. Sam, who worked at the same hospital where Becca and Tyler’s grandparents volunteered. The grandparents weren’t around when Dr. Sam arrived, but he told Becca and Tyler that he wanted to check on them as they hadn’t gone to work in a couple of days. Had the grandparents been home when Dr. Sam arrived, The Visit would have ended earlier.

Nana Asked Becca To Clean The Oven

Nana had other intentions..

In one of the most suspenseful and strangest moments in The Visit , Nana suddenly asked Becca to help her clean the back of the oven. Becca did so to help her, but Nana insisted that she reach the far back of it, thus getting in completely. Although Nana didn’t do anything to Becca the first time, the second time she asked her for help she closed the oven to clean the outside and then opened it again, letting Becca out.

This moment is reminiscent of the tale of Hansel & Gretel and how the witch tried to trick Gretel into getting inside the oven.

Stacey’s Visit & Confrontation

Stacey realized these weren’t the real grandparents..

The second visit was from a woman named Stacey, whom Becca and Tyler’s real grandparents had helped in counseling at the hospital. As the grandparents weren’t home when she arrived, she returned later and came face to face with the fake grandparents. Stacey tried to get them to leave with her to take them back to the hospital, but they ended up killing her and hanging her body from a tree. Stacey realized these weren’t Becca and Tyler’s real grandparents , but the siblings didn’t understand her reaction.

Why Nana & Pop Pop Killed The Real Grandparents

Becca & tyler never got to meet their real grandparents..

Nana was revealed to have committed murder in the past, and they were both jealous of the real grandparents’ happiness and the visit of their grandkids.

During Becca and Tyler’s final night at the farm, the truth was unveiled: Nana and Pop Pop were patients at the mental hospital where Becca and Tyler’s grandparents volunteered, and the real ones were murdered by them and their bodies kept in the basement. Nana was revealed to have committed murder in the past, and they were both jealous of the real grandparents’ happiness and the visit of their grandkids , so they killed them and took their place.

Clues like Loretta having no photos of her parents and the kids never having met them were necessary to keep the big reveal of The Visit a secret, while others like Dr. Sam and Stacey’s visit added to the horrors that were about to be unleashed at the farm.

From director M. Night Shyamalan, The Visit follows two siblings who are sent to stay with their estranged grandparents while their mother is out of town on vacation. Realizing that all isn't what it seems during their stay, the siblings set out to find out what is really going on at their grandparents' home. Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould star as Becca and Tyler, with Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, and Kathryn Hahn making up the rest of the main cast. 

'The Visit' review: M. Night Shyamalan goes to grandma's house, scares himself silly

• Updated: Sep. 09, 2015, 3:21 p.m. |
• Published: Sep. 09, 2015, 2:21 p.m.
• Jeff Baker | The Oregonian/OregonLive

M. Night Shyamalan went back to basics and back to the Pennsylvania countryside with "The Visit," his new comedy-horror movie.

After a string of stinkers that stretch from "The Village" to "After Earth," he had to go somewhere or go home.

Shyamalan's career arc has been straight down since "The Sixth Sense." The precocious young writer-director who was compared to his idol, Steven Spielberg, is now a brand name for gimmicky incoherence: If Shyamalan's involved in a movie, that movie will not make sense. It's as inevitable as a third-act plot twist or a shot of the moon through the trees.

Shyamalan, maker of foolish movies but no fool, downsized from "After Earth" to indie. "The Visit" was made for $5 million and looks it -- limited locations, no stars, a one-week timeframe to the story. It tries to make up for it with a found-footage plot that was stale when "The Blair Witch Project" used it but has climbed out of the grave with the success of "Paranormal Activity" and other cheapo horror movies.

In "The Visit," level-headed teen Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her smarty-pants little brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are being packed off to their grandparents' farm by their single mom (Kathryn Hahn) even though they've never met dear old Nana and Pop Pop and Mom hasn't been home since leaving the farm after a blowup 15 years ago. A get-acquainted meeting would be too sensible, and Mom's in a hurry to go on a cruise with her new boyfriend.

Becca is a budding auteur, a young M. Night Shyamalan who can't frame a shot but has a better sense of pacing. Tyler's a rapper whose rhymes are funny but way too polished for a 13-year-old. He's also packing a camera, and everything is seen through their lenses (a rule that's broken in a few scenes).

When they arrive in Creepyville, Nana and Pop Pop are friendly but a bit odd. Don't go in the basement, the kids are told. There's mold. And don't leave your room after 9:30 p.m.

Rules are made to be broken, starting with the one about leaving the room. Once that door is open, it's on. Nana's got some tricks straight out of "The Exorcist," and Pop Pop's doing something fishy in the shed, and out at the well, and in the barn.

The shed. The well. The barn. The basement. The hidden camera. The oven. The carving knife. The stormy night. Shyamalan runs down a checklist of horror-movie cliches with a self-consciousness that almost topples over into parody. If Tyler whispered "I see dead people," it wouldn't be out of place on this farm.

Using horror-movie conventions and cliches can be part of the fun -- if it's done in fresh and clever ways. Audiences know what to expect and enjoy being jerked around a little if there's a reasonable expectation of a payoff. In "The Visit," the payoffs are slight and silly, and the twist is one a 13-year-old would have figured out after the first night with these kooks.

Shyamalan retains his ability to get good performances out of child actors. Oxenbould, an Australian best known for "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," is a charmer throughout. DeJonge is level-headed but slow on the uptake. The older actors, Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagan, look like they're having a blast even as Shyamalan lets them go too far around the bend.

"The Visit" is not a head-scratcher, like so many of Shyamalan's movies. It's more of a shoulder-shrug. That's it? That's all you've got?

"The Visit"

Grade: C-minus

Rating: PG-13

Running time: 94 minutes

Playing at: Opens Thursday, Sept. 10, for evening previews; everywhere on Friday, Sept. 11.

Cast and crew: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn. Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

The lowdown: Shyamalan tries for a comeback with a low-budget, low-expectations creeper but comes up short.

-- Jeff Baker

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Film / The Visit

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The Visit is a 2015 horror film from M. Night Shyamalan . Two children staying with their grandparents while their mother is on vacation realize that something is horribly wrong with Nana and Pop Pop when strange things start happening after 9:30 pm.

No relation to the play or video game of the same name.

This movie provides examples of:

• Subverted when she realizes that her children have been staying with strangers and not their real grandparents. She immediately calls the police and sets out to save them, telling them to escape to the neighbors as soon as possible.
• All There in the Script : The credits gives the names of the grandparents as Marja and Fredrick Jamison (the grandparents) and Claire and Mitchel (the imposters).
• Alone with the Psycho : The entire movie is the children stuck in the house with the two deranged "grandparents".
• An Aesop : Don't hold on to anger so much that you can't forgive/reconcile with someone, especially if they're your loved ones. Or they might end up killed and replaced by escaped mental patients before you get the chance.
• Ate His Gun : Becca walks in on the grandfather seemingly about to do this.
• Arbitrary Skepticism : Becca is adamant that there's nothing abnormal about grandma, even when they see her crawling on the floor and scratching the walls like an animal.
• Ax-Crazy : The grandparents, especially the grandma.
• Bittersweet Ending : Tyler and Becca kill "Nana" and "Pop Pop", but are initially traumatized by what they endured and what they had to do , though the final scene shows they largely grew out of the trauma and they seem better than ever. In addition, their real grandparents are dead and Loretta never got a chance to reconcile with them. She urges Tyler and Becca not to hate their father like she hated her parents.
• Brick Joke : Becca scoffs at Tyler's request for him to rap at the end of the documentary, saying no documentary would dare do it. Not only does Tyler himself rap, but another rap song by East Coast Connection is played over the credits.
• Cassandra Truth : Tyler is the only one convinced in the beginning that something is wrong with the grandparents. Both Becca and their mother insist that "they're just old," and Becca doesn't come around until she finds her nana laughing at nothing in a rocking chair.
• Chekhov's Skill : Tyler's interest in football. Midway through the film, he confesses the reason why he thinks his father left: he froze in the middle of an important peewee league football game, allowing the other team to win. In the end, after freezing up when the grandfather assaults him, he takes the old man down after he threatens Becca, first by tackling him into the kitchen drawers, then slamming the fridge door into his head repeatedly.
• Deadpan Snarker : Becca. Becca: ( after Tyler spits a rap for her documentary ) Yes, 'cause that's exactly what an Oscar-winning documentary has over the end credits. A song about misogyny.
• Disappeared Dad : Becca and Tyler's father ran off with another woman prior to the events of the movie. They both have a lot of pent-up anger towards him because of it.
• Evil Old Folks : Something is most definitely wrong with Nana and Pop Pop.
• Excrement Statement : The fake Pop Pop smears Tyler's face with a used adult diaper.
• Fairytale Motifs : From the trailer and the poster, this seems to be something of a Hansel and Gretel tale. And the ultimate explanation for why everything happens is straight out of Little Red Riding Hood .
• Fan Disservice : The grandmother, oh so much. First flashing a pale, wrinkly naked buttcheek at the children as she turns away, then later scratching at a door like an animal while completely in the nude.
• Foreshadowing : The mundane explanations for the figure under the porch and what is in the woodshed predicts the non-supernatural twist at the end of the film.
• Found Footage Films : The kids are recording their trip and this footage seems to make up most of the film. Surprisingly for this genre, the footage is gorgeously shot, with Becca even setting up camera angles that provide full views of rooms — both resulting in longer, steadier takes than this genre is known for.
• Genre Savvy : Both of the kids, Becca for being an aspiring filmmaker and Tyler being... a 13-year-old, are pretty savvy in regards to what to do when dealing with horror-esque situations.
• Harmful to Minors : The protagonists are two kids who end up getting exposed to appalling violence, including finding the bodies of their murdered grandparents, and having to kill the unstable old couple they're staying with themselves.
• Irony : Becca catches all of the crazy on her cameras and still doesn't notice what is going on right in front of her.
• Insane Equals Violent : Nana's sundowning. She claws at walls and tries stabbing children in their sleep. Downplayed with Pop Pop who only gets violent once he's been exposed.
• Kick the Dog : In the climax, as he's getting ready to kill the boy, "Pop Pop" tells him, "You know what? I never liked you."
• Kill and Replace : The real Nana and Pop Pop were replaced by two of their own patients who were jealous of them and their perfect lives.
• Lampshade Hanging : Becca uses cinematography terms often and describes a scene's actual importance to the plot right after it happens.
• Done intentionally at the end of the climax when the mother's favorite song, a sappy classical string piece, blares as the children soaked in blood and crap flee into their mother's arms.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye : Overlaps with Parting-Words Regret . The mom's parents have been killed, and she never got the chance to reconcile with them.
• Offing the Offspring : Claire is revealed to have killed her own children during a schizophrenic episode, and the visit with the "grandchildren" was meant to be a way to make her feel like a mother again.
• Potty Failure : Pop Pop suffers from incontinence and has to excuse himself during the family game night after an embarrassing and very audible bowel movement.
• Precision F-Strike : Tyler lets one out after killing "Pop Pop" (and subsequently working through his greatest fear) .
• Red Herring : The Shed and the well are ominous and creepy, but they're ultimately irrelevant to the actual plot.
• The Reveal : "Nana" and "Pop Pop" are actually escaped mental patients that killed the real grandparents and stole their identities.
• Running Gag : Tyler decides to substitute curse words with the names of female pop stars.

• Deanna Dunagan's performance as Nana really drives this home. The "hide and seek" sequence is a perfect example of how much of a masterful Mood Whiplash the film can be.
• Snow Means Death : It's winter at the house, and the bleak landscape adds to the creepiness.
• Supernatural-Proof Father : Given a Gender Flip . Mom doesn't believe anything's wrong. At first .
• Too Dumb to Live : Stacey, you know these people are the escaped mental patients. You know that the people living at the house you're visiting haven't been seen for days. You're actively confronting said mental patients. Why are you going to follow them behind the house instead of getting help?
• Wham Line : "Those aren't your grandparents."
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode : Becca is afraid of mirrors and Tyler is afraid of germs. Becca irrationally believes her father left because he didn't think she was his pretty girl anymore. Tyler is obsessed with cleanliness as a method of controlling his life. Both of these get used against them, and they manage to conquer both of them .
• Would Hurt a Child : The "grandparents", big time.
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Entertainment

'The Visit's Grandparents Are Seriously Twisted

The new horror film The Visit , from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, deals with the most classic of horror movie villains: grandparents. Yes, senior citizens provide the scares in this film, said to be Shyamalan's scariest yet, and anyone who has seen the trailer for The Visit knows how creepy these geriatrics can be. In the movie, two kids head out to the country to stay with their grandparents, whom they've never met, for a week. Everything is fine initially, but then their relatives impose a bedtime of 9:30 p.m. and warn the kids not to come out of their room at that time. Of course, they do, and they find their grandparents scratching the walls, making bizarre noises, and running around all possessed-like. You know, typical grandparent stuff. It's disturbing behavior for sure, so you're probably wondering: what's wrong with the grandparents in The Visit ? Spoilers to follow!

Toward the end of The Visit , the kids discover that the elderly couple with whom they're staying are not actually their grandparents . Instead, they are two escaped mental patients who murdered their actual grandparents and took their place. The kids discover the truth after finding their real grandparents' corpses and mental institution uniforms in the basement of the house. It's a twist ending for sure, since for awhile, it seems there may be a supernatural explanation for what's going on, but anyone familiar with Shyamalan's work shouldn't be too surprised. The director has a reputation for his movies' twist endings , so here are the other times he's pulled the rug out from under fans. Again, spoilers ahead.

The Sixth Sense

Shyamalan's first and best-known twist comes from this Oscar-nominated film where Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. You obviously already knew that because everyone knows that , so I'm moving on to the next movie.

Unbreakable

Expectations were high for Shyamalan's first film after The Sixth Sense , and Unbreakable didn't disappoint. Bruce Willis returns, this time as David, a seemingly ordinary man who discovers he has superhuman powers with the help of comic shop owner Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson). The twist comes when David uncovers that Elijah is in actuality a villain, and has killed countless people in his quest to find David, whom he believes to be, as title suggests, unbreakable. Like The Sixth Sense , this is a movie where the twist was totally justified and in many ways, it made the film.

This alien invasion thriller, starring Mel Gibson as minister Graham Hess, was the first of Shyamalan's films where the twist felt a little forced. The director clearly knew he had a reputation to live up to with his ending, but the twist here ended up being the most criticized aspect of the film. Throughout the movie, Hess's daughter leaves glasses of water all around her house. Concurrently, Hess often recites his dying wife's last words to him, "Tell Merrill (Graham's brother) to swing away." Both of these plot points come into play at the end of the film, when they learn the aliens' weakness is water. Since they happen to have plenty of just that lying around the house, Merrill "swings away" with a baseball bat to knock glasses of water into the aliens. The buildup was great, though, and the twist didn't really take away anything from the movie — it just felt a little shoehorned in.

The Village

Speaking of twists taking away something from a movie. I'm not gonna lie, The Village remains the most disappointed I've ever been in a movie theater. I was a big Shyamalan fan and was super excited for The Village , but the twist left me feeling cheated. The entire movie takes place in a 19th century village surrounded by woods, woods that are stalked by supernatural monsters that won't let the villagers leave. Sounds cool, right? And it was... right up until the end when viewers learn that the village actually existed in a patch of woods in modern times and was created to shield themselves from the scary modern world. Oh, and the monsters are fake. The ending negated all of the suspense and drama the film had produced and gave critics and audiences alike the impression that Shyamalan was more interested in pulling one over on filmgoers than entertaining them.

The Happening

Possibly Shyamalan's worst reviewed film (17 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), The Happening features a toxin in the air that's causing mass suicides. Scary stuff. Then the twist comes: Plants are releasing the toxin to kill humans as a means of self defense. That's right, plants. This results in a lot of Mark Wahlberg running from the wind and trying to reason with plants, which is as funny as it sounds. The twist happens much earlier in this film than in Shyamalan's other offerings, but in this case he may have been better served saving it for the end.

As you can see, Shyamalan has had varied success with the twists he inserts into his films, and it's not clear yet how fans will react to the twist in The Visit . But hey, whatever the reception is, at least the grandparents aren't plants!

Images: Universal Pictures

‘The Visit’ Trailer Teases Worst Trip to Grandma’s House Ever (Video)

M. Night Shyamalan and Blumhouse team for found-footage thriller starring Kathryn Hahn

M. Night Shyamalan gets into the found-footage thriller genre with Blumhouse, and the first trailer for his “The Visit” teases something very, very wrong with grandma and grandpa.

Ed Oxenbould and Olivia DeJonge play two young kids sent by their mom ( Kathryn Hahn ) to their grandparents’ house. As seen in the trailer, grandma and grandpa have a very strict 9.30 p.m. bedtime rule, after which nobody is allowed outside their bedroom.

Evidently, that’s for very good reason, as the kids find out when they immediately disobey the rules. Grandma, in particular, seems to be behaving especially strangely, as they (and their various recording devices) witness her scratching at the wall, popping up unexpectedly in strange places and perhaps most disturbingly, trying to get her granddaughter to climb into the oven.

Shyamalan produces “The Visit,” formerly titled “Sundowning,” through his Blinding Edge Pictures, while Blum produces through his Blumhouse Productions alongside Mark Bienstock. Steven Schneider and Ashwin Rajan are executive producers.

“The Visit” releases Sept. 11.

Watch the trailer above.

• Edit source
• View history
• 1.1 Theatrical
• 2 Production

Release [ ]

Theatrical [ ].

Universal began  The Visit 's theatrical wide release in the United States on September 11, 2015. On April 17, 2015, the first official trailer was released to theaters, attached to the film  Unfriended , and it was released online later that week. The film premiered in the Republic of Ireland on August 30, 2015, in a special screening that was attended by Shyamalan.

The Visit  was released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 5, 2016.

Production [ ]

Filming began on February 19, 2014, under the preliminary title  Sundowning . Sundowning is the increased restlessness and confusion of some dementia patients during the afternoon and evening. M. Night Shyamalan's Blinding Edge Pictures was the production company, with Shyamalan and Marc Bienstock producing, and Steven Schneider and Ashwin Rajan as executive producers. Later on, producer Jason Blum and his company Blumhouse Productions were included in the credits. Although thousands of American children were auditioned for the film's two lead roles of Becca and Tyler, in what Shyamalan later characterized as a "total fluke", he eventually selected a pair of relatively unknown Australian juvenile actors, Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould, to portray the film's dual Philadelphia-native teenage protagonists.

Shyamalan admitted that he had trouble keeping the tone for the film consistent during the editing phase, telling Bloody Disgusting that the first cut of the film resembled an art house film more than a horror film. A second cut went in the opposite direction and the film became a comedy. He eventually struck a middle balance and cut the film as a thriller, which, according to him, helped tie the different elements together as they "could stay in service of the movie".

• Olivia DeJonge as Becca Jamison
• Ed Oxenbould as Tyler Jamison
• Deanna Dunagan as Maria Bella Jamison (Claire), also known as "Nana"
• Peter McRobbie as Frederick Spencer Jamison (Mitchell), also known as "Pop Pop"
• Kathryn Hahn as Loretta Jamison, Becca and Tyler's mother
• Celia Keenan-Bolger as Stacey
• Benjamin Kanes as Corin, Becca and Tyler's father
• 1 Josh Lambert
• 2 Ken Smith
• 3 The Purge

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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Where To Watch?

To find where to stream any movie or series based on your country, use This Is Barry’s Where To Watch .

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.

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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.

How to make McDonald's 'Grandma McFlurry' at home

Are you a fan of butterscotch and nostalgia, but not of desserts made with unidentified ingredients and mystery "caramel-colored syrup"?

Then you're probably stuck in a little dilemma over whether or not to try McDonald's new Grandma McFlurry .

On the one hand, you'd love to savor vanilla ice cream infused with "the candies Grandma used to hide in her purse" (don't worry; they meant Werther's, not spearmint Life Savers).

But, on the other, you're not totally sold on the nameless goo they blend into it, or the fact that long term research on the effects of eating McDonald's corn syrup-y desserts has not yet been conducted.

Well, good news! You don't have to visit the Golden Arches to try the limited-edition cryptic treat.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

With this simple DIY recipe, you can make the Grandma McFlurry — in whatever quality your tastebuds desire — right at home.

How to make McDonald's Grandma McFlurry at home

McDonald's McFlurrys are known for their creamy texture, in addition to the toppings blended into them. To recreate that thin consistency, then, you will need more than just ice cream.

And, as for the flavor of the Grandma version? "Syrup" and "crushed candies" give it a butterscotch taste.

Here's what you need to make both of those things happen.

Recipe to make McDonald's Grandma McFlurry at home

Ingredients:.

• 4 cups vanilla ice cream
• 4 tablespoons milk (to thin the consistency)
• 6 ounces Cool Whip (to create that light, airy texture)
• Butterscotch syrup (we recommend a thick one, like Smucker's , before a barista-style one. If unavailable, caramel syrup suffices)
• English Toffee Bits (Heath makes a bagged version of these that you can get on Amazon or at ACME, or you can pre-crush some toffee yourself)

Instructions:

• Add the ice cream, milk and Cool Whip to a blender and blend until smooth. *If you don't have a blender, use a mixer and a bowl.*
• Add in the butterscotch syrup and toffee pieces, mixing until you attain a light golden brown color. For a true McDonald's experience, you barely need to mix at all (lately, the chain has just been pouring the candy and syrup over the top, but we don't think that tastes so great).
• Pour into a cup and enjoy with a spoon.

Yield : 2 servings.

PS: If you want to spike this and make it boozy (Grandma is an adult, after all), we think it pairs best with rum.

Kara VanDooijeweert is a food writer for NorthJersey.com and The Record. If you can't find her in Jersey's best restaurants, she's probably off running a race course in the mountains. Catch her on Instagram:  @karanicolev  &  @northjerseyeats , and sign up for her  North Jersey Eats newsletter .

Mother. Mentor. WH resident. Tributes for Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama

On Nov. 4, 2008, as soon-to-be president Barack Obama watched the tally of electoral college votes come in, his mother-in-law Marian Robinson clasped his hand.

"There was a sense of emotion that I could see in people's faces and in my mother-in-law's face," Obama recalled in a post-election interview on CBS' "60 Minutes." "And you had this sense of, well, what's she thinking?"

After Robinson's death on Friday , daughter Michelle Obama, son-in-law Barack Obama, and other family members paid tribute to an extraordinary woman who was perhaps best known by the nation for helping the Obama family at the White House as they cared for their young daughters, Sasha and Malia.

"My mom Marian Robinson was my rock, always there for whatever I needed," Michelle Obama said on the social media platform X. "She was the same steady backstop for our entire family."

Robinson, who kept a low profile in a residence with the brightest of spotlights, died on Friday. She was 86.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Robinson's thoughts at her son-in-law's election to the presidency were later revealed by her daughter, Michelle Obama in her memoir, "Becoming" published more than a decade after that historic night in Chicago.

"Never one to overemote, my mom just gave him a sideways look and shrugged, causing them both to smile," the former first lady writes.

She said her mother described to her "how overcome she’d felt right then, struck just as I’d been by his vulnerability. America had come to see Barack as self-assured and powerful, but my mother also recognized the gravity of the passage, the loneliness of the job ahead. Here was this man who no longer had a father or a mother, about to be elected the leader of the free world."

Robinson occasionally spoke to the press about her time in the White House. "You see, my job here is the easiest one of all: I just get to be Grandma," Robinson told Essence magazine in an interview published in 2012.

But Robinson would later tell CBS News anchor Gayle King in a rare interview that a mother's worry brought her to the nation's capital. "It's pretty difficult let face it. Because I felt like this was going to be a very hard life for both of them," Robinson told King. "I was worried about their safety and I was worried about my grandkids. That's what got me to move to D.C."

She told King she was reticent to speak out publicly while at the White House. "I figured if I didn't say anything, you couldn't say the wrong thing," Robinson said laughing. She said moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was a "huge adjustment."

"I talked them into letting me do my own laundry," Robinson said.

On Friday, her family lauded her reserved approach. "The trappings and glamour of the White House were never a great fit for Marian Robinson....Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument."

During her eight years at the White House, the family said she would often sneak outside the gates to buy greeting cards at nearby stores and sometimes other customers would recognize her, saying she resembled the first lady's mother.

"Oh, I get that a lot," she would smile and reply.

"There was and will be only one Marian Robinson," former President Obama said on X, formerly Twitter on Friday. "In our sadness we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life. And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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More Than a Marathon

The mission of Grandma’s Marathon is to organize, promote, and deliver annual events and programs that cultivate running, educational, social, and charitable opportunities in our communities. Our organization believes that running should be accessible to everyone and works with several area partners to ensure our race weekend can be enjoyed by and beneficial to all.

• Ambassador Program
• Charity Partners
• Corporate Team Challenge
• Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
• Running Club Experience
• Young Athletes Foundation

Featuring a relatively flat and fast course along the shores of Lake Superior, Grandma’s Marathon also famously offers enthusiastic and empowering support given by tens of thousands of spectators throughout race day. Each year, runners from all over the world flock to northeastern Minnesota for this world class event with small town charm.

The opening salvo to race day, the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon is now arguably the most popular event on Grandma’s Marathon weekend. The 13.1-mile course winds along the shores of Lake Superior before reaching the city limits, where thousands of cheering fans will usher runners to the always exciting and emotional finish line in Canal Park.

The kickoff event to Grandma’s Marathon weekend, this 3.1-mile race starts and finishes near the historic William A. Irvin ore boat in Duluth’s Canal Park. A new racecourse offers a scenic tour of the city, making this the perfect race for beginning and experienced runners alike.

It’s certainly not for the faint of heart, but the Great Grandma’s Challenge is the best way for runners to experience everything our event has to offer, starting with the 5K on Friday night and continuing with either the full or half marathon on Saturday morning!

The KP Challenge is a series of three great, local races — Saint Fennessy 4K, Fitger’s 5K, and Park Point 5-Miler — that are strategically placed throughout the year to help participants build their endurance and stick to a regular training schedule.

Get your green on for the Saint Fennessy 4K, a festive fun run perfect for runners of all ages and abilities. Whether you’re a first-timer or looking to jump start your spring training, this is the race for you!

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A perfect challenge for new runners or a good training race for veterans, the Fitger’s 5K has grown into one of the area’s premier spring races and now welcomes more than 2,000 participants each year.

Come enjoy the height of a northern Minnesota summer at the Park Point 5-Miler, which holds the crown as northern Minnesota’s oldest road race and features a racecourse sandwiched between the open waters of Lake Superior and the Duluth Harbor.

The Minnesota Mile takes you on a scenic, 5,280-foot journey around Duluth’s Enger Park, treating participants to some of the best views in the entire city during the peak of fall’s color season.

A spooky end to our local racing calendar, the North End Nightmare 5K brings with it plenty of scary surprises and haunted attractions to the North End of Superior.

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A central pillar of the Young Athletes Foundation (YAF) is providing free and accessible programming for our area’s kids throughout the year. These programs are focused on our mission of building and providing pathways to the community’s children in their pursuit of active and healthy lifestyles.

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Our kids. Our community. Our future.

By participating in any of the events listed below, you are helping further the mission of our Young Athletes Foundation, with all proceeds benefitting our effort to support youth athletics in our community by providing pathways for area kids to live active and healthy lifestyles.

• KP Challenge
• Saint Fennessy 4K
• Fitger's 5K
• Park Point 5-Miler
• Minnesota Mile
• North End Nightmare 5K

A central pillar of the Young Athletes Foundation is providing free and accessible programming for our area’s kids throughout the year. These programs are focused on our mission of building and providing pathways to the community’s children in their pursuit of active and healthy lifestyles.

Since its inception in 1990, the Young Athletes Foundation has worked to support the organizations and individuals of its five-county region through a series of kids’ events, grants, scholarships, and other programs that are focused on promoting and providing pathways for kids to live healthy and active lifestyles.

• Grant Program
• Running Shoe Program
• Scholarship Program
• Fit-n-Fun Run
• Winter Challenge

Our tremendous community of volunteers plays a significant role in helping the Young Athletes Foundation to create memorable and successful events for our runners. More than 1,000 volunteers are needed throughout the year to support our fundraising race events for the YAF.

The Young Athletes Foundation was created to serve the community, and for more than three decades we have done that with the help of our local and regional business partners. With events throughout the year, our sponsors assist greatly in our mission of  providing pathways of opportunity to youth in athletic programs and encouraging healthy lifestyles.

Authentic Duluth

Don’t miss out on the authentic Duluth experience! Grandma’s Marathon falls during one of the most beautiful times of the year in northern Minnesota, and there’s no shortage of outdoor adventures or fun activities for you to enjoy with your family and friends on race weekend!

There’s nothing more important before the race or more welcome after the race than the perfect place to rest, relax, and recharge. With the help of our many lodging and hospitality partners in the area, Grandma’s Marathon is committed to making sure each of our 20,000+ runners, not to mention our volunteers and spectators, have a place to stay on race weekend!

Every year since 1977, our community has thrown open its doors to runners and spectators in town for Grandma’s Marathon. As the race has grown, the service industry has always been there with a smile to welcome tens of thousands of runners along with their families and friends as they descend on Duluth for race weekend.

There is so much to see and do in Duluth and along the North Shore of Minnesota! Getting there couldn’t be easier with our transportation partners. Whether you need to know where to find parking nearby on race day or you are looking for a way to get around town, we are here to help.

It Takes a Village

At Grandma’s Marathon, we specialize in bringing people together for an unparalleled running experience. Over four decades of careful attention to detail has earned us the reputation as one of the most highly organized races in the country. More than 20,000 participants travel from more than 50 countries and all 50 states to join us each June on the scenic shores of Lake Superior, and your message can be waiting for all of them when they get here.

We agree with our runners — we have the most compassionate and energizing community of volunteers. Every year, we host close to 20,000 participants and we couldn’t take care of them without your help. Grandma’s Marathon is a world-class event with small-town charm because of our volunteers!

Loud & Proud

If you have ever wanted to perform for a crowd of 20,000+ this opportunity is for you. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or brand-new to the enertainment game, our runners will be thrilled to have you there to cheer them on. Course entertainment groups can range from bands and musicians, to cheer and dance teams, to anybody dressed up in costume!

We couldn’t do it without you, and we wouldn’t want to! The passion our community has for Grandma’s Marathon is what gives our race its small town charm, and the contributions you’ve made over the years are what allow us to keep improving the world class experience for our participants, volunteers, and spectators.

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The Young Athletes Foundation (YAF) is the charitable side of Grandma’s Marathon that works within our five-county region to support the organizations and individuals through a series of kids’ events, grants, scholarships, and other programs that are focused on promoting and providing pathways for kids to live healthy and active lifestyles.

• YAF Youth Races
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• YAF Sponsors

Grandma’s Marathon falls during one of the most exciting and beautiful times of the year in northern Minnesota. Let us be your guide in getting the entire authentic Duluth experience on race weekend!

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2024 Registration – What To Expect

• September 29, 2023
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2024 REGISTRATION

Registration for the 2024 Grandma’s Marathon weeeked will officially open on Sunday, October 1, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. CT. This includes entries into each of the weekend’s events:

• Grandma’s Marathon
• Great Grandma’s Challenge

As in past years, we do expect an increased number of visitors to our website during the first few hours of registration being open. Our registration partner platform, Race Roster, will again be using a “controlled queue” to help control the expected high volume of website traffic.

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS

1. To access the queue, click HERE to access the Grandma’s Marathon website. and then click the “Register” button underneath the race for which you are registering. NOTE: The “Register” button may be visible before the official opening time of 7:00 p.m. CT.

2. After clicking the “Register” button, you will see a screen (pictured to the right)  prompting you to sign into your Race Roster account, or to create a Race Roster account if you don’t already have one.

PRO TIP:  To speed up, you can click  HERE  to log into your Race Roster account, recover your password, or create a new account ahead of registration day. Make sure you write down your login credentials or save them on your device so you have them available on October 1.

3. When the queue opens, you will see the “Waiting Area” screen  (pictured to the right).  Entering the “Waiting Area” does not guarantee you a spot in the race, but it will hold your place in line if and when a spot does become available.

4. After clicking the “Enter Waiting Area” button, you will see the “You Are In the Waiting Area” screen (pictured to the right).  IMPORTANT: Do not refresh the page, open multiple tabs, or close the window. Any of these actions could result in you losing your spot in line for registration.

You will be able to start the registration process based on your position in the queue.  NOTE: Depending on traffic volume, especially immediately after registration opens, your time in the waiting room could be up to 20 minutes. We thank you for your patience.

5. When it’s your turn in the queue, you will see a button that says “Register Now” (pictured to the right). Click on that button, and you will be taken into the registration form.

PRO TIP:  Once you are into the registration form, SLOW DOWN! Please take your time completing the form to ensure accuracy and to check out other great items available to you – apparel, training programs and more.

You can register up to 4 people (including yourself) at one time, and they do not need to be participating in the same event. 

Thank you for your support of Grandma's Marathon, and we look forward to seeing you in June 2024!

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First Alert: June 3, 2024: Recap Of Recruits From The First Official Visit

Justice sandle | jun 3, 2024.

It has been a slow summer for the Hurricanes but someone who has been keeping his pace is head coach Mario Cristobal and his recruiting ability of some of the top prospects in the nation over the weekend. According to 247sports, the University of Miami has the No. 4 ranked recruiting class for 2024 and they are continuing to rise those rankings.

16 recruits came and visited the campus and facilities over the weekend and many where stunned and shocked by how well it went. With many decision being decided on the next couple of months for the class of 2025, a future might be with the Miami Hurricanes as they continue to stand out for recruits.

Some have already made their commitment such as tight end Luka Gilbert, TE Brock Schott, and IOL Takaylen Muex, but they believe that some of the others will also commit as well. Four star edge rusher Zion Grady has been one of the top talents that Miami has been trying to get for some time and he has come away with the Hurricanes being high on his list of teams. One of the highlights for the weekend was to show that this is not normal college town with fine dining and an exciting boat ride with some of the coaches around Biscayne Bay to get a taste of what life as a 'Cane can be like.

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Biden campaign speeds up efforts to get voters to pay attention to the presidential race

WASHINGTON — For months, President Joe Biden’s advisers have promised anxious Democrats that once checked-out voters begin to engage, he will gain the advantage over former President Donald Trump. And for months the presidential race has remained stagnant.

With the end of Trump’s criminal trial, the Biden team now sees a new window of opportunity to try and accelerate efforts to draw in disengaged voters, using its growing campaign infrastructure to ramp up voter outreach while sharpening its pitch to voters: that Trump is more focused on himself than them.

“The thing that this campaign is very focused on doing is reminding the American people — and the voters we have to mobilize and persuade — of the incredibly important choice they have, and the clear and present threat that Trump presents,” a senior campaign official said. “That threat for a lot of people isn’t front and center. And we view it as obviously our imperative to put that front and center.”

The campaign’s goal is to lay the groundwork for the first Biden-Trump debate on June 27 by driving issue-specific messages around key events and milestones. In some cases, it will be Biden himself driving the message, as with a major speech planned in France this week on threats to democracy. But consistent with the campaign’s soft touch toward hard-to-reach voters, the effort will also involve key surrogates and what Biden aides refer to as “trusted messengers” — local officials and community leaders — to highlight issues like threats to women’s reproductive rights and the president’s economic vision.

“Our task at this point is engaging them when they don’t want to engage with us,” a Biden campaign pollster said of voters. “Not waiting for them to tune in, but instead sort of being there with a persistent message.”

It’s yet another test for a campaign that began dramatically scaling up — and promising a swing in polling that continues to show Biden trailing Trump in some key battleground states — after the president’s State of the Union address in March.

One longtime Democratic donor also noted that in private conversations for several months, Biden campaign officials said the president’s poll numbers would improve, and his prospects would brighten, once Trump became the presumptive nominee.

“It hasn’t happened,” this person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely.

Some Biden aides argue that any momentum the campaign had begun to build after Biden and Trump effectively secured their party’s nominations in March stalled as the former president’s criminal trial in New York dominated the airwaves. But the Biden pollster said the bigger issue is that the voters they see as key to Biden’s winning coalition — particularly younger, minority voters — are “actively tuning [the race] out in ways that we haven’t seen before.”

“They aren’t fully consolidated behind the president in ways that they were in 2020 on Election Day, and the way we feel confident that they will become this Election Day. But it’s not because they’re tempted by Trump,” the pollster said. The Biden campaign’s task now, the pollster added, is “showing them and reminding them of exactly what life was like when Trump was president last, and how much worse a second term is going to be, to elevate the stakes of the election so that even if they are feeling disaffected right now, that doesn’t mean that there is not a very clear choice in this election.”

The campaign’s new approach began last week as police officers who served at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, fanned out across the battleground states to hold events with local officials about what they called Trump’s attacks on democracy. In another key moment, Biden will deliver a major address during a trip to France to mark the D-Day anniversary this week, connecting the fight against authoritarianism eight decades ago to the work he believes must still be done to preserve democracy today, according to an administration official.

On the eighth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Biden team will hold events focused on gun safety, which polling shows is a top issue for the kinds of younger voters the campaign is hoping to win over. And there will be a steady drumbeat of events focused on reproductive rights starting this week ahead of a key vote in Congress on access to contraceptive care and building toward the June 24 anniversary of the Dobbs decision, when Biden aides said the campaign will highlight how Trump’s nomination of three conservative justices led to the Supreme Court decision overturning the abortion protections of Roe v. Wade.

Still, campaign officials are careful not to promise the kind of swing in the polls in the weeks ahead that has thus far eluded them. The Biden pollster said disengaged voters don’t act in a “light switch” fashion, but “when there are these breakthrough moments, we need to win the moment and win over the messaging.”

“These gains are going to be incremental,” they said. “It takes persistence and discipline, and that’s what we’re doing and not losing sight of the task.”

One problem for the Biden campaign in trying to reassure nervous Democrats is that currently the most engaged voters are also the most frustrated with polling that shows the president failing to gain traction. And each month that goes by has only prompted increasingly public hand-wringing about the campaign’s strategy.

Biden campaign officials counter those concerns by pointing out that while Trump’s trial was dominating the headlines, its staff on the ground in battleground states was building relationships with voters who may not be enthusiastic about the campaign now, but whose support they believe can be earned. They also make the case that Trump’s trial kept his campaign from doing the work on the ground in battleground states that’s designed to try and move voters over the next five months.

“We certainly think about the big moments as a way to catalyze and maybe energize that work, but it’s consistent. And the point I’d make about that is that Donald Trump is doing none of that,” Dan Kanninen, Biden’s director of battleground states, said in an interview. “And he cannot buy back the time that they’ve lost.”

The campaign does not expect to dwell on Trump’s historic criminal conviction on 34 felonies, Biden aides said. But to the extent the former president tries to use it as a galvanizing event for his supporters, the Biden campaign sees an opportunity to turn it against him.

“All of these things are a further iteration of the core message, that one of these candidates is getting up every day and fighting for you,” said another senior campaign official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “And one person is getting up every day, talking and thinking about only himself.”

Mike Memoli is an NBC News correspondent. 

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Manchin Becomes an Independent, Leaving Options Open for Another Run

The party switch was the culmination of a long breakup with the Democratic Party by the conservative senator from West Virginia.

By Luke Broadwater

Reporting from Washington

Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat who has said he will retire at the end of his term, on Friday switched his party registration to independent, the final step in a yearslong breakup with his party that left open the possibility of another run for office.

Mr. Manchin has said he will not run for re-election to the Senate or for governor — a role he previously held for two terms — but rumors persist on Capitol Hill that he could change his mind.

West Virginia’s deadline for independent candidates to declare their candidacies is not until Aug. 1 . Since Mr. Manchin said he would not run again, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, has been pleading with him to formally leave the Democratic Party and seek re-election as an independent.

If he did so, Mr. Manchin would face Jim Justice, a Democrat-turned-Republican second-term governor with whom he has a storied rivalry. Mr. Justice is popular in the state, and his decision to enter the Senate race was seen as a key factor in Mr. Manchin’s decision not to seek re-election. His plan to exit all but guarantees that Democrats will lose the seat in November, putting their already razor-thin hold on the Senate in peril.

Mr. Manchin has long threatened to leave the Democratic Party as it has shifted to the left. He has frequently complained that there is no room in the Senate for centrists like him, famously telling colleagues: “This place sucks .” But he has also consistently said he does not see himself as a Republican, and has been highly critical of former President Donald J. Trump and his brand of polarizing politics.

“Since becoming a United States senator in 2010, I have seen both the Democrat and Republican parties leave West Virginia and our country behind for partisan extremism while jeopardizing our democracy,” Mr. Manchin said in a statement on Friday. “Today, our national politics are broken and neither party is willing to compromise to find common ground. To stay true to myself and remain committed to put country before party, I have decided to register as an independent with no party affiliation and continue to fight for America’s sensible majority.”

In switching his party affiliation, Mr. Manchin joins three other senators who caucus with the Democrats but are registered independents: Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

As a Democrat from a deeply Republican state, Mr. Manchin has been a constant source of attention on Capitol Hill. He repeatedly frustrated his fellow Democrats by breaking with them on progressive legislation, dooming some of their top priorities in a nearly equally divided Senate. But he is also known for helping broker deals that resulted in some of the most significant new laws during Mr. Biden’s presidency, including passage of the biggest investment in clean energy in U.S. history.

Mr. Manchin was sworn in as a senator in 2010, after winning a special election to serve out the remainder of the term of Senator Robert C. Byrd, the long-serving pillar of the Senate, who had died at the age of 92. His houseboat, named Almost Heaven, has served as a hangout for senators in both parties.

Luke Broadwater covers Congress with a focus on congressional investigations. More about Luke Broadwater

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Here’s the latest news and analysis from capitol hill..

Joe Manchin: The conservative West Virginia Democrat who has said he will retire at the end of his term switched his party registration to independent , leaving open the possibility of another run for office.

Departing House Members: A wave of House retirees from both parties, including committee chairs and rising stars, say that serving in Congress is no longer worth the frustration .

Cuellar Investigation: The House Ethics Committee has launched an investigation  into Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, over allegations that he accepted bribes and committed misconduct in office.

Border Deal Fails Again: Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border enforcement bill  for a second time this year. The vote amounted to a political trap  laid for Republicans by Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader.

Noncitizen Voting Law: The House passed legislation that would undo a District of Columbia law allowing noncitizens to vote  in local elections, part of a broader G.O.P. bid to amplify false claims of widespread illegal voting by immigrants.