MLK Day Double Feature: THE VISIT (2015) and HOWL (2015)

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched M. Night Shamalayan's THE VISIT.  Shamalayan has thrown up three clunkers in a row (LADY IN THE WATER, THE HAPPENING, and AVATAR) but I did like his earlier films (UNBREAKABLE, THE SIXTH SENSE, and SIGNS).  It seems as if he has gotten some of his earlier mojo back - this movie was very entertaining and, to be honest, I didn't see the twist at the end coming.

In the story, two children - Becca, age 15, and Tyler, age 12 - are sent by their mom to spend a week with her parents.  She has been estranged from them for fifteen years, and they have never seen their grandparents before.  But Nana and Pop-pop are waiting for them at the train station, and they seem very eager to make the children feel at home.  The visit starts off very well - except that the grandparents have some odd rules: Don't ever go in the basement (black mold problem they say) and don't come out of your room after 9:30.  Of course, being kids - rules are made to be broken, right?
   That's how they discover that grandma crawls around the house naked at night, scratching at the walls - and Pop-pop has incontinence issues - and is paranoid about being followed - and insists on getting dressed in black-tie formality for a company dinner that was over two decades ago.  In short, there is something not quite right about Nana and Pop-pop . . . and it gets progressively stranger and more creepy as The Visit goes on.  In short, this is a very entertaining film, and it's nice to see Shamalayan get back into form.

Then tonight I watched a lovely British werewolf movie simply called HOWL.  This was an excellent, traditional werewolf movie done with minimal CGI and excellent makeup effects.  The storyline is simple enough - a late night British passenger train breaks down in the woods, and when the engineer gets out to see if he can repair the damage, he is killed by a creature that proceeds to stalk the passengers and hosts on the train, picking them off one by one.  Lots of good suspense, gore, and a killer transformation sequence - this is a top notch werewolf movie definitely worth your time!