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4K UHD Review: Kino Lorber’s The Visit (KL Studio Classics) 

A.W. Kautzer
The Visit

The Visit

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M. Night Shyamalan’s career comeback The Visit comes to 4K UHD with a new HDR Master and stuffed with special features thanks to Kino Lorber.  

The Film 

The Visit is M. Night Shyamalan’s punch back after three resounding failures.  The director crafted a small-scale long fused horror concoction that works on every level.  By resetting and making a smaller budget more intimate picture the writer/director has gone back to his strengths – human-scale stories with children faced with harrowing events.  

Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are going to visit their estranged grandparents (Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagan) to allow their mother (Kathryn Hahn) to go on a cruise with her beau.  Becca sees this as an opportunity to not only help her mother but to connect with grandparents she never knew.  All while filming a documentary about the subject.  Tyler, well Tyler is just along for the ride.  What neither kid realizes is the dark secrets their grandparents hold … though by the end of this particular visit, they will.  

This is a top-to-bottom winner.  The construction, performances, direction, editing, and visuals all work to produce one of Shyamalan’s best.  The constraints work in favor of the narrative and film that is being made.  There’s an intimacy to the way that the film works even in its set pieces that pushes the dread to great effect.  Shyamalan has always been like Spielberg from the 1970s where human scale worked better than bombast.  Though Spielberg found a way to imbue the epic into his toolbox, Shyamalan seemed ill-equipped.  Having reset and continued this throughline beginning with The Visit – Shyamalan has only grown. 

The real secret weapon of the film is the four primary performances from the youthful actors Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould and the elder actors in Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagan.  There is something of a perfect symphony of tone between the four that manages to strike the right chords of both funny, sad, and terrifying.  Both McRobbie and Dungan are brilliant here as Pop Pop and Nana whose darker tendencies are counted by a true loving and understanding of the fear the two children seem to have of their elders.  Dungan is quite powerful in her moments with DeJonge where she reveals some truly frightening psychological outbursts. 

Some have complained that DeJonge and Oxenbould seem too mature for their age – I will counter that those critics have never spent time with modern or urbane kids.  DeJonge’s spouting of documentary ethics is exactly what I expect from a 13-year-old who found the wonders of film.  Oxenbould’s 11-year-old rapping fanboy who spouts his love of Tyler the Creator as well seems a perfect fit for the youth of 2015.  

In the final third of the film, there is a reveal, not a twist, that recontextualizes everything making the final act a true rollercoaster of a horror film.  Thankfully, Shyamalan isn’t thwarted by studio interference (he financed the film himself) and is allowed to play nasty.  Make no mistake the film in those final minutes plays for keeps in a way that many a PG-13 film never works especially with Kids.  The Visit is a great bit of “found footage” horror and one that marks the return of horrors true auteur doing what he does best. 

I’ll say this much… that was one tough-ass camera and two tough-ass kids.  

The Transfer

The all-new HDR/Dolby Vision Master is an excellent upgrade from the original Blu-ray release.  Released almost a decade ago the original Blu-ray is a solid representation of the film.  Though that Blu-ray cannot hold a candle to this new 4K with Dolby Vision.  The HDR encoding just creates a cleaner and more robust imagine with details in the black and contrast levels that the original disc cannot match.  This is an all-around move forward in image quality that any fan will want to purchase.  

Kino Lorber has provided both the Blu-ray and 4K UHD with the same master though the 4K disc does have the aforementioned HDR/Dolby Vision encoding.

The Extras

They include the following;

DISC 1 (4KUHD):

DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):

NOTE: Both the 4K UHD and Blu-ray have the Audio Commentary.  

DISC 1 (4KUHD):

The all-new Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalists/Authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry opens with a hilarious bit from Evry as they begin their commentary track.  Some of the details include a huge blind spot that would have stopped the move in its tracks; the work of Kathryn Hahn both here and throughout her career – plus a few anecdotes from Hahn’s interviews at the time; where M Night was as in his career when he made The Visit – including some great personal anecdotes from Evry about The Last Airbender; a discussion of when M Night attempted to direct his first sold screenplay Labor of Love – which did not happen; a great discussion of the small scale production through crew and cast interviews; the reasons M Night feels he and Jason Blum work so well together; the three radically different cuts of the film; how The Visit was going to connect to the Unbreakable Universe; the work of cinematographer Maryse Alberti; the various location that they used for the production; a discussion of the career of M Night – how the failures, reconfigured his career and self-financing the rest of his films and what that created both films and an ethos during the productions; the work of young actors Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould – including interview quotes about working on the film and portraying the character; a discussion of the career of Producer Jason Blum – including quotes from the producer; M Night’s movies influence on Asian Horror and Asian Horror’s influence on M Night films;  how sleep paralysis and the figure of “the night hag” figure into The Visit; the various elder horror films and where this lines up in the subgenre; the history of found footage films – including the infamous Cannibal Holocaust; a great discussion of Tyler the Creator who the character of Tyler is obsessed with – and why M Night may have referenced him so prominently in the film; the work and career/personal history of both Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagan;  and much more.  Reeseman and Evry provide a very informative, well-researched commentary track with a wealth of quotes from the cast and crew.  

DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):

The Making of The Visit: Featurette (9:57) – this vintage making-of featurette begins with M. Night’s rise to success then failures recontextualize his own career by making The Visit – a smaller-scale film.  The featurette is a wonderfully shot look into the making of, and Night’s risky gambit of making this on his own dime – not just including B-roll footage from the production but the casting videos, captured moments, and more.  The featurette does a wonderful and glossy job of looking at the production and what it meant to its director. 

Cast and Crew Interviews (19:21) – featuring onset or EPK package interviews with Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, M. Night Shyamalan, Jason Blum and Marc Bienstock.  Far and away M Night is the best interview with his discussion points on casting, directing, writing, and his “rebirth” after the failure of his recent films, his love of the intimate smaller scale film. One can move to each interview via the next and back chapter stop buttons.  

Deleted Scenes (8:00) – the 10 deleted scenes can be played individually or by using the “play all” function.  

Alternate Ending (2:26) – a very different ending, one that feels a little more on the nose and convenient, though all involved make the most of the scene.  

Behind-the-Scenes Footage (3:21) – B-roll footage that’s presented without comment as M Night directs, blocks, and rehearses with the various cast and crew.  

Becca’s Photos: Image Gallery (1:14) – various off-the-cuff moments taken by the character Becca in the film.  

Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD Ads (1:44) – featuring 4 ads for the various home video formats. 

US TV Spots (5:55) – featuring 12 30-second US TV Spots of various tones.  

UK TV Spots (2:20) – featuring 8 15 – 30 second UK TV spots of various tones.  

Rounding out the special features are trailers for The Visit [International] (2:02); The Visit [US] (2:33); The Veil (1:29); Bug (1:22); Thirst (0:43) 

The Final Thought 

Kino Lorber has given us a truly wonderful 4K UHD Edition of Shyamalan’s The Visit.  Highest Recommendations! 

Kino Lorber’s 4K UHD Edition of The Visit is out now. 

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