[yasr_overall_rating]
A single mother finds that things in her family’s life go very wrong after her two young children visit their grandparents.
I spent more than half the movie trying to figure out why anyone would think this was entertainment, but then I realized that everyone is entertained differently. Even with this in mind, I couldn’t fathom how a team of two extremely talented filmmakers such as Jason Blum and M. Night Shyamalan with A-list movies could produce and direct what was obviously a randomly awkward B-side knock-off. Yes, there were a few really good points that created laughter and definitely a few scary scenes, but it wasn’t horror-scary, it was silly-scary and the only thrilling part was knowing that 94 minutes of junior filmmaker 101 would soon end.
From the beginning, the story didn’t have enough sustenance to make you believe that a mother (Kathryn Hahn) who left her family several years prior under mysterious circumstances would heartily agree to send her children away for two weeks to meet them for the first time without further discussion of expectations and reassurance that she was vaguely familiar with who she was dealing with. As child actors, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) played excellent roles in the brother-sister relationship that was typical and believable.
Additionally Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie), couldn’t have been any better at playing a bizarre and dysfunctional couple who described each other’s shortcomings with the least bit of indifference. I am happy that a prior record of great films was established between the filmmakers with “The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable,” “Paranormal Activity” and “The Purge,” but as far as I’m concerned, in the future, they should just stick with what works.
In theaters September 11th
