Very Odd Grandparents

The Visit rescues M. Night Shyamalan from filmmaking purgatory

Will writer/director M. Night Shyamalan ever get out of the filmmaking prison of his own making? After 2 ¾ great films, Shyamalan has delivered nothing but stinkers with his last five feature films, failing to capture the imagination no matter what type of movie he’s tried to make.

The Visit is a good start toward redemption, though. Like many upstart filmmakers, he became a victim of his own success, having to try to one-up himself with twistier plots and working with a series of big-name actors. The Visit is smaller in every way, starting with its no-name cast, only one of which has any modicum of name recognition.

The film jumps on the found footage bandwagon, with a slight twist to make it more palatable: Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are sent off to visit their grandparents (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie), whom they’ve never met, by their mother (Kathryn Hahn), who had a falling out with her parents many years ago. Becca, a budding filmmaker, uses it as an opportunity to make a documentary about her family’s history, filming every second of their visit.

Almost as soon as they arrive at the house in the country, though, things seem off. Nana has a habit of acting very strangely after a certain time of night, while Pop Pop displays signs of old age deterioration, including forgetfulness and incontinence. Becca and Tyler attempt to play it off the weirdness as normal things grandparents do, but the more odd things that happen, the harder they become to ignore.

Shyamalan makes a lot of good decisions in the film, including playing up the humor factor. If he had tried to make it a straight horror, the concept would not have worked. Because he injects doses of comedy along the way, it not only keeps the audience on their toes, but also makes the suspenseful aspects that much more gripping.

He also subverts expectations to a degree. There are many points along the way where Shyamalan takes us right up to edge of terror, only to pull back. By doing this kind of push and pull, he primes the audience well for the reveals in the third act. He also lays good groundwork with appearances by seemingly random people who dole out just enough information to keep the audience intrigued until the end.

It’s not a perfect film, though. It falls prey to the usual horror movie conventions, with Becca and Tyler making odd decisions on multiple occasions. It also leaves several questions unanswered, such as the film setting up the grandparents’ house to be a technology dead zone, only to have the kids have the ability to connect to high-speed internet.

But for the most part, The Visit is the most enjoyable M. Night Shyamalan film in the past 10 years. Although it doesn’t stand up to movies like The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it does signal that there’s still life in the once-acclaimed filmmaker’s career.

Olivia DeJonge and Deanna Dunagan in The Visit.

Olivia DeJonge and Deanna Dunagan in The Visit

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

Olivia DeJonge and Deanna Dunagan in The Visit.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

For this new store, they chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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