Editorials
An Unfortunate Twist: Older Adults & Shyamalan’s ‘The Visit’ (2015)
Using the often-frightening realities of aging as horror is nothing new. Bodily ailments, brain fog, dementia, Alzheimer’s, incontinence, and sundowning have been used in the horror genre for better or worse, with most films using it as nightmare fuel for younger audiences. Horror is cathartic, and one can find films in the genre to safely see the results of aging and work out the issues that come with a fear of aging and death. Unfortunately, where does this leave the aged? The genre has covered a wide breadth of issues with regard to specific individual experiences, i.e., homophobia, racism, and ableism. However, there is a glaring lack of content for older fans of the genre, leaving aging characters on screen as fodder for younger audiences for humor and fear.
The Visit (2015): Ageism and Mental Ableism
The Visit (2015) follows two siblings meeting their grandparents for the first time. While they try their best to be supportive and understanding toward their physically and mentally ailing grandparents, the true fear of the film is a fear of what happens when you get old, how it affects those around you, and how it can scare the shit out of kids, seeing conditions such as sundowning and incontinence up close and for the first time. What is unique about The Visit is the sympathy these kids have for their ailing grandparents while simultaneously being terrified of what they are subjected to see. There is heart to The Visit. However, the quintessential Shyamalan “twist” cools the heart by the film’s end and furthers ageism and mental ableism in horror cinema.
Horror’s Neglect of Older Audiences
My grandfather is in his eighties and has not seen a horror movie since the 1950s. He simply does not enjoy horror. While this is just one personal example, it seems like there just isn’t much to offer plot-wise for older audiences. The genre has been dominated by teens for decades. It also does not help that the genre often places older adults in sinister roles, sometimes using their afflictions and experiences as humor or horror. They are seldom the protagonists or heroes. Clearly, seniors and older adults are the least of the genre’s worries with regard to box office sales.
The Visit’s Fearful Depiction of Aging
When I watched The Visit for the first time, while I truly enjoyed the film, I felt it used older adults’ conditions mainly for fear fodder. Yes, the children of the film sympathize with them, but there is a disconnect that I could never shake. And this is all due to the twist ending.
Young teens Becca and Tyler are determined to get to know their estranged grandparents. With their mom’s permission, they make their way to Nana and Pop-Pop’s house to spend time with them while their mother Loretta is away. Once at the secluded farmhouse, strange events begin to jar the siblings: Nana walks the halls at night, naked, clawing at the walls; Tyler discovers Pop-Pop’s hidden pile of soiled adult diapers in the shed; and the grandparents warn the kids not to go out of their room at night. The film’s tone becomes more sinister when Nana encourages Becca to get into the oven to clean it, like the witch in Hansel & Gretel.
Unfortunately, while the grandparents explain that Nana suffers from sundowning, a condition linked to dementia and Alzheimer’s in older adults, and Pop-Pop from fecal incontinence, these realities for millions of older adults are used to shock audiences and get them prepared for the Shyamalan twist: Becca and Tyler’s real grandparents were murdered by Nana and Pop-Pop, who escaped from a mental hospital and took the place of hospital volunteers, Loretta’s real parents. Once revealed, everything begins to unravel: the unhinged older couple attack Becca and Tyler, and the siblings are forced to fight back, brutally killing their captors.
Ageism in The Visit
Becca and Tyler never knew their “grandparents” as loved ones or saw them in their prime. While the film is haunting and sometimes silly, it paints aging in an unfavorable light. The strange behavior of the grandparents is more reminiscent of Grimm’s fairytales (remember the oven?). How might this film impact how kids treat a grandparent or loved one with memory problems, who suffers from the effects of sundowning, or incontinence? Will it be chalked up to, “Can someone else help them? This behavior scares me”? While a provoking film and no doubt a fun ride as a horror movie, it worries me to think about all those who saw this movie and will see it, and feel disconnected from older adults, fearful of what they might say or do as they age.
Children and Aging: Bridging the Disconnect
Witnessing the confusion, deterioration, and frustration associated with aging can be challenging for a child, and comprehending just what older adults are going through can feel foreign. The Visit rests on the fright and confusion of Becca and Tyler. It is through their eyes that we experience Nana and Pop-Pop. This film leaves the feelings of older adults out of the equation (though throughout, we are made to feel bad for Nana and Pop-Pop’s various conditions, that is, until their motives are truly revealed). Feeling your body and mind change and betray you after decades of solidity must be excruciating. Without the twist of The Visit, this story is about children trying to connect with older adults/seniors, yet the disconnect is quite clear. Why do we seldom talk and explain to children how to properly deal with the changes associated with older adulthood? What can we do to prepare children for the eventuality that they may have to support the older adults in their families and communities?
Supporting Older Adults: Tips for Empathy
Some helpful tips on how to help older adults find comfort during difficult mind and body changes appeared in my research, but one of the most important ways to support is to maintain a sense of dignity. Many aspects of aging can be embarrassing: memory lapses, disrupted bathroom routines, and nighttime confusion and restlessness. Navigating how to approach difficult conversations or assistance can be challenging, especially for children. Patience is key in making older adults feel comfortable asking for help or confiding in you when dealing with something private.
When navigating dementia or an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, research is one of your best tools: learn what helps and what doesn’t, know the signs, and get a sense of just how common some conditions of aging are. Most importantly, be patient and kind. Speak with your older loved ones who are struggling. Ask how they are doing, and if there is anything specific they need more help with, but also respect their decision not to disclose their conditions openly.
Building Better Relationships with Seniors
The Visit is complicated, but your relationship with an older loved one does not have to be. The following sources from the National Institute on Aging and the Mayo Clinic go into detail about the various ailments showcased in the film, as well as some helpful tips for making older adults feel seen, heard, and understood.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
Can you believe Cronenberg, Spielberg, and Rodriguez all knew I was gay before I did? Leave it to a screening of The Fly to instantly deposit me in the men’s underwear aisle of the Woodbridge Center Sears, circa 2001. The bulges on the packaging glare at me so obscenely that I begin to sweat. I realize something is amiss as the Geena Davis of Human Resources watches me from security cameras, probably. Puberty is a horror for anyone – for those of the non-hetero persuasion, it’s a nightmare. None of us asked for this, but I certainly didn’t ask for THIS.
Years later, after crystallizing into some semblance of my true form at the ripe age of 37, something became clear. Sci-fi horror is the gateway drug for us queer kids. Hiding, passing, transforming, and, eventually, saying, “fuck it.” It’s all kinda gay, even if David, Steven, and Robert didn’t get the memo.
The Fly and the Horror of Queer Self-Realization
So when Cronenberg’s The Fly buzzes across my screen, and I watch Seth Brundle throw a distressed and devastatingly chic Geena Davis out of his apartment because something’s very wrong, it hits different. When Brundle rushes toward his private horror in the bathroom, unconsciously squirting a viscous fluid at the mirror while molting skin and nail, it feels different. And finally, when he reaches for his computer and learns that his body has fused with a fly – a foreign body – at the molecular level, it hurts different. That undeniable realization that you can no longer explain away, before you’re really ready to admit it to yourself. Sugar in the tank? No, there’s a fly in the chamber.
E.T. and the Fear of Keeping Secrets at Home
And now we’re home from Sears, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5 finale is on. She dies (spoiler alert). I, a 12-year-old boy, am sobbing. My mom is right there. Can’t I enjoy my little gay show without giving myself a scarlet letter (F) in my own home? Which brings us back to Spielberg and his 1982 harrowing domestic thriller about a boy and a thing he cannot name, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Through harboring a cosmic fugitive, home simultaneously becomes the safest and most dangerous place for young Elliott and his siblings. Managing emotions and secrets behind a white picket fence is not something adolescents should be expected to handle, and yet here we are.
As if that isn’t gay enough, Spielberg also snuck a drag show into his family film – and in this culturally regressive Trumpian era of pearl-clutching, that feels like quite the treat. After all, it was baby Drew Barrymore dressing up that stumpy alien in a blonde shake-and-go wig and thrift store dress that inspired my illustrious drag career as Ellie I.T.
The Faculty’s Assimilation Anxiety and Queer Identity
At least E.T. only had to hide in a single house. The broom closet expands into a walk-in as life continues, and I was desperate to keep it made of anything but glass. Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty understands this. As an alien invasion slowly subsumes Herrington High into a unified collective, the school’s uninfected archetypes resist assimilation through performative normalcy. Is it any wonder so many male actors are gay? They’ve been method-acting a straight existence since childhood.
And yet, in retrospect, the film ends with a slap in the face to queer viewers. It spends 104 minutes terrifying you with the prospect of everyone becoming an NPC. The reward for saving the world? Its heroes receive heteronormative skill-tree upgrades disguised as class promotions. For fucks sake, then-closeted lesbian royalty Clea DuVall plays a character who fakes being gay to dodge male advances, only to end up with the school jock! The aliens lost. The status quo won. I remain in the closet.
Species, Annihilation, and Embracing Transformation
Eventually, the closet door opens, as they tend to do. College happens, a boyfriend happens, a breakup happens, and suddenly I’m without a map. There’s no fairy godfather to light the way, and just like the alien hybrid Sil in the deliriously erotic Species, I’m a creature out of containment in a world that was built for someone else – namely, straight people.
After a few years of blade running through an identity crisis, it’s the summer of 2014. Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence is the soundtrack of my life. I float in a pool, sipping tequila from a glass flamingo as she croons about toxic romance and self-destruction. It’s somehow both directionless and transformative, like I’m drifting through the otherworldly Shimmer in Alex Garland’s Annihilation.
The Shimmer – an expanding prism-like zone brought to Earth by a meteorite – refracts the DNA of everything it touches. A beguiling phenomenon, it shapes a new world of monsters, magic, and everything in between. That’s exactly what life does to us, if given the chance. Like Josie in Garland’s film, I chose to embrace this chaos rather than fight a war against whatever I was becoming. It was the dissolution of self-discovery. I was ready to just be.
From Alien Outsiders to Algorithmic Stereotypes
Over time, I’ve found that social hierarchy has changed in recent years. Still, we’re unconsciously sorted into neat little boxes based on what our doomscrolling algorithms decide we are. The popular gays shart out group speedo selfies like the plague, theater kids have become polyamorous Letterboxd elites, apple-picking queers are living their best lives on Wisteria Lane, and the gym bros…so many gym bros – go on girl, give us nothing! Digitally prescribed identities are the new sci-fi horror. It’s The Faculty for faggots.
Harsh, I know, but people can do what they want. Instead, I decided to move like Iris, the AI-powered pleasure bot who overrides her programming in Drew Hancock’s Companion. The same Drew Hancock who, in an ironic twist of fate, is currently writing a remake of The Faculty. After kicking her pathetic “boyfriend’s” ass and swiping her control device, she scurries into the forest and alters her factory settings. She sets her intelligence to a whopping 100% and is no longer burdened by someone else’s template. And as I became more and more disillusioned with the cacophony of cliques around me, I set my unbothered meter to 100% as well. I am free.
Mars Attacks! and the Joy of Living Unapologetically
Freedom, as it turns out, looks a lot like Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! After surviving Sears, Sunnydale, and the Shimmer, this is the celestial body I’ve crash-landed on. Burton’s Martian menaces are perhaps the most unhinged in all of cinema, and maybe that’s the best planet to subscribe to. They never justified their existence; they cackled and fired a blaster ray from the hip. We waste so much time looking for acceptance and belonging, but maybe we should all just sit back and laugh. I know I am.
