‘The Visit’ (2015)

M. Night Shymalan’s name tends to mostly be used as a punchline nowadays, which is too bad since he’s got some intriguing projects in the pipeline. He directed the pilot for the 2015 limited series Wayward Pines; has a cross-country drama screenplay titled Labor of Love that he wants to shoot with Bruce Willis starring; and recently, has been quietly collaborating with Blumhouse Productions’ head Jason Blum on an original low-budget thriller, known as Sundowning.

This might be one of the scariest movie trailers ever. “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs” director M. Night Shyamalan returns the genre that made him famous with “The Visit.” The movie uses the popular “found footage” approach to tell the story of a couple of siblings whose trip to visit their grandparents quickly gets very scary.

Shyamalan took a break from thrillers to take a shot at the action and science-fiction genres with “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth.”

Both of those movies bombed with critics, but did serviceable business at the international box office. Now, however, Shyamalan seems ready to get back to what he knows how to do best. For “The Visit,” he teamed up with Blumhouse Productions — the red-hot production company behind such hits as “Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious” and “The Purge.”

If the trailer is any indication, it looks like Shyamalan will finally get back into the good graces of his biggest audience.

Shyamalan’s The Visit is now set to open in U.S. theaters on September 11th, 2015, opposite the drama/thriller Triple Nine. September is generally a slower-going month for film buffs, though seeing as Shyamalan’s name is almost box office poison at this stage (marketing for his last movie, After Earth, never even mentioned Shyamalan’s involvement), The Visit should benefit from having less competition at the box office.