A master of the psychological thriller genre returns back to his roots.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: “Wayward Pines,” Fox’s newest miniseries directed by M. Night Shyamalan, marks both his first departure from film and foray into television.
On the miniseries, which is slated to debut on May 14, Matt Dillon plays a secret service agent who finds himself trapped in a mountain town that seems to hide some sort of secret. The Source described it as “Twin Peaks” meets “Twilight Zone,” and the San Jose Mercury News said it had a “spooky … ‘Lost’-like vibe.” With Shyamalan at the helm audiences are sure to expect copious thrills and suspense.
Next up for the Indian American director is “The Visit,” a feature film that returns to his horror film roots.
Shyamalan may not have bad a legitimate box office hit in almost a decade, but as noted by Digital Trends, “there was a time when his name was synonymous with tense, psychological thrillers that kept audiences guessing (and on the edges of their seats) right up until the credits rolled” — and returning to hallowed, familiar territory might serve as the perfect catalyst to jumpstart Shyamalan’s forward momentum.
In the “The Visitâ€, Ed Oxenbould and Olivia DeJonge were cast as a pair of siblings whose visit with their grandparents — played by Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie— takes an insidious turn when they begin to learn about their grandparents’ disturbing habits.
“The Visit” is Shyamalan’s first silver screen offering since 2008’s “The Happening,” a critical and box-office disaster that was followed by two more big-budget flops in “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth.”
Prior to his string of box-office debacles in the late 2000s, Shyamalan was effectively a money-printing machine for any Hollywood studio that took him on, which is a status he hopes to regain when “The Visit” hits theatres on September 11.