M. Night Shyamalan’s Old ended up being a pretty good movie! It’s not his best work, but I certainly enjoyed the story that he told and the way that he told it. While the movie dealt with some pretty unsettling subject matter, it leaves the audience with an uplifting message. I liked it!
The story follows a few families, who travel to a tropical beach paradise. While things start out fun and relaxing, things take a dark turn when everyone starts to age rapidly and they can’t get off the island.
The filmmaker recently teamed up with Vanity Fair for a video in which he breaks down the dead body scene from the movie. This is the part of the film where things take a turn for the worse. It’s all down hill from this moment. The scene in question is when six-year-old Trent is swimming in a small alcove at the beach and he seems to be enjoying himself until a corpse floats up behind him and freaks him out.
In the video, Shyamalan explains how he “created a slow building of tension and suspense by juxtaposing the playful innocence of the children and their parents uneasiness.” There’s a lot of great and interesting insight revealed here and if you’re a fan of filmmaking, this is something you’ll want to check out.
The movie was inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle, which was written by Pierre Oscar Levy and illustrated by Frederik Peeters. The synopsis reads:
This summer, visionary filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan unveils a chilling, mysterious new thriller about a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly … reducing their entire lives into a single day.
Old is currently in theaters and it’s a movie worth checking out if it looks like a movie that you’re interested in.