Kelli: You may have discovered it via internet memes, or you may have been eagerly awaiting its release since it was announced way back when, but either way, you have probably heard of Old. For the uninitiated few, Old is M. Night Shyamalan’s latest entry into the horror canon, and it is about a beach that makes people old. There is really no other way to describe it.

I guess to start, I’ll ask: what are your experiences with the work of M. Night Shyamalan? Would you consider yourselves fans?

Mary: 100% I’m a fan. I’m not going to say I love every single movie he’s directed (Lady in the Water *cough cough*), but I’ll always go see an M. Night Shyamalan joint. I feel weird about some of his work, though. For example, Split is a really harmful portrayal of dissociative identity disorder, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it a little. 

Emily: I would also say I’m a fan. I don’t need someone to have a flawless body of work in order to look forward to a director’s projects. And even though movies like Old aren’t perfect, I still think they’re a good time. I love that M. Night Shyamalan has a distinctive perspective. Like, yes, his movies have surprises in them, but I definitely have an idea I’ve what I’m getting into tonally when I sit down for some of his movies. And I want to go on record once again to assert that, yes, I am a fan of The Village. 

(Spoilers for Old to follow.)

Kelli: I find myself somewhere between a fan and a hater, depending on the project. His work covers a remarkable span when it comes to both content and quality. Some of his work is genuinely great and in some ways groundbreaking (thinking of something like The Sixth Sense), some of it is just kind of silly and enjoyable (The Visit, which Emily and I wrote about recently), some of it is straight up weird and bad (The Lady in the Water), and some of it is so deeply horrible that it almost circles back around to being good (yes, I’m talking about The Happening). Where do you think Old lands in the Shyamalaverse? 

Mary: Old is pretty up there for me. It felt genuinely horrifying and not TOO ridiculous. The premise sounds silly (a beach that makes you old!), but it’s more than that. Aging is genuinely scary, and I think the film recognizes that. I also felt like all the characters had their own issues going on, which made the movie interesting, but the film didn’t hone in TOO much on those issues. It never lost sight of the big picture, the beach that makes you old. 

Emily: Yes, I’m absolutely horrified of aging and being sick (and being pregnant), so this really hit a lot of specific fears that get under my skin. For that reason, I did find this movie to be truly terrifying (until the end, but we’ll get to that). There’s this scene where Trent and Maddox are just sitting on the beach together after everyone is gone, and it really got into my head and I was thinking, yes, this is what life is. Sitting on a beach waiting to die. Of course, THE ENDING RUINS THAT, but ok, ok, we’ll get to that. 

Kelli: Let’s talk about the characters, because there are quite a few of them. How did you feel about the central family and their performances here? Did you have a favorite “side” character? 

Mary: I thought the kids in this movie were great. Child actors are notoriously unpredictable I think, but the child stars (and there were quite a few!) in Old brought everything together. They also had the most work to do, as they were the ones rapidly aging in a more physical sense, and had more actors portraying the growing children. It just seems like a tough role and they did well.

My favorite side character? Obviously Midsize Sedan. I need to know more about him and I, of course, want to hear his hit single. 

Emily: I was also going to say Midsize Sedan! 

Kelli: I LOVED Midsize Sedan. Hearing his name for the first time was a pretty great comedy beat, but he ended up being a lot more interesting than just his ridiculous pseudonym. I was really bummed that he was the first in the group to die. Aaron Pierre, the actor who plays him, is also in Underground Railroad, which I haven’t watched yet but am looking forward to digging into even more after seeing him here. This was a minor role but he imbues it with so much feeling, and I feel like he’s gonna be a star.

Emily: Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that’s who Midsize Sedan was. Now I totally see it, but his hair is different and his character is so different in Old that I didn’t make that connection right away. I’m slowly making my way through Underground Railroad, but it is a TOUGH WATCH. Anyway, my point is, I’m glad to see he’s getting roles in other things. And even though his part was small in this, he definitely made an impression. 

Kelli: I want to talk more specifically about the character Charles, played by Rufus Sewell, because he is representative of a trope Shyamalan often comes back to which is one of my least favorite things about his work and is like… actively harmful? Charles is a doctor who we learn early on is battling some kind of mental illness — maybe schizophrenia? — and quickly becomes a danger to himself and others, ultimately murdering a member of the group and attempting the murder of several others before he is finally put out of his misery. I’m reminded here of Split, which is another Shyamalan film featuring a character suffering from severe mental illness who is, essentially, a villain. I will admit that I enjoyed Split as a showcase for James McAvoy’s acting abilities, but conceptually I have a big problem with the way Shyamalan portrays mental illness in his work. I guess this isn’t really a question, but… thoughts on this?

Mary: So many thoughts on this, but mainly…it’s bad. What’s wild to me is that Shyamalan doesn’t even seem to have a firm grasp on what these mental illnesses are. I thought for sure that Charles was experiencing early onset dementia, because it tracked with his symptoms. He often didn’t know where he was or what was going on, mistook people for others, and had violent outbursts when he didn’t understand things. I don’t have a firm grasp on schizophrenia, but I don’t think it’s always this severe or violent. 

Emily: Basically there was no reason to make his illness schizophrenia. Everything he was experiencing was right in line with what happens to people with dementia, and it would make more sense for them to casually throw in a patient with dementia among other people. Throwing someone in with schizophrenia for an experiment like this seems really weird. And, like, honestly, dementia is super terrifying as it is. So my brain is just pretending it was dementia. And racism. Which apparently nothing can cure. 

Kelli: Yeah, I would not have thought schizophrenia either, but that’s what it says on Wikipedia, which… could be wrong. I’m not sure if they ever say exactly what he’s suffering from in the movie.

Emily: No, they do say at the end in the scene with all the scientists that he has schizophrenia. It’s in the movie. Unfortunately. 

Kelli: Cool.

Mary: Regardless, I find Charles a tiny bit less problematic than something like Split. Sure, Charles is a jerk, but it seems like a lot of his issues are typical favorites, like, you know, racism, not all mental illness. Of course, his mental illness brings out those other nasty behaviors, so it’s kind of confusing to piece together. I don’t even know if what I’m saying makes sense. It seems like Charles is evil because he was already a bad person, not because he’s mentally ill. 

Emily: Well he is a doctor, so that tracks. They’re usually bad people. I SAID WHAT I SAID.

Mary: All that being said, Shyamalan unfortunately uses mental illness as shorthand for evil a lot of the time and that’s just lazy writing. He’s talented and can do better! Don’t even get me started on how Unbreakable treats physical disability…

Kelli: Yeah, you do make a good point about Charles having other character traits that also contribute to him being a bad person. It’s no coincidence that the first person he kills is not just a Black man, but also a rapper who Charles already has preconceived notions about (like when Charles immediately assumes that Midsize Sedan murdered the white woman he was with and doesn’t believe him until they discover the woman’s body has rapidly decayed). It’s just difficult to parse, and it doesn’t help that the “villain” of the beach is also the only character on the beach dealing with a severe mental illness.  

Emily: Okay, but to be fair, it was a little sketch at first that Midsize Sedan was just lurking in the background not saying anything to anyone and just waiting for this girl to come back. Like it seemed like when the girl first swam out it was pretty early in the morning? Like the sun wasn’t up all the way yet? And by the time the rest of these people get here, it’s like late in the day. So he has to be worried that something happened to her. But he just sits there waiting and doesn’t say anything to anyone. I’m still not sure why he acted like that. It doesn’t excuse Charles’ prejudice, but I am curious about Midsize Sedan’s behavior.

Kelli: This is an obvious question that we always discuss when we’re talking about horror, and though it doesn’t usually indicate one way or another whether a horror movie is good, it’s still a fun thing to talk about: did y’all find this movie scary? What were some of your favorite horror moments?

Emily: Well, I already said I thought this movie was horrifying to me. 

Mary: This movie was definitely existentially scary to me because aging itself is scary. That being said, it had a ton of age-related body horror that left me feeling icky. I’m not a huge fan of body horror, likely because it’s the most effective way to scare me. 

When Chrystal started aging, I got nervous fast. I’ll also say that the sheer horror of babies having babies is terrifying. The entire birth scene was too much.

Kelli: Oh my god, when they walked over and Kara was pregnant, I scream-laughed. That whole section was definitely the biggest ‘what the fuck’ moment in the film, but in kind of a fun way because I did not see it coming. Of course, it was a lot less fun when the baby died instantly of neglect. Then it was just a huge bummer. 

Emily: Yeah, I’m really not into birth or pregnancy stuff at all. I find it really disturbing, to the point where I can probably never have kids because it freaks me out too much. And I say all that to say I was actually pleased with how the pregnancy stuff was handled. I didn’t find it to be too much at all. 

For better or for worse, Shyamalan shies away from showing most of the body horror stuff on the screen. We see what’s happening but then the camera pans away, so we don’t really see the gross stuff. We get to imagine it. I say for better or for worse because sometimes I think he could have taken it further, but when it comes to pregnancy, I’m always going to be happy with LESS. That’s a personal preference, obviously. But for me, the pregnancy was fine. 

Kelli: As you both know, I am really terrified by seizures, so knowing that one of the people on the beach might have a seizure at any time was definitely scary for me — until I realized that she probably wasn’t going to have one until her death. When it comes to body horror, the most upsetting part to me was probably the growth and extraction of Prisca’s tumor, especially seeing how gigantic it was when they pulled it out of her. That really squicked me out.

Emily: I totally agree, Kelli. And this was one instance where the camera did not pan away for a lot of the gross stuff. Probably because Shyamalan wanted us to see the skin healing rapidly and how they had to hold her wound open to extract the tumor. This was really, really freaky. But in a good way. But also I hated it. In a good way.

Mary: That’s the best way to describe body horror in general. Lol. I hated it! But in a good way.

Kelli: Aging as a horror concept seems like something Shyamalan is really interested in. This movie seems almost like a companion piece to The Visit, the theme of which was basically “old people are scary.” How do you think Old expands on this idea? What are we supposed to take away from this movie?

Mary: Oh gosh, I don’t know. Pharmaceutical companies are evil? Getting old is scary? 

Emily: As I kind of alluded to earlier (and I guess now’s the time to get into it), I think this movie almost said something interesting about mortality and the inevitability of death. To go back to that scene where the brother and sister are alone on the beach, for a moment you get the feeling that they’ve accepted that they’re going to die here. That there’s no point in running from death because it comes for all of us. But then Shyamalan fucks that whole message up with this happy ending business. 

Kelli: Yeeeaaaahhhhhh… this movie doesn’t necessarily end with a “twist,” but more of an “explainer,” which we all knew was coming because Shyamalan doesn’t like leaving up to the imagination. How did we feel about the end of the film?

Emily: I think especially recently Shyamalan has been obsessed with ending all of his movies with a happy ending, which is not really how horror goes usually. Sometimes it’s fine. Like with The Visit, I was okay with a happy ending. It made sense. But with this, it totally undermines the message of the movie, and it was just a lot. This movie had about 11 happy endings tacked on the end. 

Mary: One thing I have to say about Shyamalan is that he doesn’t always stick the landing, and that was the case with Old. I didn’t need a scene where everyone rides to safety in a helicopter or, most hilariously, a cop walks into a secret lab to say “Everyone here is arrested!” I think that once it becomes clear what’s going on, and that big pharma is the enemy, we don’t need half the explanation we get. I think this happens a lot in Shyamalan‘s films. He gets to the end and then is just like uhhhhh anyway….bye! 

Kelli: Definitely agree. I think the last ten minutes could have easily been lopped off of the movie. Also, I don’t necessarily need Good to triumph over Evil, or to know that the villains are going to all go to jail. I will say that I appreciate that there is a very clear motive for the bad guys in this movie, because at the end of the day, they do believe they are doing a good thing — and in some ways, they are, but the means don’t quite justify the ends.

Emily: I actually feel like the movie’s attempt to explain everything just left me with more questions. Like, I wouldn’t be asking these questions if I didn’t feel like the movie was neatly trying to tie up loose ends. But since it is, do we really believe that nobody went looking for these missing people? We know that the Cappa family had people at home, because the aunt is picking up the “kids” at the end of the movie. What are Maddox and Trent going to do about their education now? Are they just going to try to Billy Madison their entire school career? How are they going to get jobs? Why would the resort choose to target so many families with kids? Especially kids who don’t themselves have medical problems? I can see justifying doing this to adults who have medical issues (especially if they’re terminal), but to perfectly healthy kids? I just can’t see anyone (not even the most mustache-twirlingly bad scientist guy) being on board with that. And most infuriatingly, if we were going to do the whole “secret code” thing, why the fuck would Trent not have thought to look at that earlier? 

I would have none of these questions if Shyamalan had just left well enough alone and not tried to explain everything. But here we are. 

Kelli: I absolutely agree. Like you said earlier, this ending also undermines the emotional punch that the ending of the movie could have packed had they just left it with the two adult kids at the beach. If Shyamalan REALLY felt the need to let us know that this was all a medical experiment, he could have just given us the scene with the doctors/scientists at the end having their little moment of silence for the case study. We didn’t need the decoded message and the escape and all of that garbage. 

I guess as an answer to “why pick families with kids,” maybe there is something in there about wanting to study the genetic risk factor of diseases? I’m reaching here.

Mary: You’re reaching here, but Shyamalan is also reaching, so it all works out. I’m not sure why they’d pick families with kids, and I can’t imagine what would motivate a villain to do so. I think the real answer is probably something like, Shyamalan wanted to have kids in the movie to show rapid aging. That’s it. I also have SO MANY questions about what happens to Maddox and Trent after they leave the beach, but I didn’t need any of those questions even remotely answered in the way the film attempted to. I’m frequently the person who thinks that characters should just stay dead instead of getting a happy ending, so I’m happy to be the party pooper at Shyamalan’s party.

Ultimately, I still liked the movie, and I’m glad I saw it. And I’d see it again! Will I be quoting it as much as I quote “That’s not Grandma!” from The Visit? Probably not. But catch me whirl into a room and yell “Everyone here is arrested!” at the next event I attend. 

Emily: I also enjoyed this movie quite a bit! I remain a Shyamalan fan.

Kelli: Me too! (Mostly.)