The Real Villain In The Visit Isn't Who You Think

The children's mother, Loretta Jamison (Kathryn Hahn), seems perfectly lovely, but some of her behavior could be classified as negligent. She leaves her children at her parents' house while she goes on a cruise with her boyfriend, but she doesn't drop them off personally. It might be one thing if they were all really close, but as we learn, Loretta hasn't spoken to her parents in 15 years. With her eldest child, Becca (Olivia DeJonge), being 15, too, she's never met her grandparents and, therefore, doesn't know what they look like. 

That revelation only comes at the film's finale, but if Loretta had taken the time to travel with her offspring, she would've immediately noticed those two aren't her parents. She could've saved her kids from a lot of psychological turmoil if she had gone on the train with the kids. She wouldn't have recognized the two phony grandparents at the train station, and all this could've been avoided. Better yet, she could've driven them to the house in the first place, where she could've promptly called the police because it's now a home invasion. 

It's not like the kids see their elders every summer. It's been 15 years since she saw them; you would think she would want to bury the hatchet for real and see them face-to-face. In the end, she's not the first movie mom to put her kids in danger, and she likely won't be the last.