Stridulum

I am relieved to know that other people found The Visitor as confusing as we did. Over the years, whenever my husband and I have had some reason to mention this movie, we always call it "That weird movie with Jesus in a turtleneck." We spent hours afterwards trying to understand the plot; we never got as far as even trying to understand the meaning.

We went to see because it had such a good cast. The previews suggested it had a supernatural theme, which appealed to us. It was a mistake. We should have stayed home and rotated the mattresses.

I can watch really bad movies without a shudder. I even rather like very bad movies. But The Visitor is in a class by itself. It made absolutely no sense - none. I have read that part of the problem is bad editing. I would hope so. I hate to think that so many fine actors would waste their time on this mess as it is.

The plot, as I hopefully understand it, is that Satan (or Sateen, as this film calls him) fathers children with supernatural powers. One of these children is 8 year-old Katy, who has telekinetic powers and a heavy Southern drawl. An intergalactic traveler called The Visitor must battle the child for the fate of the universe....or something like that. There's also some stuff about an evil hawk, some bald aliens, and a crazy-eyed Jesus with a bad blonde wig.

Nonsensical Italian-made claptrap that combines '70s fascinations with the occult and aliens. It's an awful movie that rips off many better movies, made watchable by some striking imagery and interesting casting. John Huston, Lance Henriksen, Sam Peckinpah, Mel Ferrer, Shelly Winters, and Glenn Ford are all in this. That says more about the state of their respective careers at the time than it does about the quality of this production. Incoherent but good for some laughs. Dig that terribly out of place soundtrack, too.

Evil alien Jerzy Colsowicz (John Huston) is searching for 8-year-old Katy Collins in Atlanta who has mysterious powers. He and his bald headed children are opposed by a Jesus Christ figure. Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen) is the rich owner of the Atlanta basketball franchise. He is part of a conspiracy trying to gain control of the little girl by marrying her mother Barbara and having another child with her. Katy gets a gun as a gift from Jerzy and carelessly shots her mother paralyzing her. They bring in housekeeper Jane Phillips (Shelley Winters). Det. Jake Durham (Glenn Ford) is investigating Katy and the shooting.

The opening has a Christ-like figure doing an exposition to a bunch of bald-headed kids about an intergalactic battle of good and evil. Then John Huston walks in. That's some crazy drugs these people are taking. I'm tempted to claim this is a B-movie but the A-list cast belies its first rate intentions. The writing is a mess. Giulio Paradisi's directing is a mishmash of styles and ideas. I admire the spirit of abandon of this movie. It has a healthy dose of horror with a child and her superpowers like The Omen. The sci-fi motif is campy. This is weirdly fascinating despite it loopy story. It's definitely not a good movie but I kept watching anyways.

This oddball midnight movie is getting a re-release and eventual DVD courtesy of the Alamo Drafthouse.

It's about an evil little girl, who is so evil that John Huston and his pacifist army of intergalactic bald yoga practitioners arrive from space to stop her. Meanwhile Lance Henriksen is the evil boyfriend of her clueless, innocent mother, who sold his soul to the satanic forces nurturing her in a Faustian bargain for...a basketball coach position.

Which leads to the early and highly memorable slo-mo basketball set-piece, easily one of the most unique choices of setting for a horror film sequence I've ever seen!

The atmosphere of this weird, weird film alternates between genuinely and oddly poetic (mostly thanks to the music), pure B-movie cheese, and unintentional hilarity. It's one of the strangest films I've ever seen, but that's not a bad thing in this case. If you give yourself over to its strange charms, this is some kind of consciousness-expanding experience.

Will you like it? There are folks who seek out these sorts of bizarre, unique B-movies. You know who you are. At the very least, you should this film an object of curiosity.

Somehow, and for some reason, John Huston, Glenn Ford, Franco Nero (as Jesus Christ), Shelley Winters, Lance Henriksen, Sam Peckinpah, Mel Ferrer and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are all in this movie.

Affluent handsome doctor Raymond : Lance Henriksen and a powerful businessmen : Mel Ferrer, among others , conspire with grisly devil worshippers to conceive a devil child from a gorgeous divorced woman called Barbara : Joanne Nail . As the soul of a pre-teen : Paige Connor who has dangerous telekinetic powers becomes the prize in a violent fighting between two great forces , on a hand : God : Franco Nero assisted by Jerzy : John Huston and on the other hand , a nasty devil : Lance Henriksen along with hoodlums.

This is a strange film with suspense, thrills, chills, intrigue, demonic children and fantastic happenings. The picture takes parts here and there of famous films , as it catches scraps from The Exorcist by William Friedkin, The Omen by Richard Donner, The fury by Brian De Palma, Encounters of the third phase by Steven Spielberg and even The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. The main amusement and excitement result to be the discovery about the images in which the movie is ripped off. The flick has a lot of absurd and embarrassing scenes and several thrilling set-pieces don't make sense. Support cast is frankly excellent with brief appearances of known actors and directors as Franco Nero, John Huston, Shelley Winters, and Glenn Ford as a detective who is attacked by birds at a thrilling scene. And filmmaker Sam Peckinpah who had problem remembering his lines and only worked a day.

Rare and anticlimatic musical score by Franco Micalizzi. Atmospheric but mediocre cinematography by Ennio Guarneri. The movie was produced by Samuel Z Arkoff from American International, though uncredited, and by Ovidio G Assonitis . Ovidio wrote, produced and directed a lot of B films, some of them were successful, such as Tentacles, Piranha 2, Choke Canyon, Lambada, Sonny boy, Out of control and Beyond the door.

The motion picture was lousily directed by Giulio Paradisi who uses the pseudonym Michael J Paradise. He has directed a few films such as Spaghetti story, Adventure in Montecarlo, Tesoro mio, and Ragazzi di Borgate. And he was a director assistant to Federico Fellini in classy titles as Fellini 8 1/2 and La dolce vita. Rating 4 /1o, inferior fantasy, Science fiction movie.