The Visitor

The Visitor. 1979. Dir. Giulio Paradisi (billed as “Michael J. Paradise”). Starring John Huston, Joanne Nail, Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters, Franco Nero and Paige Conner. Written by Luciano Comici & Robert Mundi, Story by Giulio Paradisi & Ovidio G. Assonitis.

Badness:

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The Visitor is such a flat-out oddity that, even though it’s a giant mess, it is so profoundly bizarre and so nuts that I have to acknowledge that, as a bad movie, it “works.” Imagine a film that borrows elements from Star Wars, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby and The Birds, and throws in lots of pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo for good measure. It is, to be sure, “a hodge podge of movies,” as Lance Henriksen states in an interview on one of the blu-ray release’s special features. A crazy stew of cinematic cliches it may indeed be, but it sure makes good bad movie gumbo.

The movie, basically, is about the battle between the forces of Good and Evil. Blonde Jesus Christ (played by Franco Nero, of all people), who runs a school for bald monk children in Heaven, sends down his spiritual warrior Jerzy Colsowicz (John Huston, in full Obi-Wan Kenobi mode) down to earth to save the soul of possessed little girl Katy Collins (Paige Conner). This is where it gets weird, you see, because her mom Barbara (Joanne Nail) is the only woman on Earth who can carry “the spawn of Satan.” Satan’s secret society on earth, then, must make sure Barbara gets pregnant again.

And…this is just the set-up. This film is a virtual assault on the senses, and it feels like the filmmakers decided to make this film as aggressively strange as possible. The cast has a strong degree of Hollywood pedigree with real movie legends John Huston, Shelley Winters, Glenn Ford, Sam Peckinpah and even Mel Ferrer being forced to appear in what is really just another one of those “evil demon kid” movies.  This is probably the only movie where you will see Hollywood icon Glenn Ford being told by a little girl to “f*ck off” and being called a “child molester” (creepily, there are a lot of child molesting jokes in this movie). I guarantee this is the only movie where you’ll see Oscar winner John Huston playing the video game Pong. This is the kind of movie where there’s a three minute scene of the little demon girl ice-skating at the mall, which ends with her throwing a couple of teenage boys through a glass window. 

The movie has some real trippy visual sequences, clearly inspired by Dave Bowman’s strange journey towards the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The far-out special effects, especially in the beginning of the film, add to The Visitor‘s uniqueness. The first scene, which has Jerzy squaring off with the demon girl in some metaphysical plane of existence, is like something Alejandro Jodorowsky may have directed. Unfortunately, the entire film is not at this level of weirdness.

That makes the nutty scenes that much more satisfying. In addition to the aforementioned crazy moments, we also get: a shooting at a birthday party, Shelley Winters slapping the shit out of a child, a laser light show and multiple bird attacks. We also get a secret society conspiracy involving a legion of Satanic babies. Oh, and a rare acting appearance by Sam Peckinpah (!) as Barbara’s ex-husband.

The Visitor is ridiculous trash, all the more trashy because the filmmakers clearly take it a little more seriously than it has any right being. It is a hoot. Lance Henriksen sums it up best: “it was so crazy and bad.”