The Visitor

When bats shit, this is the crazy that ends up on the cave floor. I'm sure there's a film major in Zanzibar somewhere who could tell me exactly what the fuck it was all about, but I'm perfectly fine with granting my sanity sanctuary from the terrible truth.

If you find yourself among those who watched The Birds and thought, "It's good but I feel like it needs a bird with a switchblade in its beak, Shelly Winters slapping a child, a dubbed Peckinpah, John Huston pacing, a Nero Jesus, and an overly complicated NBA game to make it really great" then do I have a suggestion for you.

A very hard movie to evaluate. An English-language Italian production, with director Giulio Paradisi credited as "Michael J. Paradise". Features an outrageous mix of sci-fi, thriller and horror cliches (devil child, mirror maze, psychic abilities, alien insemination etc) with flashes of inspired and imaginative imagery (especially late on) and cheesy band music with intriguing sound design. The plot is a complete mess, almost nonsensical, and the cast is insane, including two directing legends.

A messy mishmash of the good bits from such seminal movies a The Exorcist or Close Encounters, among others, that manages to impressive with its peculiar oddities. Unfortunately, it barely has a grip on its thin plot and the pacing is a mess; things just happen, with barely a connective thread. If you saw the best parts on an edited youtube you would get same general experience.

Impeccable cast is dealt a script that toes a line between being too incomprehensible or too cohesive. The stuff that makes sense kind of drags, but the stuff that comes from out of nowhere, like an extended fight scene in a skating rink that results with a young boy flying through a glass window, is pretty entertaining. Nutshell review: This has the best car accident scene I've ever seen and I have a .gif of that wreck from Meet Joe Black.

I think this film has taken an element of every single horror film made to date and given the resulting stew a dusting of bewildering sci-fi. My main memory of this will be John Huston gurning at an array of flashing lights in two seemingly interminable scenes. This is actually quite a lot of fun, mainly due to the decent cast, but it's also pretty incoherent. Be prepared to ask yourself, or anyone in earshot, "what the hell is happening" regularly throughout this.

I am too tired today for this nonsense.

On the plus side it's unpredictable, bizarre, visually striking and has an interesting cast to say the least. On the other hand it's occasionally boring, steals liberally from like a dozen better movies of the era, has a terrible score and just isn't consistent enough to either be an amazing cult movie or a memorably bad movie. It's in an awkward middle ground where it'd be more satisfying swinging on either end of that spectrum. That being said, there's certainly not much like it.

At its best, this willfully strange Omen/Exorcist/Rosemary imitation (with a nutty pulp/Manichaean cosmology in place of staid Catholicism) operates on a level of feverish hysteria that successfully prizes sensation over sense. On a narrative level the scenes barely hang together, but many of the scenes themselves are great absurd stuff, full of out-of-nowhere bombastic slo-mo action and filmed with a prowling camera that imparts a menacing atmosphere. That said, this is occasionally a slog.

Watched this when I should have just gone to bed, so I kept dozing off, but the screaming kept waking me up. SO MUCH SCREAMING.

There's method in the madness. What ends up working - John Huston as an alien(/God?) playing Pong with the pubescent spawn of an evil alien Sateen (get it?) and discussing Fate, ends up being entirely more memorable than Lance Henriksen selling his soul so Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can win a basketball game in slow motion. OK I lied. It's all pretty memorable, once you condescend to its wavelength. Also noteworthy for being the only film to link Illuminati to alien-Luciferianism (high five!).

decidedly 70s & decidedly italian. totally incoherent, i drifted from one strange scene to the next having only the vaguest idea of what was going on, though most of it was visually intriguing. stand out for me is a random noir-ish, soft lit scene that's vaguely romantic except its our heroine begging sam peckinpah to abort her demon baby. huston's voice is just so damn epic so his constant spiels about OUTER SPACE POWERS BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION, BEGGARING YOUR COMPREHENSION are magnificent

Unfortunately, the film's strongest suit--its cheesy 70s aesthetic--only gets a minimum of screen time, and the more quotidian meat of the film wears out its welcome quickly. The interesting ensemble of veterans that comprise the supporting cast belies the dullness, tonal inconsistency, and incoherence of the script.

This movie does some things right, however, it does a lot more weirdly.

This is fucking terrible, most of the film felt like a very slow foot chase that became more confusing as time went on. Manages to rip off about a dozen far superior films from that era without being evocative in any way itself. I'd rank it even lower except it was enjoyable whenever John Huston shuffled on screen with his musical sting. Also the scene where a 13 year old girl manages to fling several older boys at Mach 3 through plate glass windows while on ice skates made me snort-laugh.

What a weird-ass movie. It's not good but I loved it.

Gandalf hunts a female Damien with the help of Jesus and some birds. The film copies "The Omen" in its use of music to bring tension to route actions, but it lacks a consistent story.

Ultimately, the film is a bit trash. But it has its moments of entertaining trash. Its like a z grade movie shot with aaa production. The little girls acting is awful, and even with the actors that can act, the writing of some scenes is laughably terrible. The pacing for what its trying too achieve is also way, WAY off, sucking the gravitas out of any of the moments. But, has merits as entertaining campy trash theater. listen to the music sans film, good stuff. Although used terribly in film.

Wildly incoherent. Very poorly acted. The score is garbage. The special effects are shit. Note to self: stop trusting Rotten Tomatoes ratings

It's alright, kinda interesting concept, hot chicks

Wow! Have to give this extra points for being very different and quite an experience. Also featured big names like Glenn Ford, Shelly Winters and John Huston. Entertaining!

There was a ton of hype about this film, but it just ended up being rather incomprehensible.

Well shot and creepy.

Crappy story, but visually interesting... doen't get enough credit for that part.