The Visitor

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🎙️ EPISODE 394: 12.16.21 *Review starts @ ~ 16:33 This is movie is a lot. This movie is, in fact... too much. It's just too much movie, folks. Sorry to break it to ya, especially y'all Visitor'79Heads, of which I am sure there are countless hordes, throngs even, probably reading right now. I owe you all an apology. You can have The Visitor (1979)... as a treat. It's OK. I checked and it's alright. You can hold it, love it, live inside it and pick it apart. It can be yours forever. It could be. It's only my — very humble — recommendation (as a movie expert) that, ultimately, it should not be. But hey let's get into this trash? hahahah goddam it

This movie begins as all great movies begin: with a title card thanking the Governor of Georgia. In so many ways, this movie is ahead of its time. It understood the genius of Steve Sommers. It knew you could never go wrong using a bird of prey as a weapon. But most importantly, it knew that it was much cheaper to make films in Atlanta than Hollywood.

Director Giulio Paradisi — working under the "I am not fucking making this up" pseudonym of Michael J. Paradise (LOL FOREVER) — begins this saga with one of the most convoluted intros/backstories you'll ever stumble upon. Basically, this is some insanely SOFT sci-fi that is going extremely HARD in the paint to make sense of a story that is essentially nonsensical. And yes that was a basketball reference and no I didn't make it for no reason.

After that insane intro, which looked a little like this...


...and insane setup, which sounded a little like this...


We get a basketball scene involving two fake teams filmed at the very real former NBA arena, the Omni (RIP) and it goes on FOREVER. In between this hot bball action, we are introduced to a few characters: the aforementioned wicked spirit descendent space demon girl and her non-demon mother, and mother's boyfriend, who just happens to own the team and gives an interview with the play-by-play guy (my boy, WFAN's own Steve Sommers in his one and sadly only movie performance) in the final seconds of regulation in a very close game, a normal thing you see all the time on sports telecasts. Oh, then demon girl and her pet hawk make the basketball explode as time runs out. But don't worry, this is never addressed or brought up again...


This is not really a movie which gives a shit if you have any idea what's going on. If you can accept that early on, you'll likely have an OK time with it. And if you embrace it, well, sky's the limit, pal.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS (HIGHLIGHTS?) INCLUDE! ...

Demon girl threatening to kill her babysitter...


John Huston as "The Visitor" (good guy alien) with the title drop...


Demon girl accidentally shooting and paralyzing her mother (there is a gun in one of her birthday presents, it's never explained, don't worry about it)...


Demon girl riding her mom's new staircase chair in creepy demon girl fashion...


Demon girl telling the cop investigating the shooting to go fuck himself and calls him a child molester...


Demon girl summoning her hawk to peck out said cop's eye while he's driving and kill him in a horrible wreck...


I don't know. Then a bunch of other shit happens. It's honestly pretty boring at times. But the child actor playing demon girl is terrific. And it has plenty of "Oh, there's that old ass actor!" moments too (see actor tags above).

One of the funniest (and stupidest) conceits here, and really the glue that holds together "the plot" is the fact that the bad guys don't think demon girl is powerful enough to carry out their evil plans because she's a female (lol) and so their entire motivation revolves around needing demon girl's mom to produce a son instead. In that sense, this is actual a female empowerment film. That's right, folks.

In the end, John Huston is able to summon the good alien birds (?) and they turn into flying stone birds with spikes for beaks and they kill the Atlanta Rebels owner and maim demon girl who like loses her power or something and she ends up as just another bald kid on that planet from the beginning of the movie...


It's best moments are pretty damn good and funny and there are few fantastic shots/set pieces, but there's just too much slog and filler, not to mention the overall unholy mess of a screenplay. It's like some kind of shitty giallo flick had a baby with a lesser Philip K. Dick paperback and then that baby tried to cash in on the success of the The Exorcist and The Omen.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 394A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 395 ⫸

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