The Visitor (1979)Legends about the battle between the forces of good and evil come in many forms, depicted through symbols and abstractions, and representing different things to different people. The Visitor (1979) is a supernatural horror film about a secret war being waged by the descendants of two ancient visitors from another world. The kindly and elderly Jerzy Colsowicz (John Huston) is on a mission by the forces of good to reclaim a malicious child named Katy Collins (Paige Conner). Katy has been given dark powers and aids a shadowy conspiracy to get her mother, Barbara (Joanne Nail), pregnant with a child that is prophesied to be an even more diabolical force of evil.
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Directed by Giulio Paradisi (credited as Michael J. Paradise), The Visitor begins with a vivid confrontation between Jerzy and a figure in a full body cloak and mask--later revealed to be Katy--against the backdrop of some alien world--ochre-tinged clouds ooze by and the atmosphere drenches everything in a luminescent patina, while a snowstorm whips about. After this ominous scene, a Christ-like speaker (Franco Nero) in an almost all-white room gives exposition while surrounded by serene children with shaved heads. The speaker describes how millennia ago, there was battle between an evil invader called Zatteen--which sounds a lot like "Satan"--and the commander of a starcraft called "Captain Yahweh". Zatteen escaped to Earth, where he was eventually slain by an armada of birds sent by Yahweh, but not before impregnating many Earth women, ensuring his evil legacy through a secret bloodline of Nephilim-like progeny. The prophecy tells that these descendants will rise up to take revenge for their fallen ancestor, and so the descendants of Yahweh remain vigilant to prevent the apocalypse. The ancient legend possesses a kind of New Age mystique, and it is necessary to consider the cosmic conspiracy at work when justifying the strange and bizarre events happening in modern day Atlanta, Georgia. Barbara has begun a relationship with a man named Raymond (Lance Henriksen), who is the owner of an Atlanta basketball team and is secretly involved with an Illuminati-like collective of power elite. This secret society is headed by the enigmatic Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer), who tasks Raymond with impregnating Barbara, who is still recovering after the divorce from her first husband, Dr. Sam Collins (Sam Peckinpah). Although never explicitly stated, it is understood that Katy is aware of the conspiracy and manipulates events to Raymond's benefit when possible--from sabotaging protracted basketball games to ensure his team's victory or openly encouraging her mother to sleep with Raymond and give her a "baby brother". After a freak accident at Katy's birthday party leaves Barbara crippled from the waist down, a housekeeper named Jane Phillips (Shelley Winters) comes to take care of her. Jane is keenly aware that Katy is trouble, and goes so far as to violently reprimand her in the throes of her wanton misbehavior.
Comparisons have been made between The Visitor and The Omen, namely in how Katy is portrayed as a terribly misbehaved adolescent--the female equivalent of Damien Thorn. She is completely devoid of empathy and addresses Barbara as "mother" with a hint of derision in her faint Southern drawl. When Katy's gymnastics instructor asks about how Barbara is doing after the accident, Katy flatly states that she won't die, but "just won't be able to walk anymore"--hardly the kind of statement a normal child would say about her mother after a near-death experience. Despite Barbara's role in the conspiracy to beget an Antichrist-like brother to Katy, she is abused, beaten, and nearly killed at multiple intervals. One of Barbara's friends buys Katy a creepy peacock statuette for her birthday that utters "I'm a pretty bird" over and over; but when Katy opens her gift, it turns out to be a loaded gun, which Katy carelessly tosses onto a table, causing it to go off and shoot her mother in the lower spine. The event baffles the police--including Detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford)--who investigates the case at his peril. After approaching Katy one morning on the way to school, he is treated to an abhorrent display of rudeness and cursing from the sweet-looking lass, and is later attacked by Katy's pet falcon--punishment for his poking his nose into the conspiracy. Dr. Walker and his fellow evil schemers are unusual for a collective of power brokers--they are unusually impatient for Barbara to have another child, accusing Raymond of taking too long in his seduction. Their backup plan is to abduct Barbara after her car is made to break down, in a mysterious scene with a semi-truck that resembles the alien ships from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The forced pregnancy of Barbara--and an equally mysterious visit by Jerzy to tell her about it--fills Barbara with palpable dread and terror reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby. The ominous presence of birds is a reoccurring motif in The Visitor--from the ancient legends to Katy's bird of prey, which is akin to the rottweiler from The Omen, acting as an executor of Katy's demonic will. The climactic finale of The Visitor also shares similarities with Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, representing them as being an inscrutable force of nature that are capable of achieving staggering results when working together. (Coincidentally, a flock of ravens is known as a "conspiracy", giving the bird motif in The Visitor an extra dimension.)
Recommended for: Fans of a psychedelia-infused blend of suspense and paranoia that dominated films like it in the Seventies. The Visitor and its conspiracy-thick supernatural plot is best suited for an audience that is willing to abandon logic in favor of the dream-like pacing and the trippy visuals.
Comparisons have been made between The Visitor and The Omen, namely in how Katy is portrayed as a terribly misbehaved adolescent--the female equivalent of Damien Thorn. She is completely devoid of empathy and addresses Barbara as "mother" with a hint of derision in her faint Southern drawl. When Katy's gymnastics instructor asks about how Barbara is doing after the accident, Katy flatly states that she won't die, but "just won't be able to walk anymore"--hardly the kind of statement a normal child would say about her mother after a near-death experience. Despite Barbara's role in the conspiracy to beget an Antichrist-like brother to Katy, she is abused, beaten, and nearly killed at multiple intervals. One of Barbara's friends buys Katy a creepy peacock statuette for her birthday that utters "I'm a pretty bird" over and over; but when Katy opens her gift, it turns out to be a loaded gun, which Katy carelessly tosses onto a table, causing it to go off and shoot her mother in the lower spine. The event baffles the police--including Detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford)--who investigates the case at his peril. After approaching Katy one morning on the way to school, he is treated to an abhorrent display of rudeness and cursing from the sweet-looking lass, and is later attacked by Katy's pet falcon--punishment for his poking his nose into the conspiracy. Dr. Walker and his fellow evil schemers are unusual for a collective of power brokers--they are unusually impatient for Barbara to have another child, accusing Raymond of taking too long in his seduction. Their backup plan is to abduct Barbara after her car is made to break down, in a mysterious scene with a semi-truck that resembles the alien ships from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The forced pregnancy of Barbara--and an equally mysterious visit by Jerzy to tell her about it--fills Barbara with palpable dread and terror reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby. The ominous presence of birds is a reoccurring motif in The Visitor--from the ancient legends to Katy's bird of prey, which is akin to the rottweiler from The Omen, acting as an executor of Katy's demonic will. The climactic finale of The Visitor also shares similarities with Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, representing them as being an inscrutable force of nature that are capable of achieving staggering results when working together. (Coincidentally, a flock of ravens is known as a "conspiracy", giving the bird motif in The Visitor an extra dimension.)
Recommended for: Fans of a psychedelia-infused blend of suspense and paranoia that dominated films like it in the Seventies. The Visitor and its conspiracy-thick supernatural plot is best suited for an audience that is willing to abandon logic in favor of the dream-like pacing and the trippy visuals.