Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

The Visitor Blu-ray Movie Review

Please Phone Home and Go There

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 3, 2014

One man's trash may be another's treasure, but some films are both at the same time. Such is the case with the 1979 curiosity The Visitor (also known as Stridulum), which was cut to ribbons by its original American distributor and gradually attained cult status in the following years. Horror publisher Code Red issued the full-length version on DVD in 2010, but now Drafthouse Films has acquired the rights and is releasing what is billed as a restoration on Blu-ray, after a theatrical run in 2013.

Unlike, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space, which is clearly the work of an auteur with an identifiable style, The Visitor seems to have arisen from some sort of collective unconscious of cinematic inspiration (if you're a fan) or incompetence (if you're not). But in either case it has a train wreck fascination, at least in part because it features such major talents as John Huston, Glenn Ford, Shelly Winters, Mel Ferrer, Lance Henriksen, Franco Nero and, in a single scene, director Sam Peckinpah (who was supposed to have a bigger part, but couldn't remember his lines). The impresario behind the project was producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, a prolific creator of shlock whose chief claim to fame was firing James Cameron from Piranha 2: The Spawning, during which Cameron experienced the fever dream that became The Terminator.

According to screenwriter Lou Comici, Assonitis started with the general idea of ripping off The Exorcist. But he'd hired a director, Giulio Paradisi (renamed "Michael J. Paradise" for more American-friendly credits), who'd started as an A.D. to Fellini on 8½ (and would never let anyone forget it). Paradisi popped with ideas for weird visuals, none of which connected to a story. After doing what he could to satisfy the conflicting demands of Paradisi and Assonitis, Comici was fired. Fragments of his screenplay survive in The Visitor, along with contributions by another screenwriter, Robert Mundi, plus whatever the unfortunate editor was able to construct from the clash of wills between Paradisi and Assonitis. The resulting melange looks more like the first two Omen films than The Exorcist, mixed with generous helpings of Rosemary's Baby, The Birds, bits of The Fury and imagery from a low-rent version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Does any of it fit together? Not really. Then again, people said the same thing about 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Not so long ago in a galaxy far, far away, a Christ-like teacher played by Franco Nero (the original Django) tells a room full of bald-headed children The Visitor's version of good vs. evil. It goes on longer than the opening crawl of all six Star Wars films combined and concerns a vile mutant called "Sateen" (get it?), who is ultimately defeated by an army of birds (don't ask). But the evil lives on and routinely attempts to reassert itself, just like Voldemort, Sauron, the Dark Side of the Force and comic book franchise films. The session is interrupted by the Visitor (John Huston), who will later give his name as "Jerzy Colsowicz". He announces that the latest sighting of Sateen's evil has been confirmed. It's an eight-year-old girl in Atlanta, Georgia. He will be leaving immediately.

Why Atlanta? Mostly for practical reasons. The production didn't have to use union labor there; the mayor and state governor offered tax incentives; and Ted Turner was willing to make his basketball team and mansion available for filming. When the Visitor arrives on Earth (by unknown means) and in Atlanta (by airplane), he joins a group of bald-headed adults to establish a base on the roof of an abandoned building. The base appears to be intended as a landing zone, and the Visitor spends many nights scanning the skies.

Meanwhile, the little girl in question, Katy Collins (Paige Conner), is a smirking brat, whose powers include telekinesis, cursing and possibly the ability to transmute energy into matter and back again. She lives with her pet hawk and her divorced mother, Barbara Collins (Joanne Nail, Switchblade Sisters), who doesn't want to have more children, because, despite her love for Katy, she can't escape dark suspicions that there's something wrong with the kid. (Maybe it's because she's an eight-year-old girl who keeps a vicious bird of prey as a pet.) Barbara's boyfriend, Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen), proposes marriage, but she won't hear of it. Raymond has his own interests. The new owner of the Atlanta Sentinels' basketball team, he is being funded by a shadowy organization of Sateen worshippers headed by Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer), who have given him the mission of impregnating Barbara. All of her progeny will carry Sateen's power, and they want her to have a son.

As the Visitor stalks Katy Collins, various potential victims cross her path. One is her mother's sister, unsuspecting Aunt Susan (actress unknown). Another is the police detective, Jake Durham (Ford), who investigates a suspicious shooting at Katy's birthday party. Yet a third possible target is the new housekeeper, Jane Phillips (Winters), who immediately spots Katy as a "bad" kid. If there's any suspense to The Visitor (and there isn't much), it's wondering who will fall victim to Katy's deadly powers.

The Visitor is full of false starts, sharp changes in direction and plot points abruptly discarded. Peckinpah's one scene as Barbara's former husband should actually conclude a crucial subplot (at least I think it should), but the editor didn't have the footage to make clear what happens. At least one character who should be dead is miraculously alive at the end. With much indulgence, the right frame of mind and, possibly, the ingestion of a mind-altering substance, it may be possible to discern a meaning in all of this, but good luck explaining it to anyone. Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson, a true fan of The Visitor, has provided an entire essay about the film with this Blu-ray release, and even he doesn't try to explain it. Carlson is savvy enough to understand that it's the kind of film that makes its own converts. Either you get it or you don't.

I never know how to score a film like The Visitor. As a piece of professional filmmaking, it's inept, but when a movie attains true cult status, such standards no longer apply. Miami Connection, which Drafthouse released in 2012, struck me as a cult classic someone was trying to manufacture, but The Visitor had attained that status long before Drafthouse acquired it. I'm splitting the difference at 2.5, but the rating truly is meaningless. Judge for yourself.

The Visitor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Drafthouse has not indicated the source for their restoration of The Visitor, but judging from the image on their 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, the source was a print, not the negative, and it was in rough shape. More than a few scratches, nicks, pockmarks and splotches remain, but much has also been cleaned and repaired, because the stability of the image and the color are remarkable. No one will mistake The Visitor for a film shot recently, especially since its many opticals are often grainy in a manner that has all but disappeared in today's world of CG compositing. But it certainly doesn't look like a faded 35mm antique from a revival house. The whites of the Visitor's home world are bright; the colors in Atlanta—at the Sentinels game, in the Collins household, even in the seedy part of downtown Atlanta where Katy and the Visitor play a game of cat-and-mouse—are varied and vivid; and the blacks, while not the best I've seen, are strong enough to keep the image reasonably detailed.

The major issue with the image, other than the condition of the source elements, is the soft, somewhat grainy appearance that probably results from working with an element several steps removed from the OCN. This is probably the best that The Visitor has ever looked, and it may be the best that it ever will, but in long and even medium shots, the detail is significantly less resolved than one typically sees in films from this era. Close-ups typically fare much better, unless they involve opticals (e.g., the shots of the Visitor watching the skies from his rooftop HQ). For purposes of this review and its video score, I am assuming that Drafthouse extracted everything they could from the source. Until someone finds a better element, this appears to be the standard.

Drafthouse has mastered The Visitor on a BD-25 with an average bitrate of 19.99 Mbps. The number is somewhat low, but the film does have enough still, talky scenes to allow a compressionist to conserve bandwidth for the more demanding passages. If there were compression artifacts, I missed them in the phantasmagoria.

The Visitor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Visitor was released in mono, which has been reproduced here in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. Unfortunately, lossless treatment cannot do anything to improve the quality of a track that is shrill and fatiguing at the high end. I recommend reducing the volume below your usual listening level. The score by Franco Micalizzi (whose music was heard most recently on the soundtrack of Django Unchained) combines a traditional orchestra with a synthesizer, but the original recording is simply too limited in its dynamic range to make for pleasant listening in a home theater at contemporary levels. The voices are clear and intelligible, although they often have the disembodied quality that will be familiar to any viewer of Italian cinema from the Sixties and Seventies.

The Visitor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Star Lance Henriksen (1080p; 1.85:1; 9:02): Henriksen gives a frank and entertaining interview about the wild ride of making The Visitor. His account of seeing the film for the first time at a Times Square theater with a group of actor friends is hilarious. Among other things, a patron yelled from the balcony: "I want my money back!"



• Interview with Screenwriter Lou Comici (1080p; 1.85:1; 9:10): Comici explains that he was hired because Assonitis needed a writer who spoke both English and Italian and could therefore act as translator between him and Paradisi. As a result, Comici became a pawn in the political battle between producer and director. He was fired as soon as he finished his draft, of which he reads the first page at the conclusion of the interview.



• Interview with Cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri (1080p; 1.85:1; 4:26): Guarnieri's interview focuses on practical items, such as the composition of his crew and their shooting techniques. He was particularly impressed with the quality of the cast. In Italian with English subtitles.



• Trailers
• The Visitor
• Miami Connection
• Wake in Fright
• Ms. 45
• Trailer War
• Drafthouse Alliance



• Booklet: Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson provides both a history and an appreciation of The Visitor.

The Visitor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As should be obvious by now, The Visitor failed to win me over, but I enjoyed watching performers of the caliber of Huston, Winters, Ford, Ferrer and Henriksen work to make something out of nothing. As for the plot, if you can call it that, it's fascinating to watch it twist, turn, double back and forget where it's going. Then again, in this era of shameless remakes, maybe The Visitor's time has come. Put a mask on the character, rename him after some minor comic book hero, and a major studio would have a summer tentpole. I'm not going to make a recommendation. If you're a fan of gonzo cinema, you already know you want this.