There are so many
mind-meltingly weird elements in the sci-fi/horror epic The Visitor that it’s difficult to do the film justice with a brief
description. Put simply, the movie is a vague rip-off of The Omen, concerning the efforts of a heroic character to prevent a
malevolent child from unleashing something terrible. Accordingly, The Visitor has the requisite scenes of
a wholesome-looking young girl using her supernatural powers—or simply her bare
hands—to inflict violence. And while the true strangeness of The Visitor stems from the chaotic
storytelling, maniacal style, and WTF plot complications, even the central
premise gets tarted up in a way that ensures audience bewilderment.
Because,
you see, it’s not just that little Katy Collins (Paige Conner) is some sort of
devil child who must be killed in order to protect the universe. No, the
problem is that Katy’s innocent mother, pretty Atlanta divorcée Barbara Collins
(Joanne Nail), has a womb that breeds superkids, so conspirators led by mysterious
surgeon Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer) have positioned Barbara’s boyfriend, Raymond
(Lance Henriksen), to push Barbara into marriage and a second pregnancy so she
can breed a son, because together with Katy, the son will comprise the demonic
equivalent of the Wonder Twins. Got all that? Good, since there’s more!
Stalking Barbara and Katy is grandfatherly space alien Jerzy Colsowicz (John
Huston), who leads a band of bald alien musclemen who spend most of their time
doing the equivalent of interpretive dance while standing behind scrims atop an
Atlanta rooftop. Interstellar performance-art alert! Jerzy chases Barbara and
Katy around downtown Atlanta, even though Katy tries to use her telekinetic
abilities to kill him, and Jerzy spends one evening in the Collins home by
announcing he’s the babysitter sent by an employment agency because the regular
girl is sick. After all, don’t most of us welcome 70-year-old men into our
homes to watch over our prepubescent daughters while we’re away? Oh, and we
still haven’t mentioned the never-seen aunt who gives Katy a loaded pistol for
her birthday, or that Katy accidentally shoots and paralyzes her mother. And
then there’s crazed nanny Jane (Shelley Winters), who slaps Katy around because
she knows that Katy is evil. Is it even worth noting that the plot also
includes an intrepid police detective (Glenn Ford) and a silent longhair who
may or may not be Jesus (Franco Nero)?
The
Visitor is gonzo right from the opening scene, a trippy special-effects
vignette showing Huston in some otherworldly environment with oddly colored
liquid skies. Among the film’s myriad bizarre episodes are the following: Katy
uses her telekinesis to sway an NBA game by causing a basketball to explode;
Jerzy has some sort of orgasmic interaction with a radioactive space cloud full
of birds; a scene of spinal surgery gets intercut with a gymnastics routine;
and famed movie director Sam Peckinpah shows up for one scene, in silhouette,
to play a medical doctor. Accentuating all of this bizarre content is
disjointed editing that makes everything seem hallucinatory, and lots of
operatic disco music. You’ve been warned.
The Visitor: FREAKY
3 comments:
I love this Film. I mean it. Absolute pure unconditional love. The only faults it has are two scenes that for some reason they never thought of filming.
Orson Welles tap dancing whilst dressed as a Benedictine Monk, and Raquel Welch breast feeding a brood of super intelligent evil wolves.
Now if they had only got those scenes in it might have made a bit more sense.
Exactly.
"After all, don’t most of us welcome 70-year-old men into our homes to watch over our prepubescent daughters while we’re away?"
Um, yeah, plus extra-specially not this particular one, for anyone who's seen Chinatown!!
What a wacky flick! ... Still processing! ...
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