A 1979 Italian/American co-production, this trashy pastiche is both SHAMELESSLY commercial and pretentiously arty. Like Peter Jackson's G-rated/R-rated The Frighteners, The Visitor borrows heavily from other films, while maintaining an unusual tone all its own. Pretty much, it's a retread of all those beloved devil-child movies from the 70's, with Close Encounters of the Third Kind - minus its sentimentality - thrown into the mix. And what a heady mix it is -- guaranteed to evoke drunken laughter like only the strongest cocktails can!

The film begins by introducing Sateen, a cosmic fugitive bent on rage and destruction. He is being  heroically pursued by Yaved, some sort of divine sheriff of the cosmos, who sends out his psychically-annihilating flock of birds to destroy his nemesis. Before the birds eventually do their job, Sateen escapes to Earth – he ends up fucking some women, therefore spreading his interstellar seed. All this information is revealed in the first five minutes of the film, via a silly expository monologue spoken by some Christ-figure to his pupils, a bunch of bald-headed alien kids. The film then cuts to Atlanta, Georgia, where one of Sateen’s progeny, Katy Collins, is now an 8-year-old telekinetic alien whose eyes randomly shine metallic silver. She also swears a lot like Regan from The Exorcist, but with a Southern accent. Raymond Armstead is a basketball team owner who is fucking Katy’s mother, Barbara. Raymond, along with Dr. Walker (a sinister surgeon) is part of some conglomerate that is in cahoots with the cosmic ones, so it can eventually utilize their powers for world dominance. This conglomerate wants the “genetically predisposed” Barbara to give birth to another space child, this time a son – and brother for Katy to eventually mate with (FAMILY VALUES ANYONE?!) so it can expand its clan of galactic Genghis Khans. But Barbara is reluctant to have another bratty kid … hence the film’s central dramatic conflict!!!

Regarding the actors, I thought Joanne Nail was quite touching as Katy’s mother. She basically resembles Shelley Hack from TV's Charlie’s Angels but, also, has Tanya Robert's luscious eyes. The campy abuse heaped onto her character did leave a bad taste in my mouth. Even though it’s mostly slapstick (much of the violence is shot with a "sped-up" camera, giving it an hallucinatory comic effect) it becomes hard to watch Nail being accidentally shot in the back, crippled in a wheelchair, delirious, attacked by an eagle, raped, slowly strangled via a stairway lift and a piece of wire (DON’T ASK!), rammed through an aquarium, etc. For an exploitation film, The Visitor does feature quite a few Hollywood screen legends, who must've been slumming for a paycheck: John Huston, Mel Ferrer, Shelley Winters and Glenn Ford, to name a few. Acting-wise, they pretty much just go through the motions and occasionally look (especially Huston) very confused. Paige Conner is decent, playing  The Bad Seed ... but does not display the screen confidence of Linda (The Exorcist) Blair, Harvey (The Omen) Stephens, or Martin (The Innocents) Stephens. One of the main reasons is her awkward Southern accent which I just don't equate with “eerie.” Her physical and facial acting is better ... but there are times when she tries too hard and she just comes off as an unpopular kid desperately trying to emulate the mean  popular ones. On the other hand, her performance does fit in with the whole wannabe vibe of The Visitor. 

For a film that is, in many ways, an imitation, it does have an identity of its own. Sprinkled throughout the film's generic framework of Omen-inspired accidents, is some quirky stuff: a psychedelic desert with swirling fluorescent clouds; an abandoned building's roof turned into some (what appears to be) space portal that mirrors an interplanetary light show in the sky; evil Katy watching a basketball game and causing a basketball to explode; evil Katy at a hotel ice rink, bullying some bullies with her powers; evil Katy playing Pong on the green screen of her 70's projection TV; Barbara being raped in the back of a Christmas light-encrusted truck resembling a UFO; a montage of a crippled Barbara being rehabilitated, cross-cut with Katy doing gymnastics; some misplaced disco-fueled music that sounds like it came from both a game show and a 70's action flick; evil Katy’s fucked up Southern accent; the cinematography’s filtered hazy look; and, finally, evil Katy’s home - an ultra modern fortress with grey/brown/green color scheme. This art director's wet dream features diagonal beamed-balustrades, a railing-free stairway, tree-like plants and a (once again) cutting edge 70's projection TV.

With its strung-out style (think the frenzy of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), The Visitor is ultimately a film that just wants to amuse and be loved - kinda like a puppy. Only a really deformed puppy. If the boyish Ed Wood had ever lost his creative innocence and decided to go arty, The Visitor would be the stinky by-product. It's not for an unforgiving audience ... but for, I reiterate, the cultishly devoted ONLY.

My Rating: 5 out of 10