With only five helming credits to his name, Guilio Paradisi — aka the Americanized Michael J. Paradise — had an undistinguished career as a director, mostly of comedies long forgotten, if ever recipients of attention. Luckily for us, in the center of that short list stands The Visitor, a way-out blend of science fiction and horror. While Paradisi displays as artistic a touch in the Italian-made mind-melter as the budget allowed, the true guiding hand appears to belong to producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose story credit fits well within the weirdo vibe of his screenplays for Beyond the Door and Piranha Part Two: The Spawning.
In Atlanta (as in Georgia, the titles make clear), a precocious, pigtailed and potty-mouthed girl named Katy Collins (Paige Conner, Fast Food) lives in a spacious, mid-century-modern house complete with a front-projection, big-screen television on which she plays Pong. Katy looks a lot like The Exorcist‘s Regan MacNeil, but behaves more like The Omen‘s Damien Thorn. For starters, she telekinetically causes the basketball to explode in the final second of a pivotal pro game; later, at her own 8th birthday party, she “accidentally” shoots her mother, Barbara (Joanne Nail, Switchblade Sisters), with a gun, paralyzing the utterly lovely woman from the waist down.
Barbara’s delicate condition is good news for boyfriend Ray (Lance Henriksen, Alien vs. Predator), the hoops team owner tasked by some super-secret, super-wealthy organization to marry the woman so that he can put a baby in her. See, although Barbara doesn’t know it, her womb is special in that it can “give birth to children with immense powers.” Even kreepy Katy encourages Mom to do some cushion-pushin’ so Ray can dump his seed and give her a little brother.
More insanity is to be plumbed from The Visitor, including vengeful ice skaters, flocks of killer birds and interdimensional warriors who work for Jesus Christ (an unbilled Franco Nero, Django). Legendary director John Huston (The African Queen) plays one of those angels and is just one of many old-age Hollywood personalities taking a lire-converted paycheck, including Glenn Ford (1978’s Superman) as a detective, Mel Ferrer (Nightmare City) and The Wild Bunch director Sam Peckinpah as doctors, and Shelley Winters (Lolita) as a new nanny who, despite being Caucasian and far from indentured, likes to sing “Shortnin’ Bread.”
This interesting casting is right in line with the ambitious (but not always successful) story’s hallucinogenic visuals and narrative hysterics that forever threaten to go into panic mode. So insane it should be committed, The Visitor isn’t worth watching once. It requires multiple viewings. —Rod Lott
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