When I saw the trailer for The Visitor I knew I had to see it, it looked like a glorious mess and it didn't disappoint. This Italian financed film is a hodge podge of story elements that feels unfinished even in its completed form. It's an unfocused, metaphysical, extremely 70's exploitation film with a Love Boat's worth of aging Hollywood stars. The cosmology that underwrites the story isn't shown on film, but is explained, by Jesus Christ no less (played Italian star and filmdom's first Django, Franco Nero). Eons ago a mutant criminal escaped from a prison space ship and fled to earth, only to be defeated by Caption Yahweh and an army of birds. Before the villains demise however he mated with numerous earth woman, insuring that periodically a woman would be born capable of bearing super powerful children with a propensity for evil. A secret order headed by Captain Yahweh's decedents keeps an eye out for these little anti-Christ's, finds and apprehends them, and takes them to the next world so Jesus can personally rehabilitate them.
In the 1970's the head of this order is a Polish tailor named Jerzy Colsowic (the great John Huston in a bit of inspired casting) who travels to Atlanta to apprehend the newest evil tyke, eight year old Katy Collins (Paige Conner). Katy's divorced mother Barbara (the very beautiful Joanne Nail) is being romanced by a the owner of basketball team (Lance Henriksen in an early role) who is working for a mysterious group seemingly headed by a doctor played by Mel Ferrer, who want to use him to breed more super powered children with Barbara for their nefarious purposes. Barbara however knows there is something rather off about her daughter and doesn't want to have more children, a view likely reinforced after little Katy "accidently" shots her in the lower spine leaving her paralyzed. Glenn Ford is an Atlanta Police detective investigating the "accident" who suspects Katy shot her mother deliberately, Shelley Winters is the nanny/maid who Barbara hires to help around the house after the accident, and Sam Peckinpah (best known for directing violent westerns) is Barbara's saintly doctor father. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also has a cameo as himself.
You should know by now if sitting through a film this weird would be something for you or not, I personally rather enjoyed the unrepentant oddness of the proceedings. The film does have stretches were surprisingly little happens, but it always ends up punctuated by something entirely out of left field. I've watched this movie twice so far, and I don't know what the filmmakers were thinking or how this movie even got made, but I'm glad it did. ***
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