The Visitor (1979) - Giulio Paradisi

Giulio Paradisi's The Visitor is a film I would classify as cinematic delirium, an Italian production made for American audiences that features flashy style and endearing oddness, where narrative coherence is far from its strong suit.  For those not familiar, in the 1970s European production companies were emerging in the United States, attempting to capitalize on American audiences' thirst for Hollywood type productions.  Making copycat-style films, with their own Italian cinematic flair, The Visitor is such an example, telling the tale of an intergalactic warrior? who travels the cosmos to battle demonic possessive forces who tend to reside in young children, most recently a Katie, an 8-year-old girl living in Atlanta.  The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, with John Huston's intergalactic warrior joining up with what can only be described as a cosmic Christ who battle with forces of evil, who also have an interest in power Katy possesses.  By-far the most ambitious of these types of Italian productions, The Visitor's battle for young Katy is a not-at-all subtle parable about the innocence of youth, with the forces of good and evil contending over her soul.  The Visitor is a film that goes for broke, with some fantastic direction and cinematography that give the whole experience a lot of gravitas.  There is an early scene in the movie at an NBA Professional basketball team because one of the characters, played by Lance Henricksen's, Raymond Armstead, owns the Atlanta team.  The reason I bring this scene up is I'm not sure i've ever seen a more visceral sequence centered around a sporting event in movies, especially in basketball, with the filmmakers kinetic camera work, sound design, and execution capturing the visceral excitement of a close game in sports.  While the narrative of The Visitor is rather straightforward, the story is confonding and borderline incoherent at times, though I'd still go as far as to say that The Visitor is a great example of filmmaking that manages to create a lot out of a very little, with the film using image, light, and sound to deliver an outerworldly feeling with energy and vigor.  The Visitor is the type of film with a lot of unintentionally funny moments and cheesy aspects but that is what makes the film so endearing, as the filmmaker's passion for the material is felt in nearly every frame.  It's extravagant, flashy, and bold, as the filmmakers go all out in creating their supernatural, cosmic experience which draws inspiration from a ton of Hollywood hits such as The Birds, Rosemary's Baby, and The Omen to name a few. While few would argue that The Visitor is odd, strange, and somewhat a mess, there is no denying the visceral power of this strange film, a beautiful looking movie that provides a feast of delicious imagery.

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