If you walked into a theater in 1979 expecting a standard Star Wars rip-off or a classy The Omen clone, you probably left feeling like your brain had been put through a blender. Honestly, there is no other way to put it. The Visitor, directed by Giulio Paradisi (under the pseudonym Michael J. Paradise), is a fever dream captured on celluloid. It’s a movie where John Huston—yes, the legendary director of The Maltese Falcon—plays a sort of intergalactic social worker who fights a telekinetic eight-year-old girl.
It makes no sense. It makes perfect sense.
The film exists in that strange, late-70s pocket where Italian production companies were throwing massive amounts of money at American stars to create "international" blockbusters. It was filmed mostly in Atlanta, Georgia. Why Atlanta? Probably because it looked modern and anonymous enough to be "Anywhere, USA," yet possessed a certain southern gothic grit that makes the supernatural elements feel even more grounded. If you've never sat through it, you're missing out on a piece of cinema that feels like it was beamed in from another dimension.
Why The Visitor (1979) Refuses to Be Categorized
Most movies pick a lane. A film is a slasher, or it’s a space opera, or it’s a religious thriller about the Antichrist. The Visitor looks at those lanes and decides to drive across all of them at once.
At its core, the plot involves an ancient, evil extraterrestrial named Sateen. Thousands of years ago, Sateen fled to Earth. Now, his DNA is manifesting in a young girl named Katy Collins, played with terrifying intensity by Paige Conner. Katy isn't just a "bad seed." She’s a conduit for a cosmic entity that wants to breed and take over the world. Opposing her is a group of bald, celestial beings led by John Huston and a very bearded Franco Nero (who plays a Jesus-like figure in space).
It sounds ridiculous. In many ways, it is. But the film’s execution is so sincere and so visually arresting that you can't look away. The cinematography by Ennio Guarnieri is lush and expansive. He uses wide angles that make the suburban Georgia settings feel cold and alien. There is a scene at a basketball game—a very real, very 1970s Atlanta Hawks game—where the supernatural forces start messing with the players and the lights. It’s chaotic. It’s loud. It feels like the world is actually ending in the middle of a sports arena.
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A Cast That Honestly Shouldn't Be There
One of the most baffling things about the The Visitor (1979) is the sheer caliber of the acting talent. This isn't a low-budget indie with a bunch of nobodies. Look at this roster:
- John Huston: An Academy Award winner.
- Shelley Winters: Two-time Academy Award winner.
- Glenn Ford: A Golden Era Hollywood legend.
- Lance Henriksen: The future star of Aliens and Millennium.
- Sam Peckinpah: One of the most influential directors in history, appearing here as an actor.
Why were they there? Money, sure. But there’s also a sense that they were game for the madness. Shelley Winters plays a foul-mouthed housekeeper who gets into a literal physical altercation with the demonic child. Lance Henriksen plays the mother’s boyfriend, who is secretly part of a cult of businessmen trying to ensure the girl reproduces. He is creepy, sleek, and perfectly cast. Seeing Peckinpah—the man who directed The Wild Bunch—playing a character named Sam Collins is the kind of meta-weirdness that only 1970s genre cinema provides.
The Bizarre Visual Language
Paradisi doesn't use standard horror tropes. Instead of shadows and jump scares, he uses light and birds. Lots of birds. Domesticated hawks and pigeons are used as messengers and weapons. In one of the film's most famous (and disturbing) sequences, Katy receives a "gift" that turns out to be a bird that proceeds to attack her mother. It’s edited with a frantic, jarring rhythm that makes you feel genuinely uneasy.
The soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi is equally unhinged. It’s a mix of disco-infused funk, sweeping orchestral themes, and eerie electronic chirps. It shouldn't work. It does. It gives the film a momentum that covers up the fact that the narrative logic is, frankly, falling apart at the seams.
The 2013 Resurrection and Why It Matters Now
For decades, this movie was a "lost" relic. You could find grainy VHS rips or edited TV versions, but the full madness wasn't available to the general public. That changed in 2013 when Drafthouse Films rescued it. They restored the negative and put it back in theaters.
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Suddenly, a new generation of film nerds discovered what they had been missing. It wasn't just a "so bad it's good" movie. It was something else. It was visionary.
The film fits into a subgenre often called "Euro-trash," but that's a bit of a misnomer here. While it has the fingerprints of Italian exploitation—the gore, the derivative plot points from The Omen and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—it has a soul of its own. It’s an American story told through a psychedelic European lens. When you watch the scene where John Huston sits on a rooftop surrounded by dozens of bald children as they prepare to fight a cosmic war, you realize this isn't just a knock-off. It’s an artist trying to explain the universe through the medium of a horror flick.
Dealing with the Plot Holes
Let's be real: the plot has holes big enough to fly a mothership through. The movie never really explains why the bald space-men are bald, or why the evil Sateen chose this specific family in Atlanta. There are characters who appear and disappear without much explanation.
But does it matter? Not really. The Visitor (1979) operates on dream logic. If you try to map out the "lore" like a modern Marvel movie, you’re going to have a bad time. If you accept it as a series of powerful, disturbing, and beautiful images, it’s one of the most rewarding viewing experiences in the genre. It’s about the feeling of being hunted by something you can’t see. It’s about the terror of motherhood when your child is a monster. It’s about the cosmic indifference of the universe.
Technical Mastery in the Pre-CGI Era
We live in a world of digital pixels now. If a girl flies across a room today, it’s a wire and a computer. In 1979, it was practical effects. The "dimension" scenes in the film involve mirrors, smoke, and clever lighting. They hold up surprisingly well because they have a physical weight to them.
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The climax of the film is a masterclass in "what the hell am I looking at?" It involves a white room, a lot of birds, and some of the most frantic editing you'll ever see. It’s rhythmic. It’s pulsing. It feels like a music video from a planet that hasn't discovered MTV yet. This kind of practical ingenuity is what makes the movie a staple for film historians and cult enthusiasts. They weren't just making a movie; they were trying to out-weird the Americans on their own turf.
How to Approach Watching The Visitor
If you're going to dive in, you need the right mindset. This isn't a movie for "background noise." You have to watch it. You have to see the strange fashion, the 70s interior design, and the way Glenn Ford looks like he’s wondering where his career went while he’s being interrogated by a detective about a supernatural shooting.
Real Insight: The best way to watch this is the Drafthouse Films Blu-ray or a high-quality stream. Don't settle for a low-res version. The colors—the deep reds and the sterile blues—are essential to the experience.
- Look for the Atlanta landmarks: If you know the city, seeing the Omni Coliseum and the older skyline is a trip.
- Focus on the sound: The Foley work is bizarre. Every footstep and every bird chirp is amplified.
- Don't look for a sequel: There isn't one, and there shouldn't be. This is a singular event.
Actionable Steps for the Aspiring Cinephile
If you want to understand the context of The Visitor (1979) and similar "International Italian" films, here is what you should do:
- Watch "Starcrash" (1978): It’s the sci-fi equivalent to this film's horror. It shows how Italian filmmakers were interpreting American blockbuster culture at the time.
- Research the "Omen" knock-off era: To see where the DNA of the "evil child" trope comes from, look at Beyond the Door (1974), another Italian-American hybrid.
- Track down the soundtrack: Franco Micalizzi’s score is genuinely great music. It works as a standalone funk/prog-rock album.
- Read up on the Drafthouse restoration: Understanding how a film goes from a "lost" 35mm print to a cult classic is a fascinating lesson in film preservation.
The legacy of this film isn't that it was a hit—it wasn't. Its legacy is its audacity. It’s a reminder that movies can be weird, confusing, and visually stunning all at once. In an era of predictable franchise cinema, The Visitor stands as a beacon for the truly bizarre. It’s a movie that asks for nothing but your undivided attention and a willingness to believe that John Huston can fight aliens in downtown Atlanta. It’s a tall order, but for those who love the strange, it’s a perfect meal.