Today, Drafthouse Films announced the acquisition of North American rights to ’70s phantasmagoric sci-fi/horror/action(/other genre we can’t think of) hybrid The Visitor. Legendary Hollywood director/actor John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) stars as an intergalactic warrior fighting alongside a cosmic Jesus like figure against a demonic eight-year-old girl and her pet hawk (yes you read that right), as the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. A new HD restoration from the original film materials is planned for a theatrical, home video and multi Video On Demand/Digital platform release later in the year.
It was during the dawn of the American blockbusters in the ’70s that European production companies began to emerge stateside, attempting to recreate box office gold by cloning Hollywood. There was the infamous Supreme Court-banned Jaws copy “Great White”, The Exorcist-esque “Beyond The Door” and countless others that were packaged for purpose of export as well as intended for the popular drive-in circuit. Producer Ovidio G. Assonitis and Director/Professional Body Builder Michael J. Paradise’s The Visitor stands as perhaps the most ambitious of all, taking its inspiration by artfully mashing together the likes of The Omen, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Rosemary’s Baby, The Birds, The Fury and of course Star Wars. And let’s not forget the cast of the film, which includes Shelley Winters (The Poseidon Adventure, Night Of The Hunter), Glenn Ford (Superman), Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Franco Nero (Django) and freakin’ Sam Peckinpah (yes THAT Sam Penkinpah)!
The resulting film is not so much a carbon copy, but rather an engaging hallucinatory and inscrutable fusion that repertory cinema programmers around the country have rediscovered for late-night bookings. “Just when you think you’ve nailed down which direction the film is heading in, it completely shatters your notion of the time-space continuum,” says LA art-house The Cinefamily.
Of course, it’s no surprise that when the film was originally released, it received poor reviews across the board from mainstream critics. TV Guide went on record as simply calling it “junk”, but now, it seems Mondo Digital put it best by stating The Visitor is “the Mount Everest of insane ’70s Italian movies”.
“This film is from another time, another place and another wholly different dimension,” says Drafthouse Films Creative Director Evan Husney, “and contains the highest JDPM (jaw-drops-per-minute) ratio out of any movie we have ever encountered. The Visitor is a repertory mainstay at the Alamo Drafthouse and is truly one of the most joyfully delirious theatrical experiences we’ve unleashed on our audiences. The world wasn’t ready for this film in 1979, and it still may not be. Regardless, we are ecstatic to be able to reintroduce cinema’s most colossally bizarro achievement. Ever.”
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'70s Italian cinema Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Drafthouse Films Franco Nero Glenn Ford John Huston Lance Henriksen Rosemary's Baby Sam Peckinpah Shelley Winters Star Wars The Birds The Fury The Omen The VisitorYou Might Also Like
