Talkin' RiffTrax: THE VISITOR

Hi everyone, Mike here.

We screened The Visitor quite a while ago at one of our RiffTrax houses in Nashville after a long day of rehearsing for a live show. I can only assume a number among us were already into the barbecue and bourbon at that point, feeling all happy and Nashville-y, so I believe we said "yes" to it without a lot of objection.

Cut to us a year or so later, when we actually have to write it: it felt like waking up after a bachelor party, rubbing your eyes, trying to get some moisture into your mouth, looking around at all the screeners scattered on the floor of your hotel room and thinking, "Wait—? Did we say yes to The Visitor last night? [long beat] Noooo. We didn't. We couldn't have."

Turns out we did. Enjoy!

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Kevin chimes in:

Okay, here’s what kills me about this movie - that is, beyond the utter madness of the plot, or series of events, or mad scrambling of words that someone tried to convert into moving images - it’s the cast! 

Lance Henriksen, perennial skull-faced baddie; Shelly Winters, for whom the word “histrionics” was invented (don’t Google it); Glenn Ford, he of 3:10 to Yuma who I thought of as Hollywood aristocracy until I read his bio (DO google it); Sam Pekinpah, he of The Wild Bunches and the Straw Dogs and the Heads of Alfredo Garcia; John Friggin’ Huston, Oscar-studded Hollywood Auteur, who gets a lot of passes for directing The African Queen and The Maltese Falcon. And wait, is that Franco Nero dropping a cameo as Space Jesus?!

And yet this film is the result. This pile of Italian hash. All I can guess is that these actors had a great time barreling around Rome and enjoying wine-soaked lunches on someone else’s nickel, while occasionally dropping into Cinecittà Studios to deliver their lines.  

In the end, the best performance by far is that of Paige Conner who’s very effective as the creepy, evil alien-possessed little girl Katy. Makes me chuckle that this casting juggernaut was consistently out-acted by a kid whose only other role until then was in The Night They Robbed Big Bertha’s. Apparently Paige retired from acting and now runs Luxury Lash Lounge, an eyelash extension business in Atlanta. Good for you, Paige.  

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Hello! Bill here.

As is often the case with movies that pit universal Good vs. apocalyptic Evil, I still have questions.

So roll with me. You're a divine, Christ-like being who sees an overwhelming darkness about to engulf Earth, aided and abetted by a cabal of evil rich humans. Do you send a legion of powerful space-angels to smite them?

Nope. You send John Huston. Tired, old-as-hell John Huston: shuffling around Atlanta, making up dumb strategy as he goes, wearing the same kind of "mid-20th century movie director safari suit" you'd 100% expect mid-20th-century movie director John Huston to wear. (And this is his only costume. He wears it the whole movie—as much time passes, other people have multiple changes of clothes. Dear readers, it comes off as crusty, slept-in, and smelly.)

Then you give John Huston the distinctly Polish-sounding name "Jerzy Colsowicz." Why? He speaks (and dresses, to remind you) exactly like American director John Huston, who he is. No backstory at all, no explanation for the name. Nothing. 

Also he arrives from heaven, or space-heaven, on a regular airplane. Did he swing by Poland first? We will never know.

These are a few of the 7300+ questions I have about the madness of THE VISITOR. You will have many of your own, some involving birds.  All I can say is, we understand your confusion.  Enjoy!

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