Arrow Video: The Visitor (1979) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Arrow Video

Sometime around 2013, Drafthouse Films acquired and rereleased Giulio Paradisi’s (and namely producer Ovidio G. Assonitis’s) bizarre psychedelic science-fiction horror oddity The Visitor (reviewed here) from 1979.  From the mad Egyptian-Greco-Italian mind of Beyond the Door, Tentacles, Madhouse and Piranha II: The Spawning, it was an uncategorizable gonzo freakout involving metaphysical forces battling out between Godlike and Satanic characters featuring a number of unlikely faces together onscreen including Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Shelley Winters and even Sam Peckinpah.  Originally released in Italy before being picked up by International Picture Show Company for North American release, it’s the kind of film experience capable of liquefying and melting your brain matter out of your ear canals.  A smorgasbord mashup of many genres including The Bad Seed, The Omen, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even room for The Birds, it was almost like a progenitor to what would or wouldn’t become Cannon Films also helmed by an Egyptian madman named Menahem Golan.

 
Around 2010, Code Red DVD picked up the DVD rights to the film in the US for the first time before Drafthouse Films circled back three years later to reclaim the rights and digitally remaster and rerelease the film theatrically as well as on-demand and Blu-ray disc.  In March of 2014, Drafthouse Films released The Visitor on Blu-ray disc themselves in a still fairly stacked disc release that has long since gone out of print and going for exorbitant costs from third party sellers.  While costs continued to climb on preexisting copies of the Drafthouse release, the company gradually saw many of their titles discontinued with other boutique labels picking up the rights where they could.  Among them to rescue The Visitor from distribution rights purgatory is none other than Arrow Video who have put together a new 4K UHD of the original 109-minute European version of the film from the 35mm camera negative replete with archival extras from the Drafthouse disc as well as a newly recorded audio commentary and a new visual essay.  Also included in this new limited-edition release, as with the Drafthouse set, is reversible sleeve art and a collector’s booklet.

 
While I can’t say for sure whether or not I’m a fan of this unbridled Italo-American mashup film madness from maybe the craziest producer-director to ever invade the movies, Arrow Video’s new 4K disc is a welcome upgrade for those who missed out on the now discontinued and overpriced Drafthouse Films release that ports over pretty much everything from that release as well as including some surprises of its own.  More of a psychotronic aneurysm on the brain in the vein of Devil Story by way of The Apple or The Manitou with a still inexplicably largely muted John Huston, The Visitor isn’t good so much as it is fascinating and truly mind boggling.  If you already have the Drafthouse disc, I personally don’t see that much need for the double dip, but again fans will be happy to know its back in print again so snag it while you still can!

--Andrew Kotwicki