The Visitor 1980 Giulio Paradisi

Quick - what do John Huston, Franco Nero, Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Shelley Winters, Lance Henriksen, and Sam Peckinpah have in common?  They all gotta eat.  There's really no other reason to explain why they're all in this movie.  Well, Lance Henriksen was young, so he was probably happy to get the job, but everyone else should have known better.  Plus, you'd think the movie would be more entertaining than it is simply because of that cast.  It's only after the movie starts that you realize the two leads are actually Joanne Nail from Switchblade Sisters and a little girl named Paige Conner, who went on to fame and fortune in the immortal Fast Food - The Movie.

John Huston plays the Polishly named Jerzy Colsowicz.  He lives in space with Franco Nero and a room full of little kids who seem to be monks in training.  Franco Nero has a blond fright wig and a beard and talks to this roomful of rapt children like he's Jesus.  So maybe he is.  He tells a story about a prison ship and the escape of a prisoner named Sateen, who proceeded to mate with thousands of women all over the galaxy before he was caught.  That means that John Huston has to travel around the galaxy gathering up all of Sateen's demon spawn children.  Then John Huston tells Space Jesus Franco Nero that he's found another one - this time in Atlanta.

That 's the first five minutes.  This movie is crazy convoluted.  It's basically an Exorcist rip off, but with absolutely fantastic cinematography and a really awesome soundtrack.  The cinematographer also shot The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the composer had some of his music "borrowed" for Quentin Tarantio's Death Proof.  It's a pretty well done movie, actually.  It's just ridiculous in so many ways.  John Huston takes up residence on the roof of a skyscraper in downtown Atlanta with a team of about 10 bald tracksuit wearing space monks.  Shelley Winters is the new housekeeper.  Lance Henriksen owns a basketball team, the Atlanta Rebels, and one of the first evil things the little girl does is make a basketball explode in the final seconds of a game so his team wins.  Evil.  Sam Peckinpah and Mel Ferrer play doctors - one good and one evil, and Glenn Ford plays a detective who probably just wants to be wished into the cornfield at this point.

Since John Huston is from space, he's not really an exorcist, per se.  It's a good thing he brought along his space birds, though.  According to this movie, space birds are excellent at driving out evil spirits - much better than a scolding from Shelley Winters.  Or a showdown at the mall ice rink.

This movie must be seen to be believed.  It's not as fun as I was hoping, but it's still worth watching, if only for it's weirdness.  It's available on DVD from a company called Code Red.  Apparently, they're going out of business sometime this summer, so get it while you can.  The DVD comes with interviews and a pretty awesome trailer that played at Cannes, also 2 commentaries where Joanne Nail and Paige Conner discuss their characters' motivations, which is good for a laugh or two as well.