The Visitor (1979) AKA Stridulum

As soon as I saw the bat-shit trailer, I had to see this film. It looked like Dune mixed with Exorcist II The Heretic. That would certainly qualify it mad enough to check out.

With such a great cast & terrible reviews, I was expecting an incoherent mess, but its actually pretty cool. Its much better than other Italian horror knock-offs which were being made at the time.

It basically boils down to two-parts The Omen, one-part The Exorcist, a healthy dose of Rosemary's Baby, and a splash of Hitchcock's The Birds for good measure. The real difference is that instead of demonic possession, its an evil space-traveler who has impregnated a group of humans and blessed their children with supernatural powers. If this all seems a little too much like L Ron Hubbard for your taste, don't worry. All this is explained at the start to some bald-headed children in a greenhouse, by a Jesus-like Franco Nero!

After this disjointed opening, the film settles down to tell the story of Katy, a young girl who has powers of telekinesis. Paige Conner plays Katy as playful rather than sinister, which makes the film more fun when she starts going off the rails.

Katy wants her mother to settle down with Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen) a rich businessman who has just brought the Atlanta Basketball team! He wants to get married and have children too, but Barbara Collins (Joanne Nail) doesn't feel comfortable settling down, probably due to all the pestering!

It seem that Henriksen is being funded by a shadowy organization who are pushing him to create a heir. To top this off, a mysterious visitor played by John Huston keeps popping up, who seems just as keen to stop this happening.

The film continues very much in the vein of The Omen (1976), with an elaborate death for anyone who gets too nosy in their affairs. Damien's devil dogs are substituted in this by a hawk, and Billie Whitelaw's nanny character is replaced by house-maid Shelly Winters.

John Huston is not the only director acting in this. Sam Peckingpah plays Dr Sam, who is apparently Barbara's Ex-husband. You wouldn't know that from watching the film however, as due to his drug problem, he kept flubbing his lines. His brief appearance is mainly shots of the back of his head, with his voice dubbed by an actor.

There is no getting away from the fact that this movie is preposterous, but apart from Peckingpah, the cast are pretty game. Especially Glenn Ford, who plays a police detective who gets an expletive-filled ear bashing from the young Katy.

There is some good work behind the camera too. The Cinematography is classy, with angular lines which accentuate the late seventies décor and architecture. The director Giulio Paradisi was assistant director on Fellini's 8 1/2.

Questions I asked myself whilst watching:

Is that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Yes it is!

Should you have left Katy with that strange elderly babysitter you've just met?

Why are they trying to kill her now? never-mind.

Is that supposed to be a Swiss-Army Bird? whaah?

Where is my old Pong game console?

Who is the funky score by? Franco Micalizzi

So where did that gun come from anyway?

Star Trek Into Darkness: Reboots, Sequels and Prequels.

I was going to give a quick review of Star Trek Into Darkness after seeing an advanced preview. But chances are you will have already seen the film before reading this, so I thought Instead I'd talk about a new development in Hollywood which STID seems to uniquely represent. The sequel prequel reboot!

My first thoughts on the film is that J. J. Abrams has managed to pull off the feat of making a good movie whilst adhering to the Star Trek universe. If you enjoyed his original reboot, then you will  certainly enjoy this twice-fold. Benedict Cumberpatch steals the show, and like it's predecessor, Abrams cherry picks elements from the original series and films for his alternative universe take. The 3D is relatively non-obtrusive, apart from the fast cutting fighting scenes, and the trademark lens flares are not as ubiquitous as his other films (lens flare just don't make sense in 3D). Its certainly an enjoyable ride.

But when you remake, or reboot a series, you can use or abuse all the emotions and invested interest that the previous version have built up. If I had one criticism of STID, its that you have to take Spock and Kirks friendship on trust. As Limoy's Spock admits to Kirk in the 2009 film, in their alternative time-line, they naturally become good friend. In J. J. Abrams' Star Trek, they must become friends to overcome a greater good. This continues in Into Darkness and culminates in a scene which replays a moment in StarTrek folklore but can't hit the same emotional heights as the original.

STID reminded me of two other things which I'd watched recently. The first was the Total Recall Remake. I feel this film would have received better review if it had completely disowned the Verhoeven 1990 classic. Its action sequences were well done, but continuous reference to the original only reminded us that, even though it was more faithful to the book, the Schwarzenegger version was superior. Colin Farrell doesn't give us much characterization as Quaid. If you take a scene which is arguably more convincing in the new film, where Quaid is being convinced that somethings gone wrong and that hes still at Rekall, it never allows Farrells character to really slow down and ponder whether its true. The film could of looked at  the idea that Quaid really is the bad guy, but that is left unexplored.

The second thing watched recently was the TV series Hannibal. Like Star Trek, it too played with familiar characters in an updated context. And like Star Trek, it used the audiences knowledge of the series to create an alternative take. Both do this cleverly and reward fans of the original. But I can foresee Hollywood using prequel/reboots as the new alternative to sequels. I expect these won't be so well thought out, and if not done well, they will end up tarnishing the originals that we love. A recent example is Prometheus (2012). I know some people liked it, but for me it kinda ruins the original movies. Before seeing it, I was certainly more curious about this than I would have been for just another sequel. I expect Hollywood to exploit this in the future...