PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (Italy/US - 1982) Directed by James Cameron. Written by H.A. Milton (James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee and Ovidio G. Assonitis). Cast: Tricia O'Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen, Ted Richert, Ricky G. Paull (Ricky Paull Goldin), Leslie Graves, Carole Davis, Connie Lynn Hadden, Arnie Ross, Tracy Berg, Albert Sanders, Ward White, Aston S. Young. (R, 95 mins) A tangentially-related sequel to Joe Dante's 1978 hit for Roger Corman's New World Pictures, PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING was instead produced by Egyptian-born Italian schlock king Ovidio G. Assonitis, best known for his 1974 EXORCIST ripoff BEYOND THE DOOR and his 1977 JAWS knockoff TENTACLES. Assonitis has a bizarre history of hiring rookie directors just to fire them during production so he can take over himself, and the most infamous example of this tactic is indeed PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, which would likely be a forgotten footnote in drive-in exploitation history lost somewhere in your 1980s video store memories were it not the directing debut of one James Cameron. Though he logged time on the visual effects team of John Carpenter's 1981 classic ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, the 27-year-old Cameron was hired for PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING because of his association with Corman productions in various capacities as art director (1980's BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS) and production designer (1981's GALAXY OF TERROR), as well as his oft-expressed eagerness to start directing his own movies. He got his chance when Assonitis fired Miller Drake--a New World trailer editor who shot the US inserts for SCREAMERS, the 1981 re-edit of Sergio Martino's 1979 H.G. Wells-inspired ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN--during pre-production after a disagreement over the direction in which Drake wanted to take the story.
With his friend Drake's blessing, Cameron jumped at the opportunity, but clashed with Assonitis from the start. Working on location in Jamaica, with underwater sequences shot off Grand Cayman, and interiors done in Rome, and forced to use an Italian crew with whom he couldn't communicate, a miserable Cameron had to run every decision by Assonitis first and was almost always overruled. Cameron was fired at some point--exactly when depends on who's telling the story--but was at least around for some of post-production in Italy, as he was eventually locked out of the editing room and reportedly kept breaking in after hours to undo all of the changes Assonitis was making to the film. Cameron has frequently told this story over the years, sometimes standing by it, sometimes saying he was only kidding, but one thing is certain: his mercurial nature and uncompromising defiance in sticking to his vision was apparent even on a junky B-movie like PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING. Once Assonitis kicked him off the movie for good and finished it himself--hopefully after shouting "You're through! Finished! You hear me? I'll see that you never work in this town again!" while furiously chomping on a cigar--Cameron used his sudden downtime to begin outlining and fleshing out a script idea he had brewing in his head for a while, which of course became his 1984 breakthrough THE TERMINATOR. You were right, Ovidio--this kid's going nowhere. Well-played, sir. Well-played.
It shouldn't be a surprise that PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (shot as PIRANHA II: FLYING KILLERS and shown in some parts of the US as simply THE SPAWNING) isn't a good movie. It's professionally made, with some nice cinematography by Assonitis regular Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli and an effective score by Stelvio Cipriani, hiding behind the Americanized alias "Steve Powder." The script--the combined efforts of Assonitis, Cameron, and Cameron's buddy and fellow Corman gofer Charles H. Eglee, who would go on to a prolific career in TV--is credited to the pseudonymous "H.A. Milton," and while it references its predecessor in one throwaway line, it's largely a standalone work. At a Club Med-type resort called Club Elysium, two divers are devoured by a school of piranha while engaged in the act of deep-sea fucking. More divers are killed, and a nurse at the morgue is attacked by a flying piranha that burrows out of the remains of one of the victims. Local police chief Steve (Lance Henriksen) is irate about the body count, but he's more pissed off about the time his estranged wife and Club Elysium diving tour guide Anne (Tricia O'Neil) is spending with new hire Tyler (Steve Marachuk). Anne turns out to be a former marine biologist who gave up her career when she married Steve and gave birth to their now-16-year-old son Chris (future daytime soap regular Ricky Paull Goldin), so she knows something is in the water, and so does Tyler. He's a biochemist who worked on a secret government gene-splicing project that resulted in the creation of a piranha/grunion crossbreed that has the ability to fly and survive out of water. Tyler believes a container of flying piranha eggs was on a boat that sank off the coast of the Elysium resort. Of course, he's right, and they've hatched and bred and with nothing left to eat in the water, it's only a matter of time before they attack the resort at its busiest time of the year.
It's your classic JAWS scenario, with Anne in the Roy Scheider role once she can't convince anyone there's piranha in the water and decides to cancel her diving tours, only to promptly get fired by asshole resort manager Raoul (Ted Richert as Murray Hamilton). The first hour of PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING is spent with annoying, "wacky" characters at Club Elysium and player Tyler's tireless attempts to get in Anne's pants. The film has some unintended laughs and WTF? moments that are seemingly inherent with Italian trash movies (like the strange physical interaction when we're introduced to Anne and Chris, where it takes an unusually long time to finally conclude that they're mother and son and not, as it would initially seem, in a PRIVATE LESSONS scenario where a hot teacher has seduced a horny student), and the eventual flying piranha attack on Club Elysium is pretty entertainingly bonkers. It also certainly indulges in gratuitous gore (courtesy of the great Giannetto De Rossi) and plenty of T&A, knowing exactly what kind of movie it is. But whether it's the material or his lack of control over the whole project, there's absolutely nothing here to indicate that Cameron would go on to be the visionary trailblazer we know him as today, other than Goldin, in an interview on Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray (because physical media is dead), reminiscing about how "methodical" he was on set. It may not have established him in the way he'd hoped, but had he not been fired, he might not have been inspired to finally sit down and write THE TERMINATOR when he did. And it did establish his working relationship with Henriksen, who brings his usual intensity and gravitas to the film and puts forth far more effort than was really required. Henriksen previously worked with Assonitis on 1979's THE VISITOR, but became fast friends with Cameron, eventually appearing in both THE TERMINATOR and ALIENS. O'Neil never broke out despite a lot of TV guest spots in the '70s and '80s, but Cameron never forgot the star of his first movie and gave her a small role in TITANIC. Cameron also worked with Eglee further down the road, with the pair co-creating the Jessica Alba series DARK ANGEL for Fox, while Eglee carved himself a niche as a busy TV writer and producer on shows like ST. ELSEWHERE, MOONLIGHTING, NYPD BLUE, MURDER ONE, THE SHIELD, DEXTER, THE WALKING DEAD, and most recently, Netflix's HEMLOCK GROVE. Everyone has to start somewhere, and to his credit, Cameron has never tried to pretend PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING doesn't exist and has always had a good sense of humor about it, even referring to it as "the very best flying piranha movie ever made" in a 2009 60 MINUTES interview with Morley Safer.
MOM AND DAD (US/UK - 2018) Written and directed by Brian Taylor. Cast: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Lance Henriksen, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur, Robert Cunningham, Olivia Crocicchia, Marilyn Dodds Frank, Rachel Melvin, Samantha Lemole, Sharon Gee, Adin Alexa Steckler. (R, 83 mins) An inspired mash-up of 28 DAYS LATER, HOME ALONE, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and Bob Balaban's 1989 cult classic PARENTS, MOM AND DAD is the first solo effort of Brian Taylor, half of the Neveldine/Taylor duo behind the gonzo Jason Statham masterpiece CRANK. Neveldine/Taylor's anarchic, adrenalized style of filmmaking only got more over-the-top with each subsequent film, like the forgettable GAMER and the unwatchable CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, which has its defenders but is just too stupid for its own good, whether Statham is growing to Godzilla size or David Carradine is playing an Asian guy named "Poon Dong." The crazier Neveldine/Taylor got, the more they regressed. The pair parted ways after 2012's GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (another film I found terrible but one that has its admirers) and while Neveldine went on to be involved in a number of awful films (he directed THE VATICAN TAPES and produced URGE and OFFICER DOWNE), Taylor laid low until he resurfaced in 2017 as a co-creator of the Christopher Meloni SyFy series HAPPY! MOM AND DAD has distinct elements of the Neveldine/Taylor style, but even amidst its batshit lunacy, it's a film with a clear vision and assured, controlled direction. It's smart, it's thoughtful, it's funny, and on a few occasions shocking. It's the best thing Taylor's done since CRANK, and the early buzz from last year's Toronto Film Festival gave some serious cause for celebration: this is the best Nicolas Cage movie in years.
A signal transmitted through white noise on TVs, monitors, and other devices sends parents into an uncontrolled rage to murder their children. The situation quickly spirals out of control as a mob of seemingly possessed parents show up at the school and attack their kids when they try to flee. The Ryans--dad Brent (Cage), mom Kendall (Selma Blair), teenage daughter Carly (Anne Winters), and young son Josh (Zackary Arthur)--are an average suburban family whose lives are turned upside down by this event. Brent is exposed to it when he dozes off after a little downtime with some internet porn in his office, and Kendall is "infected" after the white noise comes through on a monitor in a hospital. She's at the hospital since her younger sister (Rachel Melvin) is giving birth, and the new mom's first instinct upon seeing her daughter is to try and stab her to death to the tune of Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love." After Carly and her boyfriend Damon (Robert Cunningham) flee the school and head to the Ryan house, Brent is already there waiting to kill Carly and Josh--with Damon being collateral damage--and he's soon joined by Kendall, as Carly and Josh barricade themselves in the basement while Mom and Dad reroute the gas line to flush them out, armed with a meatcleaver and a Sawzall ("A Sawzall...saws all!" Brent keeps repeating) waiting to attack when the door opens.
For Cage devotees, MOM AND DAD represents the actor caving to his inner William Shatner and going into fully self-aware "give the fans what they want" mode. Following one of his most subdued turns in the recent drama VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY, he's at his unhinged best here, whether he's demolishing a pool table while screaming "The Hokey Pokey," ranting to Damon about anal beads and ass-to-ass dildos, or just randomly shouting or running around the house barking. Blair is a bit more restrained as Kendall, instead going the less-is-more route, using a dead-eyed glare as she chases her children through the house, hellbent on slaughtering them in the most brutal way possible. There's also other unsettling and dark-humored bits throughout, like new fathers in the hospital looking through the window into the nursery, seething with unexplained rage, barely able to wait for the chance to kill their infant children; a mother pushing a stroller in front of a speeding car; and a radio announcer's grave warning to parents, "Do not go near your children!" On a deeper level, MOM AND DAD is a film about the frustrations of parenting and about parents in midlife crises. In a flashback, Brent and Kendall have an epic argument that turns emotional when both realize they aren't the people they thought they'd be and that their dreams never came true (a point earlier brought home by the use of Dusty Springfield's version of "Yesterday When I Was Young"). They're losing touch with their children with each passing day. Indeed, bratty, bitchy Carly can't even, and does little but roll her eyes and dismiss her mother, even stealing $80 from her purse to buy drugs for a party. "We used to be best friends," Kendall tells Carly, who snottily replies "Well, I have new friends now. It's not my fault you have no life."
Taylor has made MOM AND DAD the most deranged examination of the generation gap you'll ever see, a point hammered home with the eventual appearance of Lance Henriksen as Mel, Brent's hardass, Vietnam vet dad, who shows up for dinner ready to kill his son. Every generation harbors contempt and resentment for what came before and after, whether it's Carly perceiving her mother to be out of touch, or Mel griping that "I fought in wars! What have you done?" while frantically trying to stab Brent to death. MOM AND DAD is a raucous blast, but it's also got a bit more going on under the surface, and it's sure to delight cult movie fans with its BRADY BUNCH-style, '70s TV show opening credits and throbbing synth score by Mr. Bill that often sounds similar to Ennio Morricone's work on John Carpenter's THE THING (unlike many of today's genre films, it works here and doesn't sound forced or too winking). A lot happens in MOM AND DAD's brief 83-minute running time and judging from what's here and from the drek that Neveldine's name has been on since they parted ways, it's really looking like Taylor may have been the brains out of the operation. It's surprisingly thoughtful, the story is multi-layered, and Taylor expertly balances humor and horror. But the big news here is Cage, who came to this party ready to have a blast--he told the audience in Toronto that this was the most fun he's had a movie in a long time, and it's obvious--and MOM AND DAD serves as proof that he can bring his A-game when he's inspired by the material.
Directed by Michael J. Paradise (Giulio Paradisi). Written by Lou Comici and Robert Mundy. Cast: Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Joanne Nail, Franco Nero, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters, Paige Conner, Wallace Wilkinson, Elizabeth Turner. (Unrated, 109 mins)
(Note: for a more in-depth review of the film, click here; this is a follow-up piece specifically covering the 2013 re-release by Drafthouse Films and the just-released Blu-ray)
A couple of years back, Drafthouse Films, the distribution offshoot of cinehipster mecca The Alamo Drafthouse, managed to create a legitimate cult movie sensation out of the delirious 1988 martial arts actioner MIAMI CONNECTION (and lest you think they're only showcasing "bad" movies, they also did a fine job of resurrecting the legendary, semi-lost 1971 Outback nightmare WAKE IN FRIGHT). Late last year, they tried to go for another MIAMI CONNECTION with the original 109-minute uncut version of the insane 1979 Italian horror film THE VISITOR. While the re-release wasn't greeted with the same level of enthusiasm as MIAMI CONNECTION, it did bring some increased notoriety to an utterly batshit, singularly unique film that's been patiently awaiting its day in the sun. Released on the drive-in and grindhouse circuit in America in a truncated 90-minute version in 1980, THE VISITOR was quickly consigned to late-night TV and video stores to be discovered by cult movie aficionados, Eurotrash addicts, and insomniacs who, for the most part, kept it to themselves for the next 30 or so years. With its perfect storm of past-their-prime actors, an incoherent script, and Italian filmmakers ripping off blockbuster American hits like THE OMEN and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, it's the kind of B-movie that only could've happened in the late 1970s. Perhaps one reason that the re-release of THE VISITOR didn't catch on like MIAMI CONNECTION did was that, while completely bonkers, it's not as MST3K hilarious as MIAMI CONNECTION, and also because it wasn't quite as obscure. Code Red released a fine DVD special edition of the uncut version (1.85:1 anamorphic) in 2010, with a great transfer and a wealth of extras, including two commentary tracks--one with star Paige Conner, moderated by filmmakers and VISITOR superfans Scott Spiegel (co-writer of EVIL DEAD II) and Jeff Burr (director of LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III), and another with star Joanne Nail, moderated by cult movie expert Marc Edward Heuck.
None of those Code Red-produced extras (which included interviews with Conner, Nail, producer Ovidio Assonitis, and Atlanta location manager and future John Carpenter associate Stratton Leopold) are carried over to the new Drafthouse Blu-ray, so if you bought that DVD in 2010, you better hang on to it. The Conner and Nail commentaries are essential listening for VISITOR nerds, even if Conner has to repeatedly tell Spiegel and Burr that the movie was shot over the summer and she didn't need permission to be out of school, that Spiegel is incredulous over "no writers being credited," despite a "Written by Lou Comici and Robert Mundy" credit at the beginning of the film, and, in a real whopper, Spiegel declaring "Mel Ferrer and Jose Ferrer are brothers." Burr: "Are they?" Spiegel: "They're at least first cousins." No. Wrong and wrong. No relation. Drafthouse's Blu-ray (again framed at 1.85:1) may not have the extensive bonus features that Code Red offered but it does make itself unique with a great Lance Henriksen interview. A relative unknown at the time with small roles in DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK, and DAMIEN: OMEN II under his belt, Henriksen recalls the film as a "hodgepodge...with space babies, birds, and Jesus Christ," and often asked himself "What were they thinking? Where was the narrative in this thing? I had no idea what I was doing." He says that shooting was sometimes problematic because director Giulio Paradisi refused to speak English and the dialogue sometimes felt like it hadn't been translated accurately. He doesn't think very highly of the film itself but has fond memories of working with the veteran actors and thought it unusual that Assonitis actually showed up at his agent's office and told him "You're going to sign this contract and you're going to Rome, and you're going have a good time." Henriksen also recalls dragging a group of his friends to Times Square to see the movie in a 42nd Street grindhouse, where someone in the balcony yelled "I want my money back!" (Henriksen: "There were 30 people in the audience, and 15 of them were my friends").
In addition to a short segment with cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri, where he discusses some locations and visual effects, co-writer Comici is also interviewed and has some even more wild stories. Initially hired because he spoke both English and Italian, Comici's main responsibility was taking Paradisi's ideas and forming them into a story ("Giulio didn't have a story, he just had scenes"). Paradisi, a former assistant to Federico Fellini who primarily worked in TV commercials and nature documentaries, had some insane ideas (Comici: "He wanted elephants in one scene because he thought people liked elephants..." and "He was always trying to work in scenes of people on the toilet") and was even fired at one point during pre-production before (and Comici stresses that he heard this second-hand) "one of Giulio's relatives put a gun to the producer's head and told him to hire Giulio back." Comici's involvement in the film ended when he showed up at Assonitis' office with a complete script and handed it to Paradisi who, without even looking at a single page, dismissed it and threw it out of the fourth-story window.
If Comici's memories seem slightly embellished, then wait until you read the Blu-ray's accompanying booklet, written by Zack Carlson, featuring an interview with Assonitis. Assonitis has been prone to hard-to-swallow statements in the past, like saying he never saw THE EXORCIST before making the blatant EXORCIST ripoff BEYOND THE DOOR, and while it's not impossible to believe that other writers--including Oscar-nominated SERPICO and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER screenwriter Norman Wexler--made some uncredited script contributions, you can't help but question the producer's claim that, upon visiting an ill John Huston a week before his death in 1987, he noticed a VHS copy of THE VISITOR on a table near the cinema icon's sickbed. Carlson's essay is nicely-done and he obviously displays a great affinity for the film, which he describes as a "distinctly European skull-wrecker," and "disorienting, uncomfortable, misanthropic, and a genuine masterpiece." Code Red's DVD looked superb and they deserve a significant amount of credit for making this available before the hipsters had the chance to embrace it. But Drafthouse's Blu-ray, an HD upgrade from the same materials provided by Assonitis, takes it a slight step further, and I'm in favor of anything that makes this one-of-a-kind, looney-tunes mindfuck as accessible as possible, and I have no doubt that anyone who's cherished THE VISITOR for as long as I have finds the idea of this being on Blu-ray almost as nuts as the film itself.
Directed by Michael J. Paradise (Giulio Paradisi). Written by Lou Comici and Robert Mundy. Cast: Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Joanne Nail, Franco Nero, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters, Paige Conner, Wallace Wilkinson, Elizabeth Turner, Steve Somers, Neal Boortz. (R, 90 mins/Unrated, 109 mins)
A longtime cult favorite thanks to its constant airings on late-night TV throughout the 1980s, the utterly delirious Italian horror film THE VISITOR is like nothing seen before or since. For years, the following this film had in America was based on its butchered 90-minute US cut released on the grindhouse and drive-in circuit throughout 1980 and quickly shipped off to TV. This US edit excised nearly 20 minutes from the original European version, with a good chunk of that being important exposition at the beginning of the film. Code Red released the uncut version on DVD in an impressive transfer with some great extras in 2010, finally allowing fans to see the intended version and it's a bit of a double-edged sword: on one hand, the film is still completely looney tunes, filled with confused actors, memorable set pieces, some impressive set designs, some incredibly striking imagery, and what looks like the most dangerous and impractical staircase ever built in a residence, but on the other, the clarification of several major plot points significantly reduces the jawdropping WTF? factor that US fans knew and loved for so many years. In its intended 109-minute form, THE VISITOR is still completely preposterous, but its preposterous plot elements now make some semblance of sense. Don't misunderstand me: this is a mandatory piece of head-scratching cinema, but people seeing the uncut version without experiencing the truncated US cut that so many of us were so thoroughly baffled by for so many years might not see what all the fuss is about among the people who love this thing. The two versions of THE VISITOR provide a rare example where some fans might actually prefer the chopped-down version just for the sentimental value.
Filmed mostly in Atlanta, GA in the summer of 1978, with some interiors (including the memorably-designed house where much of the climactic action takes place) shot in Rome at De Paolis and Cinecitta, THE VISITOR was produced by Italian schlock king Ovidio G. Assonitis, an Egyptian-born producer/director who first gained notoriety a few years earlier with his 1975 Italian EXORCIST ripoff BEYOND THE DOOR, which he directed under the pseudonym "Oliver Hellman." BEYOND THE DOOR, with Juliet Mills as a pregnant mom who turns into a vile, vomiting, obscenity-spewing hag when her fetus is possessed by Satan, became a surprise box office hit despite a lawsuit by Warner Bros., irate over its similarities to THE EXORCIST (this didn't stop Italian producers from unleashing a flood of EXORCIST ripoffs for the next several years). Assonitis then produced and may have directed some of 1976's FOREVER EMMANUELLE before ripping off another American blockbuster with 1977's TENTACLES, a JAWS imitation that replaced a great white shark with a mutant octopus stirred from the ocean depths some by illegal drilling done by an oil company whose unscrupulous owner is played by a seriously slumming Henry Fonda. If you're wondering why Fonda is appearing in an Italian ripoff of JAWS, you might want to ask John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, and Claude Akins the same thing. And while it's not completely ridiculous to cast Huston (born in 1906) and Winters (born in 1920) as siblings, I have to question what compelled Assonitis to make it a plot point that Huston is the younger one. It's just that kind of movie. TENTACLES had an unusually overqualified cast for such a low-grade affair, but if you listen to the commentary track by longtime Assonitis production associate Peter Shepherd on 1986's Assonitis-produced CHOKE CANYON, you'll hear some great stories about Assonitis being the kind of producer who paid well-known but past-their-prime actors duffel bags full of cash that was stored above the ceiling tiles in a rented office. Fonda shot his three or four TENTACLES scenes--which consist of his character making some angry phone calls that are vague enough ("Why wasn't I told about this?" and "Just take care of it!") that I remain convinced he had no idea he was in a movie about a giant mutant octopus--in one morning at his own dining room table. That's right: Assonitis brought a skeleton crew to Fonda's Beverly Hills home, got the shots he needed and Fonda was handed a bag of money. They worked so quickly that Fonda audibly flubs a line at one point and they just left it in, as I'm sure the Hollywood legend wasn't about to listen to any of this "Let's try that again" bullshit. With that kind of chicanery in his bag of tricks, it's no wonder that Assonitis was picked to run Cannon in its final days after Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus left and before the plug was mercifully pulled.
Assonitis has always had a reputation for hiring directors just to fire them so he can take over the filming himself, with the most famous example being his Italian-made sequel PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1982). Assonitis asked PIRANHA producer Roger Corman if he had any promising employees he thought might be a good candidate to direct, and Corman gave him special effects technician and art director James Cameron, who had worked behind the scenes on Corman productions like BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980) and GALAXY OF TERROR (1981) and did some matte work on John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981). Cameron and Assonitis butted heads throughout the filming of PIRANHA II, with Cameron, unable to communicate with the all-Italian crew, required to run everything by Assonitis and usually being told no. Knowing what we know now about Cameron's mercurial, control-freak nature, this was a match made in Hell from the start, and eventually, after catching Cameron sneaking into the editing room to undo his ordered changes, Assonitis fired him and finished the film himself. Most of what's in PIRANHA II is Cameron's work, and while he went on to fame and fortune two years later with THE TERMINATOR, the "king of the world" still insists PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING is "the greatest flying piranha movie ever made."
Assonitis' paw prints are all over THE VISITOR, a combination ripoff of THE OMEN and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, with much of his usual tech crew present, and TENTACLES alumni Huston and Winters showing up for another bag of that sweet Assonitis cash (some sources erroneously list Henry Fonda among THE VISITOR's cast, but he's not in either version and was never involved, and this likely stems from someone somewhere confusing this with TENTACLES). But according to co-stars Paige Conner and Joanne Nail (SWITCHBLADE SISTERS) on the DVD extras, Assonitis actually left the directing to the director on THE VISITOR, Giulio Paradisi, a former assistant to Federico Fellini. Credited as "Michael J. Paradise," Paradisi works with cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri to create some truly vivid, memorable images throughout the film. Some of the visual effects are rudimentary and might've worked a bit better if most of the budget wasn't going to the big-name cast, but there's a stylistic ambition to THE VISITOR that's undeniable and often breathtaking. How much of the film's singularly unique look is Assonitis and how much is Paradisi's time spent with Fellini is up in the air. Yeah, it's a cheesy Italian horror movie, but it's trying its utmost to be the weirdest, most batshit insane Italian horror movie you've ever seen.
The plot centers on eight-year-old Katy Collins (Conner), who lives with her divorced mother Barbara (Nail) and her boyfriend, Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen), the owner of the fictional Atlanta Rebels NBA team. Raymond keeps pressuring Barbara to marry him, but she refuses. She loves him, but never wants to remarry, and she has a fear that something unnatural within her has been passed on to Katy, a bratty, incredibly self-absorbed child who can be politely described as a sociopath. Unknown to Barbara, it's no accident that she's met Raymond. Raymond has sold his soul to a cabal of evil and limitlessly wealthy one-percenters headed by Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer). Walker and his mystery men (one is played by then-Atlanta-based radio host and future Libertarian talk radio hero Neal Boortz!) have given Raymond financial success with his basketball team in exchange for access to Barbara, the one woman of her generation who possesses the genes of "Sateen," a cosmic demon who needs Barbara to give birth to a son to pair with Katy in order to be reborn through them and rule the universe.
Meanwhile, the mysterious Jerzy (Huston) has been dispatched from an unknown netherworld by a Christ-like figure (Franco Nero) surrounded by bald children to go to Atlanta and prevent Sateen's rebirth. Jerzy arrives at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (where did he get that connecting flight?) and meets with a group of bald men in jogging suits on top of a downtown building (next to the famous Equitable Building), where he stares off at the Atlanta skyline while they do weird New Age/vogueing moves behind white partitions. Jerzy starts snooping around the Collins house just as a talking toy bird bought for Katy is somehow replaced with a gun, which accidentally goes off, resulting in Barbara getting shot in the spine and confining her to a wheelchair (Katy's reaction: a mere shrug). Skeptical detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford, with some really distracting dried ointment covering a cold sore on his lower lip) keeps pestering Katy about how the gun got in the house, with his dogged persistence almost immediately resulting in a spectacular OMEN-style demise in an explosive car wreck after getting his eyes pecked out by a bird while behind the wheel (there's an incredible motorcycle stunt in this scene performed by Chuck Norris' brother Aaron). Along with an annoying, "Shortnin' Bread"-singing housekeeper (Winters), Jerzy ingratiates himself into the Collins house by posing as a sitter from the childcare service, because who wouldn't leave their eight-year-old daughter with a 73-year-old stranger who looks like John Huston? Considering that this is THE VISITOR, this is actually one of the film's more plausible plot points. After witnessing her wreak bitchy havoc at an ice skating rink and over a competitive game of Pong (John Huston playing Pong on a huge 1970s projection TV is worth the price of admission, folks), Jerzy lays out the situation for Katy: that he's there to take her away and destroy the evil part of herself that Sateen needs, and that they have to stop Raymond from fathering a child with her mother. The inherently evil Katy isn't buying it. She sneers, sasses, calls him an "old bastard," and essentially says "Game on."
Barbara wants nothing to do with having another child, and when she refuses Raymond's marriage proposal yet again, he's relieved of his duties by Dr. Walker, who tells him that "other measures" are now being taken. Specifically, Barbara is abducted by a spaceship on a dark highway and impregnated with the child of Sateen and left with no memory of the event (why didn't they just do this in the first place? Why did they have to buy an NBA team? Is it just to cram in the exploding basketball sequence that someone concocted?). When Jerzy finds out Barbara is pregnant, the stage is set for the final battle between good and evil. Or something like that.
And that's a plot synopsis from the uncut version. Imagine watching THE VISITOR without any of the "Sateen" stuff mentioned. All of that material was cut from the US version that was originally set to be released by AIP, but when they folded and became Filmways, THE VISITOR was sold to the short-lived International Picture Show. As far as the cast is concerned, most of the cuts to the US version affected Ford, Nero, and none other than legendary WILD BUNCH director Sam Peckinpah. Ford's already small role was even smaller in the American cut (which is a shame because he's really good here), but he gets a couple of crucial additional scenes in the uncut version, especially one unnerving bit where he finds the talking toy bird which repeatedly boasts "I'm a pretty bird." In the American cut, an uncredited Nero didn't even appear until the very end and had no dialogue. In the uncut version, he's introduced in the first scene and explains (via someone else's dubbed voice) all of the "Sateen" business and sends Jerzy on his mission. Also, the opening scene is different in both versions: in the uncut version, Jerzy is shown in some surreal, desolate landscape with a low, flaming sun as a robed, hooded figure walks toward him. Then, a snowy blizzard hits and the hood flies off to reveal some sort of demon-child underneath. The US cut opened the same way until the snow hit (with a shortened version of Nero's and Huston's conversation played over the imagery; mind you, we don't see Nero at this point in the US cut). The snowy part of the sequence was moved to much later in the film, intercut with the aforementioned Pong game as a vision presented to Katy by Jerzy. Either way works for that, but it's the removal of Nero's character from the opening of the film that completely eliminates any sense of coherence from the very start. We have no idea who these people are, why Jerzy is in Atlanta, who these bald jogging suit dudes are or why Raymond has these rich assholes prodding him to knock up his girlfriend.
Peckinpah's participation in THE VISITOR has always been one of its more inexplicable elements. Considered unemployable by Hollywood due to his rampant drug and alcohol abuse (painfully apparent on his 1975 misfire THE KILLER ELITE), he briefly dabbled in acting during this time to keep some money coming in, also appearing in Monte Hellman's Italian/Spanish western CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37 (1978), and getting a jokey "Introducing Sam Peckinpah" credit in the US version. Peckinpah had the biggest commercial success of his career with 1978's trucker blockbuster CONVOY, but rumors have persisted for years that he spent most of the shoot holed up in his trailer on coke binges while friend and second-unit director James Coburn, on the set because he wanted to get a DGA card and needed some experience, actually directed a large chunk of the movie. In the US cut of THE VISITOR, Peckinpah turns up late in the film as Barbara's doctor, and she consults him about having an abortion. He's shot mostly in silhouette, you never get a good look at his face, and his voice is dubbed by veteran expat actor Michael Forest. In the uncut version, he's specifically referred to as "Dr. Collins," and it's revealed that he's Katy's father and Barbara's ex-husband. Peckinpah and Nail also have an additional scene before that where they acrimoniously catch up--he's still bitter over the divorce--and she begs him for help. In the uncut version, you get a clear view of Peckinpah, though his behavior reportedly ranged from uncooperative at best to combative at worst during his brief time on the set and the skidding director was too wasted to remember his lines. Forest's voice doesn't always match Peckinpah's lip movements, and many shots of Peckinpah talking have him turned away from the camera, probably out of necessity. On the CHOKE CANYON commentary, which serves as more of a walk through every other Assonitis production, Shepherd recalls "I'm not exactly sure how Sam Peckinpah got involved in THE VISITOR, but we were glad when he left."
But it was the unusual cast and that complete lack of coherence that were major parts of THE VISITOR's appeal to impressionable kids and bleary-eyed insomniacs catching this on TV at 2:30 am back in the '80s and wondering the next morning if the entire film was just strange dream they had. You could've chalked it up to being edited for television but nope, that wasn't the problem. Renting this on VHS proved that it was just as confusing, only with minor additional splatter and some interesting swearing (young Conner telling Ford "Go fuck yourself!" is a keeper). Assonitis and Paradisi concocted the basic story for THE VISITOR, with the script written by Lou Comici (who went to write for TV shows like SILK STALKINGS and WALKER, TEXAS RANGER) and Robert Mundy, whose only other screenwriting credits are the forgotten Joe Namath/Barbara Eden comedy CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO (1984) and the Bridget Fonda/Russell Crowe bomb ROUGH MAGIC (1995).
Georgia native Conner acted only sporadically after THE VISITOR. She had a small role in the Kristy McNichol/Tatum O'Neal hit LITTLE DARLINGS (1980) and briefly appeared (as the girl with the purse full of potential self-defense weapons) in the famous "Natalie gets assaulted" episode of THE FACTS OF LIFE (at 2:50 into that clip) before logging some time as an Atlanta Falcons cheerleader in the '90s. She now owns a luxury beauty salon in Atlanta. She's an absolute charmer on the DVD commentary track, sharply recalling details of the production 30 years later and sharing warm memories of working with Huston, who took her under his wing, coaching her on her performance and how to control her distinct Southern accent. Famed animator Bruno Bozzetto contributed some animation to the climactic bird attack that's quite an extraordinary sequence in conjunction with the memorable score by Franco Micalizzi. Micalizzi's work on THE VISITOR ranks among the great scores in any Italian horror film. It's so loud, so bombastic, and so catchy that I'm shocked Quentin Tarantino hasn't appropriated it for use in one of his own films. During this time, Italian film crews were regularly shooting in the Atlanta area (films like the Bud Spencer comedy THE SHERIFF AND THE SATELLITE KID and Antonio Margheriti's CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE had extensive location work in the downtown Atlanta area). Along with Burt Reynolds' SHARKY'S MACHINE, THE VISITOR makes maybe the best use of noteworthy Atlanta locations (the Equitable Building, the now-demolished Omni, the cylindrical, rotating Peachtree Plaza Hotel, Underground Atlanta) from that era. If you've never experienced THE VISITOR, in either of its two existing forms, then you're depriving yourself of a time-capsule-worthy piece of vital Italian Eurotrash cinema. This is pretty close to as crazy as it gets.
11-minute fan montage of VISITOR highlights with selections from Micalizzi's score
6 March 2014:
UPDATE: Click here for a look at the Drafthouse Films Blu-ray release
Written and directed by Todd Robinson. Cast: Ed Harris, David Duchovny, William Fichtner, Lance Henriksen, Johnathon Schaech, Jason Beghe, Sean Patrick Flanery, Kip Pardue, Julian Adams, Jason Gray-Stanford, Matt Bushell, Dagmara Dominczyk. (R, 99 mins)
About two months ago, I saw a poster for the nautical thriller PHANTOM at the theater. Having heard nothing about the film prior to this, and noticing it was from a company (RCR Media Group) whose name I was seeing for the first time, my first thought, even with solid actors like Ed Harris and David Duchovny, was "No way this is opening in theaters." Imagine my surprise when I got online and saw that PHANTOM was set to open on 2000 screens nationwide on March 1. 2000 screens? How? Either this was going to be an OOGIELOVES-level box-office disaster or this mysterious RCR Media Group was one of these grass-roots Christian organizations that busses megachurch congregations to the theater and somehow Harris and Duchovny got roped into a religious submarine movie. But it had an R rating. What the hell was going on here? What kind of tax loopholes do movie distributors of today have access to where production companies frequently spend anywhere from $20 million to $40 million on a movie that grosses $30,000 domestically and yet somehow still end up making money? There's probably a great expose to be written about this (and the great German co-production tax incentive scam of a decade ago) by someone with more insider knowledge than me, but that's another story for another time.
Several days prior to March 1, the 2000 screens got bumped down to 1118, but RCR Media Group's debut feature as a theatrical distribution outfit (after years of producing DTV titles like HOSTEL III that were distributed by others) was still set to go. And the box office take was as apocalyptically ugly as expected: allegedly budgeted at $20 million (I don't believe that figure at all), PHANTOM grossed just $500,000, landing in 24th place and currently ranked as the seventh-worst all-time opening weekend for a wide release on more than 1000 screens. Who knows what RCR was thinking or if this is their first and last theatrical release? Regardless of how good or bad it was, PHANTOM was doomed to be a victim of bad marketing and limited commercial appeal (they weren't kidding around with the "You'll never see it coming" tag line). But guess what? It's actually a pretty good little B-movie that will probably find a much bigger audience when it inevitably turns up on Netflix Instant three months from now. Maybe it should've debuted there in the first place.
In 2013, PHANTOM would've been a tough sell for anyone: a Cold War submarine thriller set in 1968, centering on a crew of Soviet Naval officers played by American and Canadian actors sans affected Yakov Smirnoff accents. This was a fairly common practice back in the old days of Hollywood (have you ever heard anyone complain about Kirk Douglas and Ralph Meeker playing French military officers in Stanley Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY?), but tends to not go over as well in the era of internet trolling and the inevitable WROST MVOIE EVER!!!111 IMDb commenters (remember all the pre-release bitching about Tom Cruise and a British supporting cast playing Germans in VALKYRIE?). Older movies seem to get a pass for this sort of thing, and PHANTOM's story is compelling enough that you get invested in the characters and the drama and the lack of cartoonish Boris & Natasha accents is quickly forgotten. A speculative story inspired by a 1968 incident involving a Soviet K-129 sub, PHANTOM follows aging, weary, booze-soaked Capt. Demi Zubov (Harris), who's being forced into retirement by his reluctant, emphysema-stricken commander Markov (Lance Henriksen). But Markov first wants Zubov and his crew, headed by second-in-command Koslov (William Fichtner) to take a decrepit, old-school diesel sub out for one last mission before the Soviet military sells it to the Chinese. Zubov's crew is joined by a few replacement officers and Bruni (Duchovny), a mysterious government projects official who's tagging along to test some prototype equipment, but soon reveals his true intentions. A Spetsnaz commando working for a rogue faction of the KGB, Bruni and his men--surprise...the replacement officers!--are testing a top-secret cloaking device known as the Phantom, which imitates the signal and appearance of other vessels. Bruni's plan is to launch a nuclear missile and trick a US sub into thinking it's the work of the Chinese, with the rationale being "Our two enemies can destroy each other while we sit back and watch." Bruni seizes control of the sub from Zubov, who's haunted by both the legacy of his legendary Naval hero father and a tragic accident that happened under his command years earlier--that the Soviet military buried so as not to shame the Zubov name--and left him prone to epileptic seizures. Zubov, who has no interest in going down in Soviet history as the man who started WWIII, rallies his crew to regain control from Bruni.
Writer-director Todd Robinson (the little-seen LONELY HEARTS) does a terrific job of conveying the tight, suffocating sense of claustrophobia in the close quarters of the ancient, rickety sub, and for about an hour, the fast-paced PHANTOM is a surprisingly effective, genuinely suspenseful nailbiter. While the film plays like an old-fashioned Cold War drama, it starts to unravel in the last 30 minutes or so when Robinson starts making concessions to modern audiences. When PHANTOM stays in the close confines of the sub, it works very well. It's when it goes outside the sub with exploding torpedoes and the like that it collapses. The CGI explosions are total amateur night and their utterly laughable, cartoonish execution takes you right out of the film. In addition, the miniatures used in the underwater exteriors are pretty shoddy-looking, and it's in these scenes that PHANTOM starts to resemble a low-budget, HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER ripoff that Roger Corman might've had cranked out by Concorde Pictures in 1991. Robinson also lets his script really stumble in the last third as well, with the conveniently-timed revelation that one of Zubov's crew (Sean Patrick Flanery) suffers from claustrophobia despite being a veteran of numerous missions with Zubov and it never being mentioned before. Robinson's decision to turn the last sequence into something straight out of FIELD OF DREAMS by way of M. Night Shyamalan also does the film a huge disservice. But despite those faults, the film gets enough right in its top-notch first hour to still warrant a recommendation. Harris is outstanding as the tortured Zubov, Fichtner does an excellent job as the conflicted Koslov, torn between his loyalty to his longtime captain and friend Zubov and his own military ambitions, and Duchovny mostly hangs back, never raising his voice or taking the easy route of being an evil bad guy, instead doing a lot of subtle acting with his eyes and very quietly conveying a sense of increasing menace as the film proceeds. PHANTOM isn't a submarine classic along the lines of DAS BOOT, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, CRIMSON TIDE, or RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP, but even with its third-act stumbling and bumbling, it's a diverting, suspenseful, well-acted thriller that doesn't deserve its lowly status among the biggest box-office bombs of all time.
