This film is available as a “Limited Edition” 4K Ultra HD release from Arrow Video on February 17th, 2026.
In the annals of weird movies, the 1979 Italian epic The Visitor is one of the most memorable. Previously released in truncated form, Drafthouse Films put out the complete, full-length 109-minute version on Blu-ray a little more than a decade ago. To say the film has since built a following would be an understatement. It’s now a widely seen cult movie with many suggesting that the film is actually underappreciated.
Honestly, I come from an older school of thinking. For me it’s all about intent. Movies can be surreal, dreamlike and still resonate. The Visitor is a ridiculous and nonsensical flick that doesn’t succeed in its intent, but it’s still an incredibly fun feature that I adore. If you’ll excuse the expression, the movie is batshit crazy, throwing bizarre event after bizarre event at the audience with complete abandon. Arrow Video is now giving the picture the “Limited Edition” 4K Ultra HD treatment.
This film benefits greatly from the upgrade. The original 35mm camera negative has been restored and scanned in 4K. It’s also presented in Dolby Vision, resulting in a brighter and more striking appearance. When I saw the previous Blu-ray, I imagined that this was the best the movie would ever look. I was wrong. There are darker moments featuring plenty of natural grain, but the exteriors and interior house set look amazing. The surreal visuals look incredible with this presentation, with added detail and depth visible throughout a large portion of the picture. I do own that Blu-ray and can safely say this Arrow Video edition is a notable improvement.
So, what is the deal with this oddball picture? It’s director, Guilio Paradisi, worked as an assistant director for Federico Fellini on the 1963 classic 8 ½ and decided to capitalize on the recent (at the time) success of The Exorcist, The Omen and Close Encounters of the Third Kind with something of an eccentric rip-off. Yet the filmmaker attacks the material with every ounce of art film pretentiousness that he can muster, resulting in hilarious non-sequiturs, startlingly inappropriate music cues and too many unexplainable moments to count. That wasn’t its intent, but it is what makes it so incredible, memorable and rewatchable.
The plot, as close as can be assembled, involves an evil space being that has traveled across the universe. Another character who can be best described as a sort of Space Jesus (Franco Nero) explains that while this evil presence has been eliminated, it wasn’t before he passed his genes on to a human woman. Now, with every generation a child arrives with psychic powers that can potentially destroy the world. In this case, it’s 8-year-old Katy Collins (Paige Connor). She’s a little girl with a pet hawk and a mean streak a mile wide.
Space Jesus isn’t about to do anything about this problem himself, but he does inform onlookers that help is on the way. Yes, the only hope for the universe is Jerzy Colsowicz (John Huston), an inter-galactic hunter with a Polish passport (as he passes through customs, he states that it’s his first time in America, despite having a midwestern accent and no trace of a Polish one). Jerzy is out to capture the girl and clean her skull of wicked malevolence. When he’s not pursuing the child, he spends much of his time on rooftops hanging out with bald beings clad in tracksuit jackets. There are also subplots featuring Katy’s odd maid (Shelley Winters), an exaggeratedly gruff detective (Glenn Ford) and a sinister professional basketball team owner (Lance Henriksen). So yes, there’s a lot of bafflingly strange stuff going down.
In all honesty, there are some impressive shots, including several otherworldly, interpretive moments that involve clouds forming over a desert-like landscape. But most of the movie consists of a series of inexplicably jaw-dropping moments. These include a birthday party that ends in gunfire, several killer-bird attacks, and an ice rink mishap that sends skaters through plate glass windows. Instead of carrying an air of concern or determination, Huston looks only mildly miffed the entire time he hunts down the little girl. And Winter’s performance includes some very unusual and unsuitable ticks and mannerisms certain to get a reaction. Henriksen and Ford lend some legitimacy to the proceedings, but even they can’t overcome the absolutely insane story.
Again, this is the type of movie that is so wrongheaded and tonally bizarre that one can’t help but be impressed on some level. It isn’t unintentionally hilarious for the entirety of its nearly two-hour running time, but cheesy movie fans will find themselves laughing for a good portion of the unexpected events that occur.
The film comes with a film historian commentary and they’re fun to listen to. Obviously, I have a different view than the speakers, who make the claim that the movie is misunderstood, and it’s entertaining and enlightening to hear their take on the movie if it’s different from mine. They also make some comments about the female-centric storyline that comes up in other bonus features.
Speaking of which, there is also a pair of bonus video essays. One focuses on the story’s merging of religion and science-fiction, while the second examines the movie as potentially having a feminist viewpoint. It’s interesting, and the swapping out of a boy (in The Omen) for a girl naturally allows one to compare differences, although again, I don’t think any of this subtext was intentional on the part of the filmmakers.
Archival extra features are all great and share more insight on the actual production. They include interviews with the screenwriter who translated the Italian script into English, as well as actor Lance Henriksen who really explains the truth about what was going on. Both tell a similar story about the peculiar end product. There were many communication problems between the Italian director and the English-speaking cast. None of the stars understood what was happening in the film or why it was happening as shooting took place. Henriksen notes that the dialogue really did sound like a rough translation from Italian and didn’t make much sense to him. He does smile and admit that it was an early role and that at least he got a free trip to Rome for his troubles, while audiences got one of the wonkiest films they were ever likely to see.
You’ll also get a re-release trailer and an image gallery. If that wasn’t enough, the packaging contains a reversible sleeve, a booklet with essays on the film, and a slipcover.
To sum up, I enjoy The Visitor immensely, but for different reasons that some of the movie experts/fans of the picture do. 1979 saw the release of pictures like Ridley Scott’s Alien, Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, David Cronenberg’s The Brood, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Phantasm, Mad Max, Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot mini-series, and… well, you can’t convince me that this one is in the same league as those titles. It’s a knock-off of several better hit movies from a few years earlier, but it’s so wild and absurd that it makes a lasting impression. That’s why I like it so much and consider it something of a cheeseball classic. The 4K presentation is fantastic with a notable improvement in quality. The extras are great too, with fantastic archival interviews from those involved. And, if you do genuinely love the picture, then the new material will impress you as well.
This is another great 4K release from Arrow Video.
