The Visitor Review: A Horror Movie With An Identity Crisis
© Provided by ScreenRantFor most of The Visitor's run, things played out as expected - unlike the Jake from Finn Jones characters, viewers quickly knew what was going on within (mostly) fifteen minutes. While the visitor has a few surprises in the last ten minutes, the film's fatal flaw is that those ten minutes are more interesting than the ones before them. The Visitor , directed by Justin P. Lange and written by Simon Boyce and Adam Mason, stars Jones (" Iron Fist ") and Jessica McNamee (" Mortal Kombat "). As much as it tries to be a genre mash-up, it's much better if it picks a track and leans into it.
The Visitor follows Jake (Jones), who returns to his hometown with his wife Maya (McNamee) after a series of tragic accidents to start over after the death of their father, Edgar. Everything seems beautiful at first - a dilapidated but beautiful country house, colorful residents who welcome you with open arms and the idea of a fresh start. Things quickly go wrong when Jake discovers a portrait of a man in the attic that looks just like him. Nicknamed " The Stranger " by the locals, Jake began to see the man seriously in antique shops and in his dreams. Although some of the locals try to convince her, Maya wants to stay, even as signs of the plague hit the town and the priest accepts Jake. But as she continues her investigation and people start dying, Maya begins to question her husband's sanity and whether they will ever return home.
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Visitors are full of clichés, dreaded but forgivable if done right. It was by no means baseless, but the visitor managed to flip the "crazy woman in the house" image for a while. At this time, Jake was crazy, but it was more than a matter of sanity. Fortunately, Miyaya plays the role with humility, asking her husband's opinion and making him believe that all is well, even after a seemingly biblical plague sweeps through the town.
When Jake starts seeing the visitor in his dreams and realizes that something else might be going on, another misperception in the visitor is not so easy to deny. This is where the identity crisis begins. The visitor does not seem to be able to decide what he wants, and he plays quickly and easily with different sub-genres that are not compatible with each other. To list them all goes into spoiler territory, but this movie saves the funniest for last. What happens after the credits roll is more interesting than what came before, and that's partly because it's left to the imagination. The twist, packed into the last twenty minutes of the film with little room to breathe, is layered from the original telegram, but builds to an exciting and confusing climax.
Jones sold the innings with a wicked smile, but that was all he needed. In the end, the visitors aren't that scary and can be a bit of a problem for a picnic. It's like a made-for-TV horror movie for viewers to watch in a hotel room and just stop. A horror film can commit far worse sins than this, so it won't bore the audience as much as it does. It's atmospheric and tense, and the lead-up to the finale leaves much to be desired. The same cannot be said about the number of horror movies being released these days.
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The Visitors will be available digitally and on demand on October 7th and will air on EPIX in December. The film is 86 minutes long
