The Visitor - A Blumhouse Productions Horror Flick for a Rainy Afternoon

The Visitor is a new Blumhouse Productions horror movie starring Jessica McNamee and Finn Jones. It is directed by Justin P. Lange.

Premise

After a series of tragedies including the death of his father-in-law, Robert and his wife Maia leave their home in London to move back to her childhood home. But when Robert discovers an old portrait in the attic of a man who is his spitting image, he goes down a rabbit hole to discover the identity of this mysterious doppelganger known only as the visitor. It isn’t long until he realizes – where the visitor goes, death follows.

Movie Review

‘The Visitor’ is, without immediately qualifying it as a bad movie, a piece that does not manage to stand out nor grab our attention, and those viewers who stay put until the end will leave feeling that the screenplay and production is slightly affected.

We have seen this before, as ‘The Visitor’ wanders down already beaten paths and gives way, every once in a while, to iterations in style as far as the horror scenes go, leaning on the collective unconscious that when applied well in a movie, tends to work magic. Unfortunately in this feature, the efforts made aim simply to “get by” as a horror movie. It might appeal to some viewers who will sit throughout deeply engaged in the story, which in our view develops ever so slowly and stumbles, ultimately coming across a feature for a lazy afternoon when one just wants to kill time away with an easy viewing session.

It does have an interesting premise, concerning the intriguing “doppelgänger” concept. However, the way in which it has been adapted, it loses some of its potential to become a thrilling and perhaps scary story. A feature film that is more apt for TV, if that is an option at this day and age, and that does not pretend to be more than its antecedents, which are more literary than cinematic, and in effect begs for that “extra something” that this film clearly lacks.

Our Opinion

A watchable movie, with an interesting premise. With its Gothic horror inclinations, there is always some good story to be told, the question is, do they manage to tell it well? As a cinematic piece, it does not strive to go particularly far, but manages to reach far enough to entertain for an odd couple of hours, preferably, during a rainy afternoon as it would up the dreary-eerie factor.