THE VISITORS
How Swede it is, how sweet it ain't
Sweden's contribution to the horror genre has, so far, consisted primarily of a bunch of heavy metal bands which paint themselves white and sing (well, hiss and rasp) about killing Christians.
And so comes The Visitors, a haunted house movie with all the pizzazz and excitement that Swedish cinema is known for (rolling eyes).
A couple, with two kids, moves from New York to a Swedish village, and the man starts to suspect that the place is haunted, so eventually he calls in one of those psychic investigator-type people (who's played by a guy who looks an awful lot like a short-haired John Carpenter).
This is definitely one for people who find that counting little holes in the ceiling tiles is just not boring enough. For thirty minutes - thirty minutes! - all we get is this guy drinking, putting up wallpaper, and not getting along with the wife or mailman. (and no, there's no hot wife-on-mailman action)
Featuring a lot of bad dialogue I can only hope is the product of lousy dubbing, The Visitors's biggest point of interest is one of those gimmicky boxes, where you pull on the tab and an apparition appears (same thing happens on the Demon Wind box). Alas, the video store I frequent mutilates its boxes, so all I see is this apparition. It should have been enough to warn me off, though - this kind of box is usually meant to distract the viewer from just how bad the movie therein is.
Oh yeah, there's one hilarious moment involving the two kids:
LITTLE GIRL: The male peacock spreads its tail to attract the female so they can mate.
LITTLE BOY, slamming down his milk angrily, splashing it all over the place: In this house, we say "fuck"!
A look at the IMDb shows a grand total of eleven horror movies ever to have come out of Sweden, and none of them look too interesting (especially The Resurrection of Michael Myers Part 2, which I don't really think is authorized). Stick to the black metal, guys.