The Visitors (1988)

Renting a house in the Swedish countryside, a family comes to believe the house is possessed by demons and consults a trained demon hunter to help rid them of the dangerous beings inside before it harms their family.Overall, this one was quite an exciting and enjoyable effort. One of the more enjoyable aspects of this one is the fact that there's quite a large amount of time taken up here with getting this one to the point of featuring the house as actually being haunted by real demons here as the entire middle section here is loaded with all sorts of paranormal hunting sequences that have been featured throughout the genre for ages here with all sorts of hunting techniques and scanning equipment being utilized to fight off the strange energy found throughout the house. Coupled with the tactics of haunting here with the pounding footsteps, slamming doors and ethereal voices throughout the night it really paints quite an effective picture that really sells the haunted nature quite well. As it adds these features with the previous sequences to denote the haunted nature of this effort, the complete picture of what's happening here is even more accomplished here and it really goes to add a more imposing presence to this one with it's chilling backstory involving the demonic rituals conducted in the walled-off room as well as the ghostly actions in the finale with the attacks that come into far more focus and impact with a spectacular burning-down-the-house Gothic finale to cap it all off with. These are enough to overcome it's few flaws here, most notably it's incredibly contrived and familiar story that mashes together two similar efforts without much difficulty in spotting where the influences came from which simply highlights the overall familiar ground it traipses through. It's not in the slightest original and doesn't do much to dissuade that viewpoint by taking on those common scenes without really making any big difference in them. As well, the film does take quite a while to get through here as there's not a whole lot of interesting action taking place early on with them moving into the house being just quite excruciating to follow and makes for a wholly difficult time with this not really getting the action going while it shows them settling into the house. It's a long series of boring scenes featuring them arguing with each other or goofing around before launching into the attacks well over half-way into it and that doesn't make for an intriguing effort at all. Otherwise, this one was quite enjoyable if you overlook those flaws.Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Graphic Language and children-in-jeopardy.

I basically think this is a great movie. It's rare for Swedish movies to be good, or even great, but this one is truly great. They've managed to keep the storyline on the track, good acting, OK special effects (not that many though) and good music. I suppose this was a medium budget compared to Swedish standards, but I think this is what you mean when you imply that great art can come out of something simple. It also involves one of the funnies movie moments I've ever seen, you'll recognize it if you see it. I highly recommend it and personally regard it as Swedish top five movies together with Fanny and Alexander, Änglagård and a few other movies. (That list is short though).

This movie is one of my favorites. It doesn't rely on special effects, it doesn't rely on big name actors, at least not by U.S. standards. It doesn't rely on great dubbing, in fact it is quite bad. So what does this movie offer... a scary plot, the movie is slow and cerebral, but very scary. Pacific Heights scary. The main character has to solve a mystery about the house that they just moved into. The movie offers up just enough to keep the guesswork, wallpaper that won't stick, mysterious figures in the windows, a quite entertaining film, which is what this is, a film, not a movie, excellent, I voted a ten...

I remember watching this movie once back in 1992, back then I thought it was amazing (somehow), upon seeing it again I realize that it has a bunch of elements that really stand out, and is worthy of attention. Don't take me wrong, I'm pretty cynic when it comes to Swedish movies, the only one I've ever liked so far is "Mannen Pa Taket" and "Noll Tolerans", however this has nothing to do with any action paced scenarios, but more the realism in it, unlike the ungraspable Hollywood-movies. It all starts out with a series of events in the families new house in a town outskirt, where everything for a start seems to be quite alright (with a couple of flaws of course), then for some reason they start to notice that something is happening to the house, the tapestries start to fall off in one of the rooms, in another nothing 'feels' right, and then it all gets creepier and creepier. I can't say that this movie is very particular in comparison to the great, I just think that this is a missed out movie, may it not be the Swedish quintessence, but a good portion of essence (at least).