People are voting emotionally.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Even though I'm a massive horror fan, I've never been particularly fond of the haunted house sub-genre. With a few wonderful exceptions, most recent entries in the field are dull knock-offs of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, a film which was bad to begin with. Still, I've seen very few Swedish horror flicks and THE VISITORS seems to be well-regarded by the few who've seen it, so I figured I'd give it a shot. My feelings are mixed.Plot-wise, it's what you'd expect. A family moves into a new house in the middle of the countryside. There's a lot of marital drama and the father figure (played rather well by Kjell Bergqvist) is slipping into alcoholism while losing his grasp on job security. When weird happenings start occurring in the house, the father brings in a psychic specialist and it all goes south from there.What struck me as odd about THE VISITORS is how mild a case of haunting the family experiences. One room in the house rejects wallpaper and the cellar door keeps opening, but that's about it! It really seems like a livable case of possession to me! This makes for a slow start to a film, one only kept moving by entertaining, surprisingly solid performances by the main and supporting cast.Unfortunately, there's not too many scares to be had. There's a couple solid suspense sequences and moments of shock, but the film mostly floats along towards its conclusion, which ups the ante a little too much far too quickly. The ending feels rushed and doesn't hit with any real impact. Factor in TV-film-level direction and a horridly cheesy music score, and THE VISITORS really falls a bit flat. It's not the worst I've seen in the genre by a long shot, but it didn't make me believe there's a lost canon of wonderful '80s horror flicks from Sweden floating around, waiting to be found.

Frank (Begqvist) is an ad executive from New York who buys a new house and Sweden and moves his family there. While fixing up the house, strange things begin to happen. While trying to hang wallpaper that keeps falling off the wall, Frank sees footprints in the attic that lead to a locked door. He's sure he is hearing voices on the other side of the door but his wife Sarah (Endre) looks at him like he is crazy. Frustrated, Frank calls in a ghost expert that also runs an occult magazine to help him investigate. The two talk endlessly about haunting's and ghosts but we never see a thing. Sarah gets so annoyed with her crazy drinking husband she leaves him. Frank is stuck with the kids and the implied ghosts. Sarah has a nightmare that makes her run back to her family in time for Frank's final showdown with the ghosts. The problem is what Ghosts? The movie speaks of ghosts it's entire running time, and is on the verge of something happening the entire film and it delivers nothing! 'The Visitors' is flat out boring. With no ghosts, suspense, atmosphere, or chills of any kind this film is completely forgettable. There isn't even any cheap gore spilled, but the American dubbing could be an all time low. The last thing the world needed was a bad boring Swedish haunted house film and that is exactly what this lifeless turkey is.

The first one is Japan. And they know it. The second is Sweden, but for some reason horror movies are extremely rarely produced in this country. There are only a handful. But almost all of them are great, and this one is no exception. It's only the first movie I've seen that manages to be very amusing, at no expense when it comes to the fear factor. A Swedish viewer would look upon this movie with much doubt, because it is a movie starring Johannes Brost and Kjell Bergqvist, yet calls itself horror. That's sounds like a combination that doesn't work. But strangely enough it does! The movie is awesome.

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).