Visitors Of The Night

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Directed by Jorge Montasi

Written by Michael J Murray

Starring Candace Cameron Bure, Markie Post and Stephen McHattie


This is a TV movie, filmed in Canada in 1995 for, I think, the NBC network. If not NBC, it might have been broadcast on Lifetime, I believe. It stars Markie Post, a veteran of TV movies dating back into the late 1970s. (She is featured in ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’, playing the mother of Sarah Chalke’s character, and also makes occasional appearances in ‘Scrubs’ - as the mother of Sarah Chalke’s character).

In the pilot episode of ‘Will And Grace’ (a sit-com I could never understand the appeal of, to be honest) Will tells Grace, “You are so Marky Post in every single Lifetime movie!”

Also amongst the lead cast is Stephen McHattie, who, even if the name is not immediately familiar, is instantly recognisable. He looks like a cross between Robert Patrick and Lance Henriksen.

‘Visitors Of The Night’ is a typical TV movie of its type, the story of a well-to-do woman and her relationship with her troubled teenage daughter, a relationship that is complicated by her difficult and sometimes antagonistic relationship with her estranged husband, a well-known public figure in the small, determinedly middle-class local community. All the usual scenarios are included – troubles with authority figures at school; teenage parties that get out of control; underage drinking; underage sex. The twist here is a topping of alien abduction, crop circles and cattle mutilations.

The storyline has much in common with the pilot episode of ‘The X Files’, which was first broadcast in 1993, and also to a lesser extent with the 1989 Christopher Walken film ‘Communion’.

I have always liked ‘Visitors Of The Night’, ever since the first time I saw it late one night on television -- and I never tire of watching it.

Let me put it this way. ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ by Pink Floyd is an acknowledged rock classic. I quite like Pink Floyd (‘Meddle’ is a particular favourite of mine), but I have never owned a copy of that album and still feel no compulsion to change that. ‘Get Your Dog Off Me’ by forgotten Scottish prog-rockers Beggar’s Opera was released the same year (1973). It is neither an acknowledged classic nor a lost classic. I bought a vinyl copy in the year of its release. These days I have a CD copy and I also have tracks from it on my iPod. I enjoy listening to it now as much as I ever have done.



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