Hollwood Fringe Review: The Visitor is a welcome guest for those who like their houses haunted

Top: What visitor lurks in the upstairs shadows of the fixer-upper being pitched to the audience by a desperate realtor?

We have enjoyed many horror-themed productions at Hollywood Fringe Festival. Some have been eerie, some suspenseful, and some thrilling. But none made us jump out of our seats like The Visitor. At 45 minutes in length, it is too short to be called a slow burn, but it does carefully lay the groundwork, lulling the audience into a comfortable, even comical sense of normality, before something makes itself known – manifesting subtly at first before fully revealing itself for a cardiac-inducing jump-scare. And that’s not even the best part. The Visitor follows the shocks with twists and turns that lead to a surprisingly moving conclusion. For us, it’s the highlight of the 2025 Fringe Fest.

The Visitor Review: The Fixer-Upper from Hell

The Visitor starts off like a one-woman show, with realtor Charlotte Taylor (Rachael Hip-Flores) pitching a property to the audience as if we are attending an open-house presentation. Her cheerful demeanor gradually cracks as she admits she only got the assignment because it’s a hopeless one, and her company is setting her up to fail so they have an excuse to fire her. Resentments and anger boil to the surface over the treatment of women in the work force (the setting seems to be decades ago, before cell phones). But her personal issues are soon eclipsed by flickering lights and malfunctioning audio equipment, followed by sounds suggesting someone else is in the house.

If we were to be super nitpicky, we would mention that Charlotte’s open-house sales pitch goes on longer than necessary before the haunting manifests, but any impatience we felt was eclipsed by what followed. The buildup pays off with a powerful sense of the supernatural intruding upon the quotidian world – all the more profound because we in the audience have been made to feel we are in the house and thus also being haunted.

After this, The Visitor manages to successfully jump the hurdle that trips up many ghost stories: explaining the haunting can dissipate its uncanny effectiveness. All we will say here is that there is a backstory that involves Charlotte somehow, and the play avoids the well-worn path (how to exorcise the ghost?) in favor an ending we do not see coming but which perfectly resolves the story. Along the way, there is a familiar (if not predictable) twist, but it’s a necessary narrative stepping stone to the conclusion.

Actress Rachael Hip-Flores charts Charlotte’s journey with humor, terror, and sympathy in what initially seems like a one-woman show (until the title character shows up). We won’t spoil how things turn out for her; we simply note the resolution of her character arc is perfect.

The Visitor Review: Conclusion

It is a rare ghost story that is both frightening and poignant. Without giving too much away, we can’t really explain how The Visitor achieves both. Let’s just say that when the scares erupt midway through, it may seem like a premature climax that the ending will not be able to match; fortunately, instead of trying to up the ante, the ending gives us something different but equally powerful.