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MESSIAH OF EVIL

A WOMAN SEARCHES FOR HER MISSING FATHER IN A CREEPY SEASIDE TOWN



★★★☆☆ (Good for One Viewing)

Director: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz

1973



Arletty drives to the lonely town of Point Dune to make sure her father—who has stopped sending letters—is alive and well. Along the way, she ignores warnings from the gas station attendant and the howling of strange animals in the distance, and these sort of unexplainable decisions made by characters cost Messiah of Evil enjoyability points. That’s not to say it’s a wash. The movie may borrow from different horror media (the ease of Night of the Living Dead, narration à la Jonathan Harker in Dracula) but there’s enough novelty here via message and visuals to keep it from fading into the void of formulaic horror. The problem is Messiah of Evil asks a lot of its audience, who are required have the patience to wait long stretches to get to the scenes where our heroes fight townspeople stricken with a disease that gives them the bloody munchies.


When Arletty arrives at her father’s empty home (an astonishingly cool set design with taxidermy and disorienting wall art) and discovers a diary where he describes his strange illness, she starts snooping around a town where folks don’t take too kindly to strangers. A lead from the Main Street art gallery sends the woman to a seedy motel room where a relaxed nobleman named Thom is hanging out with his two concubines(?) Laura and Toni while listening to a homeless old drunk talk about the lore of the bloody moon and how it brought death to Point Dune one hundred years ago. Arletty doesn’t think much of the man’s ramblings as an interested Thom urges him on. Meanwhile, classless Toni is burping or complaining about her boredom, and Laura—the kind of girl who would hold her pinkie in the air while snorting coke—is spaced out on the bed. These two women are sold as trashy dispensables, but that’s not how I saw them, and I’ll get back to that in a minute.



The drunk man becomes the next guy to warn Arletty, and the next guy she chooses to ignore. Soon after, he winds up dead in an alley, which leads to Thom and his lady friends breaking into Arletty’s home and telling her they’re staying because the motel blamed them for the homeless man’s demise. Why our heroine can’t just kick them off her family’s property is added to a long list of questions regarding character trait and motivation. When it becomes clear her life is at stake, Arletty doesn’t even consider getting into her vehicle and going somewhere else for help. Despite obvious danger on the horizon, Thom stays because he’s intrigued by a ghost story; and despite owning a castle (as he claims) in Europe, he can’t spring for enough gas to get them out of dodge. I feel more sorry for his paramours, who really have no way to leave considering he has the car and it doesn’t look like there’s a taxi service to the next town. These two women are the only victims in my eyes because Arletty and Thom have the means to save themselves and simply choose not to.


Of course, their actions prove fatal for many. Bonfires rage on the beach as the new arrivals learn that one does not go out at night in Point Dune, and this is when wonderful kills salvage the movie. Yes, the pacing is slow and Huyck/Katz direct like they have all the time in the world, but no cheap ending or amount of yawning beats a woman sitting alone in a movie theater as zombies quietly gather behind her like the crows on a jungle gym in The Birds. You may notice a pattern in zombie-wear; these suited monsters devouring the young and hip and colorful are added social commentary about the two Americas at the time—and the end days of the groovy lifestyle. A bad moon is rising in Messiah of Evil, but in real life, the sun is setting on free love.






GENRES: Atmospheric, Feminist-Friendly, Monster/Creature


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