Messiah of Evil

If I were to grade 1973's MESSIAH OF EVIL on atmosphere alone, it would certainly merit at least an A-.  You've read my thoughts many times, how the achievement of mood and sense of place is critical to any movie, but perhaps especially horror.  In a low budget chiller such as this, it really is all that matters.  And it is palpable.  Unnerving and filled with imagery to invade your dreams.   I sound like a hyperbolic ad campaign, but it is absolutely true.

It's amusing how often the plots of B-movies get so convoluted, and this one is no different.  The screenplay by directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz is in many ways of traditional structure and cliche, but also gets involved with nebulous supernatural elements that aren't well explained.  In fact, the film borders on incoherency, though I've read that this might be because of financial concerns, that more expository scenes could not be filmed.

A woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) arrives to the California seaside town of Point Dume to visit her father, an artist who's possibly gone batty.  We hear his letters to her in voiceover, of how he feels he is losing control of his body.  Arletty immediately notices things are awry when she encounters an odd Albino (Bennie Robinson, in apparently his only screen credit) at the Mobil station.  We learn later that he likes to feed on live rats.  He is one of the weirdest dudes I've seen in a movie, creepy as hell.  How he didn't get more gigs is unfathomable.

Anyway, things get weirder when Arletty meets a well dressed man named Thom (Michael Greer) who travels with two women, Laura (Anitra Ford) and Toni (Joy Bang), clearly a menage a trois. Thom says he likes to collect strange folklore and is interested in Arletty's father and his disappearance.  He'll even invite himself and the women to spend the night at the father's abandoned home, its walls covered with stark, disturbing illustrations of men in suits.   Ones that match a group who gather at the beach every light, lighting bonfires.

We learn soon enough that Point Dume is overrun by vampire zombies, or something.  We get two classic, beautifully orchestrated kill scenes, one in a Ralph's supermarket, the other in a movie theater.  For the latter, if COVID hadn't forever tainted theater going for me, this scene might well have.  Choice stuff.

Huyck and Katz are best known for their screenplays for AMERICAN GRAFFITI and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  They also directed the unfortunate movies HOWARD THE DUCK and BEST DEFENSE.  They may dismiss this early effort but despite its crude form it is brilliantly effective as horror, with one of the best rapid fire montages (near the finale) to be seen in this sort of picture.  The location filming is also quite good. You also get to see film director Walter Hill get his throat slashed in the first reel. 

There is a theory about a character who drowns late in the movie who may also be the title character, a former 19th century minister and Donner Party survivor who began spreading his religion/infection in Point Dume a century ago.  Kind of a reach (and brings up many questions), but interesting......