''Messiah of Evil'' (later also shown under the title ''Dead People'') is a 1973 American supernatural horror film co-written, co-produced, and co-directed by

Willard Huyck Willard Miller Huyck, Jr. (born September 8, 1945) is an American screenwriter, director and producer, best known for his association with George Lucas. Career Huyck and Lucas met as students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, film school ...

and

Gloria Katz Gloria Katz (October 25, 1942 – November 25, 2018) was an American screenwriter and film producer, best known for her association with George Lucas. Along with her husband Willard Huyck, Katz created the screenplays of films including ''Amer ...

, and starring

Marianna Hill Marianna Hill ( Schwarzkopf, February 9, 1942) is an American actress. She predominantly worked in American television and is known for her starring roles in the Western films '' El Condor'' and '' High Plains Drifter'' and the cult horror film ' ...

Royal Dano Royal Edward Dano Sr. (November 16, 1922 - May 15, 1994) was an American actor. In a career spanning 46 years, he was perhaps best known for playing cowboys, villains, and Abraham Lincoln. Dano also provided the voice of the Audio-Animatronic L ...

, and

Elisha Cook Jr. Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. (December 26, 1903 – May 18, 1995) was an American character actor famed for his work in films noir. According to Bill Georgaris of TSPDT: They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, Cook appeared in a total of 21 film ...

Its plot follows a woman who travels to a remote coastal town in California to find her missing artist father; upon arrival, she finds herself in the midst of a series of bizarre incidents. Released theatrically in the spring of 1973, it would later be re-released in 1983 under the alternate title ''Dead People''. Directors Huyck and Katz are the husband-and-wife team who would subsequently direct ''

Howard the Duck Howard the Duck is a fictional Character (arts), character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. Howard the Duck first appeared in ''Adventure into F ...

'' as well as produce screenplays for ''

American Graffiti ''American Graffiti'' is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard (billed as Ronny ...

'' and '' Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom''.

Plot

A young woman named Arletty (

) drives to the beach town of Point Dume, California, to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his beachfront house abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically. In it he complains about darkness consuming the town, and horrible nightmares he is having, and implores Arletty to never, ever look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings, does not sell them, no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and says he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dume is "an artist colony" and he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, like dead men at a funeral). It is never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both. Arletty meets a visiting

Portuguese-American Portuguese Americans ( pt, português-americanos), also known as Luso-Americans (''luso-americanos''), are citizens and residents of the United States who are connected to the country of Portugal by birth, ancestry, or citizenship. Americans and ...

aristocrat Thom (

Michael Greer Michael Greer (born James Robert Malley; April 20, 1938 Although some sources list Greer's birth date as April 20, 1942, no support for a 1943 birth date has yet been found in publicly available birth records.groupie The term groupie is a slang word that refers to a fan of a particular musical group who follows the band around while they are on tour or who attends as many of their public appearances as possible, with the hope of meeting them. The term is us ...

-like female companions, Toni (

Joy Bang Joy Bang (born June 15, 1945 as Joy Wener) is a former American actress best known for her film appearances in the early 1970s. Early life Bang was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and was adopted at one month old. She was raised in New York City ...

) and Laura ( Anitra Ford). Back at his motel, Thom interviews Charlie, ( Elisha Cook, Jr.) the local town eccentric. Charlie speaks at length about "the blood moon" and "the dark stranger" and how he has lived through both. He says very soon it will be the 100 year anniversary of the first appearance of the "dark stranger." He will return, the moon will turn red, and the town will be overrun with evil. Charlie warns Arletty about her father, he says he is "one of them" now. Moments later he is murdered off screen. Thom, Toni, and Laura are kicked out of their hotel after interviewing Charlie, and stay at Arletty's father's house. Arletty reads through her father's bizarre journal entries, in which he reveals his body temperature is 85 degrees, and he mentions fighting his "condition." Meanwhile, each night, creatures gather on the beach in front of bonfires, staring straight up at the moon. The locals call it "The Waiting." Late one evening before making a trip to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, Laura goes into the local

Ralphs Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. The largest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger, it is the oldest such chain west of the Mississippi River. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. nam ...

supermarket, and is devoured by a hoard of vampires who are feasting on raw meat; the following day, Toni goes to see a movie, and is also eaten by the other theater patrons, who are the same creatures. That evening, the "blood moon" rises, and the town's residents turn into vampires, and the titular "Messiah of Evil" returns. Through voice-over of Charlie's taped interviews, we learn that this "Messiah" was a former minister and a

Donner Party The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in th ...

survivor from the late 19th century turned vampire/cannibal, who has come to spread his new "religion" and lead his people up the coast and inland. While Thom hides, two policemen in

riot gear Riot control measures are used by law enforcement, military, paramilitary or security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, unlawful demonstration or unlawful protest. If a riot is spontaneous and irration ...

drive up and fire their guns into a swarm of vampires; however, one of the cops suddenly begins to bleed, causing his now-former partner to shoot him and flee. Undaunted, the undead cop shoots his former ally, and he and the other vampires go to feast on his flesh. Thom returns to the house, where he finds Arletty half-crazed; she is cold, cannot feel pain, and thinks she may be dead or undead. She even finds a bug crawling around in her mouth and immediately vomits up various

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

mealworm Mealworms are the larval form of the yellow mealworm beetle, ''Tenebrio molitor'', a species of darkling beetle. Like all holometabolic insects, they go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Larvae typically measure about or ...

s and an anole. While Thom was gone, Arletty was visited by her father, who had warned her not to follow him and begs her to leave to tell the world about Point Dume. He then attacks her, reluctantly giving in to his "vampire" urges, and after she stabs him with garden shears before burning him alive. Startled by Thom, she stabs him in the arm with the shears. The two of them flee to the beach, but the ersatz vampires follow them, even in broad daylight. They swim out to the breakers, but Thom drowns. Arletty survives and is captured by the townspeople. Instead of killing her, she is let free under the condition that she spread word of the religious movement throughout California and the world. This causes her to be locked up in an insane asylum. Each day, all day, she sits in the sun painting, dreading the day the Messiah and his followers come to take her away.

Cast

Michael Greer Michael Greer (born James Robert Malley; April 20, 1938 Although some sources list Greer's birth date as April 20, 1942, no support for a 1943 birth date has yet been found in publicly available birth records.Marianna Hill Marianna Hill ( Schwarzkopf, February 9, 1942) is an American actress. She predominantly worked in American television and is known for her starring roles in the Western films '' El Condor'' and '' High Plains Drifter'' and the cult horror film ' ...

as Arletty *

as Toni * Anitra Ford as Laura *

as Joseph Lang *

as Charlie *

Charles Dierkop Charles Richard Dierkop (born September 11, 1936) is an American character actor. He is most recognized for his supporting roles in the films '' Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' (1969) and ''The Sting'' (1973) and the television series ''Po ...

as Gas Attendant * Bennie Robinson as Albino Trucker *

Walter Hill Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 1 ...

as Stabbing Victim in Prologue

Analysis

Katz later said the film "was a real bowwow", though Huyck claimed in 1984 that "it appeared on a marquee in a

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

film, and ''Film Comment'' called it 'one of the top 10 classic, overlooked horror films of all time.'"

Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at ...

considers this film to be a "neglected" and "

surreal Surreal may refer to: *Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art * "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki * ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze *Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor ...

" horror film, which has both a convoluted narrative and a peculiar atmosphere. He draws attention to details such as the vanished father being a death-obsessed painter, the daughter falling in with a group of

hedonists Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...

, the town people turning into

ghoul A ghoul ( ar, غول, ') is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid. The concept originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion, associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. Modern fiction often uses the term to label a cert ...

s. He also notes that the "dark stranger" was a sinister preacher, whose awaited return comes from the sea. He found all these details to point to the influence of H. P. Lovecraft on the film, while the depiction of the undead derives from their depiction in ''

Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo and Romero, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven pe ...

''. Newman points to the "doomed derelict", whose apt warnings are ignored, to be a cliché deriving from

gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of e ...

. Ian Cooper comments that the undead of the film seem to be ghoul-like, and

zombie A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...

-like

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...

s. He comments that there was a trend in this direction following the release of ''Night of the Living Dead'' (1968), and ''Messiah'' was one of the films that followed it. He cites among other examples '' Let's Scare Jessica to Death'' (1971), ''

The Return of Count Yorga ''The Return of Count Yorga'' (originally titled ''Yorga Returns'') is a 1971 American vampire horror film directed by Bob Kelljan and starring Robert Quarry, Roger Perry, Yvonne Wilder, George Macready, Rudy De Luca, Edward Walsh, and Craig T. ...

'' (1971), ''

Deathdream ''Deathdream'' (also known as ''Dead of Night'') is a 1974 horror film directed by Bob Clark and written by Alan Ormsby, and starring Richard Backus, John Marley, and Lynn Carlin. Filmed in Brooksville, Florida, it was inspired by the W. W. Jaco ...

/Dead of Night'' (1972), and ''

Lemora ''Lemora'' is a 1973 American horror film written and directed by Richard Blackburn, and starring Cheryl Smith, Hy Pyke, and Lesley Gilb. It follows a young girl in Prohibition-era America who travels to a mysterious town to visit her father, and ...

'' (1975). According to author Glenn Kay, one of the key weaknesses of the film is that "important plot points are never clarified". He notes that the motivations of the lead characters are never properly explained. In particular, Thom is identified as a collector of old

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...

s. But his motivations are even more obscure than those of his female companions. Newman points that the strange behavior of the seemingly normal characters adds to the surreal feeling of the film. The titular Messiah of Evil is never properly identified. Kay finds it problematic that no character reads the father's diary to the end, until it is too late to prevent their fate. It is unclear whether the character Thom is the "dark stranger" himself (Michael Greer does in fact play the "dark stranger" in the flashback sequence), a reincarnation, or a descendant. In an interview with Michael Greer to promote the film ''The Gay Deceivers'', Greer stated that he would be playing "the devil's son" in his upcoming film ''Messiah of Evil''. The process of the transformation for the infected is depicted on screen, but said process is also never really explained. The film features a distinctive pattern of symptoms for the infected population of Point Dume. They start bleeding from the eyes, while becoming insensitive to pain. They consume meat regardless of its source. They all seem to feast on human flesh, several of them consume the entire meat section of a supermarket, and one of them is seen eating a mouse. Once fully transformed, they reportedly "become mere shells of their former selves". They all eagerly await the return of the so-called "dark stranger", passing the time by lighting bonfires on the beach and gathering round them. When the long-waited return occurs, they are bound to spread their disease to other areas of California. The scene of a victim chased through a supermarket and devoured in one of its aisles remains a highlight for the film, though the death is implied and not depicted. It seems to be a depiction of

consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...

, in a similar way to the satire of consumerism in '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978). Newman finds the highlight of the film to be the scene set in the movie theater. Toni, the "

nymphet "Lolita" is an English-language term defining a young girl as "precociously seductive." It originates from Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel ''Lolita,'' which portrays the narrator Humbert's sexual obsession with and victimization of a 12-year-old g ...

" as he calls her, is watching a collage of scenes from the Western (genre), Western ''Gone with the West'' (1974). Meanwhile, the decayed theater is increasingly filled up with undead people. Brendan Riley notes that the zombie films of George A. Romero are known for their social criticism, but he believes that the same can be said of non-Romero films of the genre. He notes ''Messiah'' as an example. The undead hordes consist of strait-laced, suit-wearing people, while their targets consist of a Long hair, long-haired dandy and his two lovers. Newman places the film within a specific era of horror film, which he names "the American Nightmare". He defines it as the era starting with ''

'' (1968) and ending with '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978). He defines it as an era where writer-directors started their own film projects, and then went in search of business partners and shady distributors. The films had commercial value, but the creators managed to express their personal concerns within the framework of the genre. He places ''Messiah'' among the one-off oddities produced in this era, and notes that such oddities were regularly released alongside the marketable hits which spawned sequels. Newman believes the era properly ended in the early 1980s, when formula-driven franchises such as ''Friday the 13th (franchise), Friday the 13th'' and ''A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise), A Nightmare on Elm Street'' started dominating the genre. Matt Serafini of ''Dread Central'' identifies the film as an early example of "nightmare" films, meaning that it portrays many dream-like, psychedelic scenes in an eerie, unsettling atmosphere.

Production

Principal photography of ''Messiah of Evil'' began on September 1, 1971 in California, on a budget of under $1 million.

Release

Theatrical distribution

The film premiered in Los Angeles on April 23, 1973. It was released under several alternate titles in the following years, such as ''Return of the Living Dead'', ''Revenge of the Screaming Dead'', and ''The Second Coming''. The film was involved in a dispute in the 1970s over its title, when a Chicago distributor released it under the title ''Return of the Living Dead''. The title was chosen to make it sound as part of the ''Living Dead'' franchise and this was Mockbuster, misleading. The Laurel Group (also known as Laurel Entertainment), founded in 1976 by George A. Romero and Richard P. Rubinstein, took legal action against this use of the title. Eventually the Motion Picture Association of America decided that Romero did not hold exclusive rights to the terms ''Living Dead'', but ruled against the use of the misleading title for ''Messiah''. It would subsequently receive theatrical release again in 1983 under the title ''Dead People''.

Home media

The film was released on DVD on October 27, 2009, fully remastered by Code Red DVD. A fortieth anniversary Blu-ray edition was released by Code Red in 2013. It had previous been released as a double feature DVD in 2003 paired with ''The Devil's Nightmare''.

Critical response

Kevin Thomas of the ''Los Angeles Times'' dismissed the film as a "thoroughly dismal horror picture that is sleep-inducing rather than hair-raising". Nick Spacek from ''Starburst Magazine'' rated the film a perfect score of 10 out of 10, calling it "unsettling", and praised the film's soundtrack, and disturbing visuals. Ian Jane of DVD Talk gave the film four out of five stars, praising the film's atmosphere, performances, tension, and visual style, calling it "a high point in creativity for the independent American horror film movement of the 1970s".

Legacy

The film was listed at #95 on IndieWire's ''The 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All-Time'', with the film's entry stating, "While ''Messiah of Evil'' is lesser known, it’s full of iconic and memorable scenes that recall to mind some of George A. Romero’s best work."

References

Sources

* * * * * * *

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Messiah Of Evil 1973 films 1973 horror films 1973 independent films American independent films Films about cannibalism American vampire films American zombie films Films set in a movie theatre Films set in California Films shot in California Films shot in Los Angeles Films directed by Willard Huyck Films directed by Gloria Katz Films with screenplays by Willard Huyck Films with screenplays by Gloria Katz Films produced by Gloria Katz Films produced by Willard Huyck 1973 directorial debut films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films