Review #2622: Messiah of Evil.
Cast:
Michael Greer (Thom), Marianna Hill (Arletty Lang), Joy Bang (Toni), Anitra Ford (Laura), Royal Dano (Joseph Lang), Elisha Cook Jr (Charlie), Charles Dierkop (gas attendant), Bennie Robinson (albino trucker), and Walter Hill (victim in prologue) Written, Produced and Directed by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck (#1704 - Howard the Duck)
Review:
I guess it makes sense to pick a possible "cult favorite" every now and then. You might remember that Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck were a married screenwriting duo that had a notable connection in filmmaking when Huyck met George Lucas when each were students at USC and their film school. Huyck and Katz were hired by Lucas to work on a treatment for what eventually became American Graffiti. The resulting success on its August 1973 release came right as Katz and Huyck were to do their first film together with, well, Messiah of Evil. It was a low-budget movie that had several of their friends play bit parts (Walter Hill, Billy Weber, Bill L. Norton). Apparently, Katz co-directed the film with Huyck (sources list her as uncredited) in what was her only directorial credit. The movie either finished as it was planned or it was left* with a few scenes left to actually finish (honestly, the latter seems more there) before just being dropped into theaters in December 1974. There apparently were multiple titles that the film got released in for later years, such as "Return of the Living Dead", "Revenge of the Screaming Dead", "Night of the Damned", and "Dead People". Katz once called it a "real bowwow", although Huyck eventually warmed to the film, even attending a sold-out Q/A screening for it in later years. The following year after the release of Messiah, Huyck and Katz got tasked to do script-work on Lucky Lady [1975] before working on French Postcards [1979].
What's there to say that isn't merely just stating things that occur in the film? You might wonder what the film is about. Well, in the vaguest way possible, a woman tells of what happened when she visited a coastal town to see her artist father only to find a diary of his strange experiences alongside a few strangers that happen to need to stay at the place because of strange things that only get stranger (I suppose it's not a spoiler to say it starts at the loony bin). People gather around bonfires to stare at the moon while people's eyes weep blood and a "dark stranger" apparently may return 100 years after being a survivor of the Donner Party. Around that is a variety of things that happen from albino truckers to narration to basically carry what isn't evident. This is...one of those movies where you really, really need to experience the "atmosphere" and see if it actually will hit for you in the unsettling manner that comes through in all-consuming, all-bewildering dread. Hill doesn't really get much to actually say besides reacting to what is going on (around her and to her with the vomiting insects), which works in some ways to accompany her growing fear that doesn't exactly get a chance to really explode at what actually comes out in the art of unsettled lunacy. The best sequence might be in the movie theater with a growing array of people coming inside that actually shows some sort of terror on screen. You have to fill in some of the blanks with the looming terror because damned if the movie is going to allow you to have an easy time doing it, particularly when it ends just as abruptly as it starts, because nothing is that easy to resolve. As a whole, Messiah of Evil is basically a dreamscape type of movie, one that will either hit the chords required for off-putting interest in what is said and left unsaid or will pass through with the bare minimum of "well, that was a movie". For me, it was pretty okay, and I suppose that is a tacit endorsement worth checking out least once on a dreary night.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Keeping it a surprise.
*Anita Ford claimed this as such: Anitra Ford's Personal Blog: Be afraid, very afraid -- for 6 minutes
