‘Terror you won’t want to remember – in a film you won’t be able to forget.’
Messiah of Evil is a 1973 horror film about a young woman who goes searching for her missing artist father. Her journey takes her to a strange Californian seaside town governed by a mysterious undead cult.
The movie was written, directed and produced by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband and wife team behind American Graffiti. It is also known as Dead People, Revenge of the Screaming Dead, Return of the Living Dead and The Second Coming.
The movie stars Andrew Greer, Marianna Hill (The Baby, Schizoid, Blood Beach), Joy Bang (Pretty Maids All in a Row; Night of the Cobra Woman), Royal Dano (House II: The Second Story; Ghoulies II; The Dark Half), Anitra Ford (Invasion of the Bee Girls) and Elisha Cook Jr. (Rosemary’s Baby; The Night Stalker; Dead of Night).
Blu-ray:
New 2023 restoration from a 4K scan of the best-surviving elements of the film from the Academy Film Archive
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
English Subtitles
Audio commentary by critics and horror experts Kim Newman and Stephen Thrower
Archival interview with co-writer-director Willard Huyck by Mike White from the Projection Booth Podcast
A new “Messiah of Evil” documentary (more info TBA)
Visual essay on the American Gothic by critic Kat Ellinger
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Plot:
A young woman (Hill) goes searching for her missing surrealist artist father. Her journey takes her to a strange Californian seaside town governed by a mysterious undead cult…
Almost nothing in the entire plot is ever explained, but rather left to the viewer’s interpretation. The movie’s dream-like structure leads the viewer to question what is going on, and with each successive scene, the mystery becomes more obscure.
For example, the symptoms that Arletty experiences at the end of the movie – the coldness, inability to feel pain, and bug crawling out of her mouth – seem to suggest that she has been dead for some time without being cognizant of it.
” … executed with a good deal of imaginative stylistic panache and is actually relatively restrained (in comparison to similar zombie films) in terms of bloodletting.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror book
” … there’s no mistaking the point of the surreal episodes in which the living dead prove that they really are – to borrow Romero’s term – “the neighbours”. The standout scenes are those in which the inhabitants of the deserted town of Point Dune unexpectedly appear in the most banal settings.” Jamie Russell, Book of the Dead: A Complete History of Zombie Cinema book
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“a brilliant movie which exceeds virtually every other Gothic horror film since the war in terms of narrative ingenuity.” David Pirie, The Vampire Cinema book
“The heavy, lugubrious atmosphere is fraught throughout with disjointed images and an unshakeable sense of the uncanny. There are certain logic and continuity problems, but the movie’s two main protagonists deaths (in a supermarket and a movie theatre) are superbly executed, and the theme song is unusually haunting.” Peter Dendle, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia book
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“The titular Messiah of Evil isn’t clearly defined, nor is the process by which the townspeople become zombies (their eyes seem to bleed profusely first). There are a few allusions to cults and to Vietnam, and there’s some artistic pretentiousness in the overall presentation.” Glenn Kay, Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide book
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“… the film draws from H.P. Lovecraft as well as from the Living Dead. However, Elish Cook Jr. as a doomed derelict whose warnings are unheeded adds a touch of gothic cliché to the brew and the ‘normal’ characters are so strange as to put the film’s conception of the real world out of joint as if a crazed projectionist were juxtaposing random reels of The Haunted Palace and Vargtimmen/Hour of the Wolf.” Kim Newman, Nightmare Movies: Horror on the Screen Since the 1960s book
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Trailer:
Full film – free to watch online on YouTube:
Release:
Chicago-based Checker Releasing re-distributed the film to cash in on the early 1980s horror boom, using the tagline from Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) with the title Return of the Living Dead. The Laurel Group, founded in 1976 by George A. Romero and Richard P. Rubinstein, took legal action against this.
Eventually, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) decided that Romero did not hold exclusive rights to the terms Living Dead, but ruled against the use of the misleading title for Messiah.
Cast and characters:
Michael Greer … Thom
Marianna Hill … Arletty
Joy Bang … Toni
Anitra Ford … Laura
Royal Dano … Joseph Lang
Elisha Cook Jr. … Charlie
Charles Dierkop … Gas Attendant
Bennie Robinson … Albino Trucker
Walter Hill … Stabbing victim in Prologue
Laurie Charlap-Hyman …
Willard Huyck … Zombie in Car
Gloria Katz … Ticket Booth Zombie
Billy Weber … Supermarket Zombie
Technical specs:
1 hour 30 minutes
Aspect ratio: 2.35: 1
Audio: Mono
Filming locations in 1972:
26652 Latigo Shore Drive, Malibu, California (Exterior of Joseph Lang house)
Anaheim, California
Burbank, California
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
Malibu, California
Melrose, California
620 Lincoln Blvd, Venice, Los Angeles, California (Fox Venice Theatre, closed)
Holiday Lodge Motel – 1631 West 3rd Street, Los Angeles, California
Related:
Lemora
