Messiah of Evil review.
50 years since its release Messiah of Evil is still fighting for its place in horror history. Considered a hidden gem for five decades it is beyond time it becomes established for what it truly is. Messiah of Evil is a stone-cold classic. A borderline masterpiece.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Messiah of Evil
Directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz
Written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz
Starring Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Anitra Ford, Royal Dano and Elisha Cook Jr.
Messiah of Evil Review
I discovered Messiah of Evil in the most random of ways. A few years ago, I clicked on a Roku app that streamed B-movies. Usually, some bad action movies were on, and I wouldn’t stick with it too long. One night the movie being streamed was called Messiah of Evil. A movie I had never heard of…even as a horror fan. That movie turns 50 years old this year. Chatter about it has picked up over the last couple of years…but not nearly to the extent that it deserves. This is one of the best horror movies of the 1970s.
Messiah of Evil mixes a surrealist nightmare with memorable horror set pieces to create a unique viewing experience. It’s absolutely gorgeous. That’s the first impression that you will walk away with. Even if you’re watching the cropped, beat to hell print that is found in most places. It contains some of the most effective imagery and shot compositions in horror. Not in horror from its time…in horror…period. A quick note on that…given that Messiah of Evil is in the public domain you can find it in many places (some linked below). The print of it on Shudder is by far the best. Original aspect ratio and fully remastered. Happy 50th anniversary.
They’re waiting at the edge of the city
To begin the surreal nature of the film…Messiah of Evil opens with a scene completely unrelated to the story. In a brief scene that comes before the opening title…a man runs down the street before having his throat slashed by a beautiful woman. It’s as odd a choice as it is oddly perfect. During the titles we get the first of many stylistically memorable sequences in the film. We’re looking down a hallway as a woman (we’ll learn this is our main character Arletty) monologues in the distance. With a bright light as a backdrop, Arletty slowly moves towards the camera. We’ll revisit this location at the end of the story…with a full understanding of where we are.
This hallway scene is only the beginning of the stunning visuals that Messiah of Evil has in store for us. It’s also the first of several memorable set pieces. Scenes at a gas station, a hitch-hike from hell, a grocery store and a movie theater provide lasting images that would be a crime to lose to time and anonymity. These scenes are strung together with a dream like quality running between them.
The story of Messiah of Evil involves Arletty’s search for her missing father. She travels to his home in the coastal suburb of Point Dume, California to look for him. While there she runs into a group of loose spirited people her age. Thom (Michael Greer) and his two female companions, Laura (Anitra Ford) and Toni (Joy Bang). They move into Arletty’s father’s house after getting kicked out of their motel.
Give a girl a pair of shoes, and she walks out on you
Laura and Toni give us the two most memorable scenes in Messiah of Evil. Upset at Thom’s attempt to seduce Arletty, Laura heads out into the night and hitches a ride with an eccentric, rat chomping, truck driver. She gets out as soon as she can and finds herself in a local supermarket. The aisles are empty…but the meat section is full. She is devoured by a horde of the vampire/zombie/cultists? Exactly what is happening with the people of Point Dume is a bit of a choose your own adventure. We learn that it’s all tied to “The Blood Moon” and the impending return of “The Dark Stranger”. A third act flashback will fill in a lot of this eventually.
Toni meets a similar fate…this time in a movie theater. The same type of creatures descend upon on her empty screening…filling in the seats around her. Toni stands to see all the staring eyes of the possessed/entranced/undead? Whatever the case…she dies an equally artistic death with stunning visuals.
These scenes may be the highlights of Messiah of Evil but they are hardly the only standout moments. The atmosphere of the film is second to none. Gorgeous shots of creatures in a skylight…or a man on fire (more on that in a moment) …or the paintings that line Arletty’s father’s home…it’s all incredible.
That’s how I came into the world
That man on fire is Arletty’s father. She’s warned early in the film that the only thing she can do if he has been possessed by the blood moon is to burn the body. He has…and she does. It’s an incredible practical stunt that blows away anything CGI can do. Arletty and Thom attempt to escape the turned townspeople. Thom drowns and Arletty is captured. She’s allowed to live if she spreads their wacked out religion to the world…ending up in an institution. We’re back where we first met her…screaming about evil in the hallway of a sanitarium.
Maybe the biggest surprise in Messiah of Evil is how much sense it makes despite its surrealist leanings. It employs voice over and flashback to fill in some gaps that would be left without understanding. Part of me would like to see how it would play without those things. In some ways it’s the most Lynchian pre-Lynch movie ever made. Only it offers explanations and dilutes it a bit.
When we talked about The Crazies for its 50th anniversary we mentioned how it arrived exactly halfway between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. That it felt like the missing steps for George A. Romero between his two masterpieces. Messiah of Evil arrived the same year. While it wasn’t directed by Romero…it feels like similar connective tissue, albeit in a very different way. This is Romero by way of Lynch. It’s every bit as remarkable as that mash-up sounds. Every bit the classic that you’d hope. No matter how, or how late, you come by it.
Scare Value
Messiah of Evil existed in anonymity for far too long. It’s a visually stunning, slow burn, near masterpiece. It presents some of the greatest set pieces of its era…accentuating a fully realized surreal nightmare. This is a movie that should have been on the tip of people’s tongues for the last 50 years when discussing the best horror movies of the 70s. Perhaps horror’s greatest decade…the 1970’s gave us classics like Halloween, Alien, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Jaws, Dawn of the Dead, Carrie, Suspiria, Black Christmas and The Exorcist, among others. It’s time to add Messiah of Evil to that list.
4.5/5
Messiah of Evil Links
Streaming on Prime Video, Paramount+, Screambox and Shudder. Note that the Shudder version is the only one that is a remastered widescreen version of the film. If you can…go with that.
Rent/Buy on VOD from Amazon
Messiah of Evil Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Messiah of Evil, check out another recent 50th anniversary film: The Crazies
I literally flipped past this opening just a few months ago on some horror movie streaming app…kept flipping….now i have to find it again.