It rarely happens, but sometimes I see a movie that seems to rip-off ones that came after it.
Such is the case with 1973’s Messiah of Evil, which somehow has the unique look of 1977’s Suspiria and elements of 1981’s Dead & Buried. I seriously doubt either of the later films was influenced by the earlier one. Yet this curious factor alone warrants a viewing from fans of offbeat, low-budget horror from the 70’s.
Marianna Hill has come to a small town looking for her missing artist father. Shades of Dead & Buried creep in as she encounters the strange, secretive residents of this burg situated on a rocky coast. The first place she stops at is a gas station at night where the attendant is firing a revolver into the darkness. She must know she’s in a movie, because she just waits until he’s done so she can get a fill-up.
This scene is barely visible as, unlike most films of this era, the night scenes are truly shot at night instead of using day-for-night. I appreciate that, even if some scenes border on unwatchable, literally. And the vast majority of this movie takes place at night. In fact, I’m not sure any scenes inside the town occur in daylight.
That makes sense, as the residents are being turned into things that are only out at night. I found myself wondering how this place functions during the day.
Among the few characters Hill encounters are a curious trio of Michael Greer, Joy Bang and Anitra Ford. For a long time, I thought Greer was part of whatever conspiracy is occurring, maybe even the leader of it. Turns out he actually there on some vague mission to “collect stories”. In the end, I’m still unsure as to what he and his groupies are doing there.
Most of the action takes place in the house of Hill’s father. Judging from the murals on the walls, he had a screw loose even before his disappearance. Like a proto-Banksy, the walls are covered with stark black-and-white images of people staring back at the viewer.
In the middle of the main room is something that may be a bed or a table or maybe both. Whatever it is, it is suspended from the ceiling by plastic chains. This is where Hill sleeps and I couldn’t stop thinking about what a nightmare that would be—sleeping on something that is stiff as a board, that would swing with the slightest movement, while surrounded by faces staring at you from the walls. Strange, but I was never sure if this room was the living room or a bedroom. Maybe it’s both?
This is a weird house, and I came to think of it as the main character. And this is where the similarities to Suspiria begin. This house isn’t just strangely decorated, but it is lit in solid colors, such as a room lit entirely in dark blue, with a bright red corridor in the background. There’s even a hidden door in one of the murals, even if you don’t have to turn a decorative blue flower to access it.
You probably noticed I haven’t talked about the plot much and that’s because it is a mess. But, like Suspiria again, it is an intriguing mess. This is a picture where so much has to be assembled in the viewer’s mind that I’m not sure how much of what is on the screen is cohesive.
The main issue is what is happening to the residents. Whatever is transpiring involves creatures in the night that sound like dogs or wolves, but there’s no other indications there are anything like werewolves. The people who have been turned sometimes have ghoulish faces like the undead in Carnival of Souls. At other times, they look normal.
Regardless, they eat raw meat and occasionally devour living people. Still, this doesn’t follow the typical zombie formula, in that the eaten do not appear to be converted. Instead, the conversion just seems to happen naturally over time to anybody who stays there long enough.
We see that raw meat consumed in one of the picture’s two genuinely scary moments, when one of Greer’s hanger-ons follows a stranger into a supermarket in the middle of the night, when it should be closed. First, even though it is standard operating procedure for this genre, I found myself yelling at the screen, “Why are you following a stranger in the middle of the night, who doesn’t want anything to do you, into a store that shouldn’t be open?!?”. Of course, there wouldn’t be a scary scene if she doesn’t go inside.
The other big scare is a similar scene, which dispatches of the other groupie. She just wants to go to the movies, and you know something is seriously wrong when the marquee is turned off as soon as she enters. Watching the film, she doesn’t notice people gradually filling the seats behind me. It’s a very suspenseful set-up and has a good pay-off.
And, now, a sampling of other random observations I made. There are undertones of Lovecraft, as the populace gathers on the beach at night to await the messianic return of their leader. At one point, a corpse washes up on the shore. It is supposed to be that of Hill’s father though she knows those aren’t his hands (oh, hi there, Dead & Buried!). Also, there’s a good synthesizer score with rich analog tones (shalom, Suspiria!).
At the risk of overselling it, Messiah of Evil is a low-budget mess, but is fascinating to look at and I like its style. Sometimes that’s enough. It helps that there are a couple of very well-done scenes of terror. It’s odd how many better movies I probably won’t re-visit, and yet I’m fairly certain I will be checking out this one again.
Dir: Willard Huyck
Starring Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Anitra Ford, Joy Bang
Watched on Shudder