Messiah of Evil

If you're not in the market for a moody, atmospheric horror film, Messiah of Evil might not be for you. The script is nothing to write home about and a lot of it can be rather confounding, but it more than makes up for it with some of the spookiest set pieces I've ever seen on screen.

Two sequences stand out in particular. 1.) a woman enters a grocery store late at night to find a horde of zombie-like creatures eating all the raw meat in the freezer section and 2.) another woman goes to see a late night movie and finds herself swarmed by the living dead in a sleek homage to a moment from Hitchcock's The Birds.

Messiah of Evil is a well crafted, creepy, and very memorable experience akin to a nightmare from your childhood. You won't be able to remember all the little details, but you'll remember how it made you feel.

This enigmatic, artsy horror film from the early 1970's is a lost low budget B classic waiting to be rediscovered. Also known as "Dead People," "Revenge of the Screaming Dead," and "Second Coming," this is actually a pretty creepy and surrealistic little flick.

Nicely stylized performances, both slowly sliding from self-possessed cool into numb fear in a believable style. There are also effective character turns by Elisha Cook, Jr. Old veteran actor instantly recognizable for his many roles film noir. Elisha Cook, Jr. Has a flair for portraying intense neurotics or spineless double-dealers. His best-known role was that of Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Rock solid performances, strongly developed characters, a genuinely creepy atmosphere. Much better than one would imagine for its low budget. "Messiah of Evil" ultimately has some great visual ideas and a genuine undercurrent of dread . Messiah Of Evil is a macabre little gem and a must for any fan of 1970's horror.

Eerie, dream-like zombie picture that anticipates both Romero's consumerism subtext and Boyle's agile undead. Full of quirky touches, it should be much better known than it is. Strange to think that one year later husband-and-wife team Huyck and Katz would co-write American Graffiti

'Messiah of Evil' is a relatively unknown B-Movie horror curio from the Seventies. A woman goes to a small seaside town to look for her artist father after he mysteriously stops correspondence with her and finds that something is well and truly afoot in the town. From the off the film establishes a disjointed atmosphere which is accentuated when she teams up with a man and two (stunning) women involved in a bizarre three-way relationship and together they try to fathom just what the dickens is going on in this creepy town. From here they learn that the town has become (for reasons unknown) a flesh-eating zombie cult.

On the surface the movie appears to have little in the way of characterisation or plot, but any gaps in these qualities only serve to highlight the lingering oddness that pervades the film which reminded me strongly of the distanced dream-like quality of Herk Harvey's B-movie classic 'Carnival of Souls' (1962) and, to a lesser extent, Argento's 'Suspiria' (1977)…if the hysteric flailing of Argento's classic had been given a sedative, that is. This effect is achieved through the locale of the town itself, the fine cinematography, the use of voice-overs, and the music all working effectively to build suspense as the eeriness unfolds climaxing in some genuinely surreal and haunting scenes.

However, it must be said that while I found the surreal world created for me easy to step into and inhabit I can easily see how fans of conventional horror would be put off by the creeping pace and absence of anything tangibly horrific. Still, it's the kind of movie that lives happily with its "cult" tag and sits comfortably among the late-night schedules which it knows all-too-well how to haunt.

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Public domain movie. Watch it free here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuUyNwq9T8

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with the guy who wrote the review on the top screen. Not vehemently but slightly. This is a really good and unique film for the genre. In contrast to most of the living dead movies ever made this is a classic.

You;re right, though, the scene at the supermarket and the theatre scene are standouts. I think it is well shot, or at least unintentionally atmospheric and I like it because I get a feel of that time and place in independent film-making.

Could have been better but more than technical perfection I look for uniqueness in a movie and this one is unique. Since video stores no longer actually have videos it's great that movie like this are making their way to compilation packages at media superstores. If you see this one in a combo package go ahead and but it I think you'll like it.

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