CHFB Member Reviews • MESSIAH OF EVIL (1974)

I'm not about to declare MESSIAH OF EVIL a lost classic but it is certainly an overlooked film that is worthy of discussion.  Although like some movies of the time period it is also unlike movies of the time period.  This helps make it a very interesting, watchable horror picture that even rewards with repeat viewings.  It's well worth a look.

The set up is that Arletty Lang (Marianna Hill) is concerned about her artist father Joseph Lang (Royal Dano).  He's been working in the remote coastal village of Point Dume and she hasn't heard from him for a long enough period of time to raise her concern.  She decides to drive down to Point Dume and find him.  Her arrival establishes a type of shot and scene that will effectively be repeated.  We see a modern Mobil gas station isolated by the darkness of night that surrounds and threatens to swallow it.  This type of shot that emphasizes the isolation and sense of being cut off from help works very well.  Who hasn't pulled into one such lit up haven of presumed safety on a trip?  Arletty pulls in for gas and sees the lone attendant (Charles Dierkop) against a curtain of blackness firing a revolver into the inky dark.  "Stray dogs," he says though neither he nor Arletty seem to believe it.Just then a red Chevy pick-up truck (that looks very much like the '49 edition that was my first auto) pulls up.  An albino (Bennie Robinson) with a deep voice gets out and asks for two dollars-worth of gas.  He stands quietly, staring at Arletty who doesn't appreciate his gaze.  While his attention is diverted the attendant looks under the tarp in the truck bed and sees two corpses.  When Arletty tries to pay for her gas with a credit card he asks if she doesn't have cash, then tells her it's okay that she should go, then barks "Get out!"  It only gets stranger from there and eventually ends up in largely unexplored horror film territory.

When Arletty reaches her father's artist hangout she discovers that the walls are covered with enormous murals that look like a shopping or airline mall complete with escalator.  The spaces are populated by staring people, visages that seem to be watching whomever is in the room, as if waiting... for something.  In fact, we will learn that the townsfolk are waiting... for something.  Paging through her father's diary she follows his descent into a nightmare of troubling sights and behavior.  If only she had bothered to read through to the end.No one in town seems willing to help her but she is directed to the motel where she encounters Thom (Michael Greer), Toni (Joy Bang), and Laura (Anitra Ford) in the midst of interviewing the town drunk Charlie (Elisha Cook, Jr.) who tells them the legend of the Point Dume Blood Moon.  Thom is apparently independently wealthy.  He always wears a three-piece suit and carries around a reel-to-reel tape recorder in his quest to secure stories of local legends and folklore, presumably his reason for being in Point Dume.  Actor Michael Greer reminded me of a very thin Laird Cregar.Soon, Thom and troupe are holed up with Arletty, the only isle of normalcy in Point Dume where the inhabitants spend their nights staring at the moon or standing around bonfires on the beach waiting... for something.  One highlight of the film is an extended sequence with Laura that takes her through an abandoned housing development, across a vast, empty parking lot and into a huge supermarket that seems strangely empty save for the customers crowded around the meat cooler.  Another sequence finds Toni taking in a movie at a theater that slowly but surely fills up with patrons.  A third standout moment occurs when Thom enters the deserted town at night and encounters a group of townsfolk just standing silently in an alley before they give chase culminating in a shoot-out with two policemen.  Thom can do nothing but run into the festering darkness at the end of the street.What we eventually learn is that every 100 years a blood moon appears over Point Dume as the time nears for the Dark Stranger to return from the sea.  As this event nears the townspeople undergo a physical change.  Their bodies die and they crave human flesh.  Once the Dark Stranger returns he will lead his people up the coast to spread his new religion.  

The seventies was a very daring decade for filmmaking.  Writers, producers, and directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese, William Friedkin, Robert Altman, and many others were really pushing the envelope, tearing it in some cases.  Besides going to places the movies had only dreamed of going there was also a lot or re-working of old tropes, combining them with some of the new freedoms and possibilities.  Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz were beneficiaries of this new landscape under the aegis of George Lucas.  Under Lucas they co-wrote the ultimate coming-of-age teen movie AMERICAN GRAFFITI, and continued to help re-invent the old movie serials with INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  HOWARD THE DUCK was a daring foray into largely uncharted territory.  MESSIAH OF EVIL was their chance to try their hand a horror film.

I see at least three influences on their film.  First, the movie opens and closes with Arletty in a mental home warning the viewer of impending doom, basically telling us that we are next like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.  The gradual consumption of the town is also reminiscent of everyone being replaced with pod people in that classic.  The cannibalistic tendencies of the townsfolk falls in line with what we'd seen following THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  And the reappearance of the Dark Stranger after 100 years reminds me of TWO THOUSAND MANIACS or BRIGADOON.  The final denouement gives the movie a bit of a Lovecraftian connection.

Despite the possibilities Huyck and Katz keep the gore factor on low volume.  In that sense it's like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE where the emphasis is on mood and terror rather than graphic bloodletting.  As I mentioned, one of the keynotes of this film rests in the creation of a forlorn vulnerability through wide angle shots of night locations that emphasize the lack of resources or help.  Many of these tableau's are shot from an angle above street level with a single light below or to the side of the camera position throwing illumination away from the camera.  Naturally, the light trails off the further it is from the camera.  Whereas this might look cheap in other films, here it creates a terrific atmosphere and sense of encroaching doom from the enveloping darkness.

Thom and troupe are unusual for the time.  How or why they got together we never know.  It only seems that they have a rather open, uncommon relationship despite Thom's general seriousness.  And in one scene Thom even exhibits restraint with Arletty when other films would have put them in bed together.  There are some humorous bits, too.  When the albino pays for his gas the attendant asks, "Get you your stamps?"  (See, you used to get Green stamps which you pasted in a book and redeemed later.)  He also tells Arletty that Point Dume is "deader than hell."  That's humorous on a second viewing.  And then there's that really obvious movie marquee.

The lovely and talented Marianna Hill did an enormous amount of episodic TV but here gets to shine as lead female Arletty.  Michael Greer also did a lot of TV, making a name for himself as Queenie in FORTUNE AND MEN'S EYES.  He makes for an unusual but interesting leading man.  Joy Bang played a lot of roles like this one but was quite expert at it and memorable.  Some will recall Anitra Ford from THE PRICE IS RIGHT but THE BIG BIRD CAGE and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS probably made more of an impression.  It's great seeing Elisha Cook, Jr. and Royal Dano, especially the latter in what may be his only role as a "monster."  I always get Charles Dierkop mixed up with David Canary and you've no doubt seen this busy character actor.  Walter HIll appears in the pre-credits sequence and you can glimpse Gloria Katz as the ticket taker at the movie theater.  Bennie Robinson plays the albino truck driver and is the creepiest character in the movie.  It feels like I've seen him in something else but the IMDB gives this movie as his sole credit.  Not using him more frequently was a lost opportunity.

The IMDB reports that Anitra Ford stated in her 2011 blog that this movie was shot in 1971 but went unfinished until a Frenchman bought the unedited footage and finished the movie.  Greer also plays the Dark Stranger so maybe more was meant to be made of that but the aborted shoot curtailed it.  The Chevy pick-up belonged to art director Jack Fiske, Sissy Spacek's husband.

statistics: Posted by ryanbrennan — 5:23 AM - 1 day ago — Replies 3 — Views 311

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