Messiah of Evil
“Messiah of Evil” has some wickedly good zombie set pieces. I
think the supermarket and theater sequences are exceptionally well crafted
because two unsuspecting beauties (one an exotic model, the other a sexually
liberated young woman who is a bit flighty), without any concern, go about
Point Dune (the location of the film) not expecting to be attacked for their
blood. Anitra Ford, with “Invasion of the Bee Girls” and “The Big Bird Cage”,
and now this…she’s one of those cult sexpots for sure. She wasn’t in a lot,
though, having a rather short career, mostly confined to the 70s. Her reaction
to a creep who eats a mouse in front of her is priceless. But that ill-fated
visit to the supermarket was certainly her undoing. Joy Bang is a barely twenties kid always bored with
Point Dune, opting to jump at the chance to take a night show at the coastal
town’s local theater. Ford sees the ghouls of Point Dune who seemingly have
been lost to a type of “Blood Moon Madness”, with pallid faces, no emotion or
humanity seemingly available, and an intense interest in bloody red meat,
actually taking in the cold cut cuisine of a supermarket, looking at her as a
fresh kill and fresh meal. When she darts for the doors, they’re locked…these
ghouls are anything but efficient when it comes to cornering a meal and making
sure it doesn’t get away. In the theater, Bang is totally involved in this
western (which had Sammy Davis, Jr.), not realizing that it was filling up
behind her with ghouls of the Dune Dead. Like Ford, she breaks for an exit and
the doors are locked. She becomes the show and her audience is a rabid bunch
looking to be satiated.
I have noticed there are theories about symbolism in the
film: that the old way of life and their old traditional values, are not
tolerant of a “hippy” lifestyle (the two girls “share” wealthy and aristocratic
Thom (Michael Greer, in a hetero part) so they “absorb them”. I don’t subscribe to that, but what
do I know? Perhaps that was a point to be made.
I subject to the theory that all we see is a reflection of a
disturbed mind. The mind of Marianna Hill (of Clint Eastwood’s “High Plains
Drifter”) is narrating to us (some of the time, while, other times, the voice
of none other than Royal Dano reaches to us from his left behind diary for
Hill, his daughter, to read) from a hospital for the mentally ill. Now you
could say she was stuck in the hospital for telling a bizarre truth few are
willing to accept as reality. She warns of the “Dark Stranger” (a holdover of
the infamous Donner Party who ate their own out of desperation) coming, bringing
the “new religion” outside his cult worshippers in Point Dune. Dumped in the
hospital, she awaits for him to spread his disease like a plague. Dano’s
absence from her life, mysteriously venturing off to Dune to work on his art,
draws Hill to his coastal digs located on the beach, with the wind and waves
noising their presence always. The plot itself is indeed absurd, and it is
quite possible all we see is drummed up by Hill who is simply out of her mind. But,
obviously, the film plants the “What if?” It is important to do that. To
present a scary apocalyptic threat that seems too wacky to be true, with a
heroine (much in the same vein as poor Zohra Lampert in “Let’s Scare Jessica to
Death”) established to have possible mental health issues. How fantastic the
plot is, much like Jessica, can’t be altogether dismissed. That is what makes
the disease so scary, the menace of the plot so unnerving…that we are unwilling
to accept that vampires exist. I kind of look at these undead ghouls in Point
Dune similarly…they thirst for blood, known to devour a lot of the creatures
during the feeding. They are visually reminiscent to Romero’s zombies, though.
No rotted flesh sloughing off, and they pursue fresh meat with a sense of
urgency, but there is that gaze without a soul behind them, humanity raped from
them thanks to the Blood Moon’s “disease.” We see this when a young woman stops
an alert and worried Greer in the street of Point Dune by one of their many
department stores…during a conversation where she hopes to escape, Greer sees a
blood “tear” that is a sign of the incoming madness soon to overtake her. Once
the blood tear appears, the madness eventually turns them into the blood
thirsty ghouls that begin to stalk Point Dune in abundance.
I just have to say the score is kind of in a piece with the
low budget creepshows of the decade. The music was close in spirit to what I
heard spooking me up in both “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” and “Shock Waves”.
Like chilling fingers gliding across your flesh, the score of these films kind
of gets under the surface and does its job. With the score up to the task,
there is Dano’s artifice reflecting Point Dune as it starts to affect him. His
diary is a key plot device to explain how the madness gradually overwhelms you
until what was once human gets culled from you until nothing’s left but the
desire for blood and to follow the master soon to return once the moon is
totally blood red. Dano’s voice is appropriately aching, deteriorating into
concern for what is happening to him. It is a voice where the tenor worsens as
the diary moves from one day to the next. Once Hill arrives, Dano is nowhere to
be found…although, one night scene has him under the dark taking a few paces
down some steps, stilling himself before leaving. The art on the walls of his
coastal home really leaves this lasting impression…I can’t imagine how movement
through the rooms of the home with those folks in dark clothes and spectral
expressions (as if staring a hole through you) painted so ominously by the
tortured artist behind them wouldn’t leave constant heebie jeebies. I fucking
love that, too. There is one face, painted larger than the others, which
reminded me of Lee Harvey Oswalt. There’s darkness under the eyes, and that
look cast off is so sinister. If you leave the actual ghouls from Point Dune,
Dano’s home features them on his wall, a canvas that doesn’t allow for any
escape…the “Dark Stranger” has influence wherever Point Dune is, tentacles
spread from town to beach.
Then you have Elisha Cook, Jr. adding credence to what Dano’s
diary proclaims…not long after he speaks with Greer (and he also warns Hill in
secret), his body is found partially devoured. Cook, Jr. makes scenes so much
fun just with his bug-eyes and sincere facial expressions, honestly conceived
and believable. His forehead and eyebrows, the whole works. But Dano’s grand
appearance was worth waiting for. He sure does let it all hang out when the
urges to devour are no longer able to be held in check: his daughter is just as
endangered as any human lunch plate. The blue paint smeared all over him during
his fit is so surreal and damned effective. And the hands on the glass sun roof
of Dano’s house as the ghouls break through, crashing to the floor, creates
quite a visual, also.
The 70s produced a lot of gems, some gaining a cult rep
thanks to the dvd and media explosion of the 2000s up until now. VHS in the 80s
offered movies to us from the 70s and before, but with multiple generations
forward, there is an interest in long forgotten horror. I long to be creeped
out. I don’t need to be scared. I don’t need manufactured jump scares. I want
films to really dig their heels in and have something about them that grabs me.
I want to be enveloped into the experience. “Messiah of Evil” does that. I’m
glad some good word of mouth found me. It isn’t perfect, but cult movies in the
70s always had a way (many of them, anyway) of provoking a response. That
Manson family derangement and evil reached into the next decade and left an
indelible mark. “Messiah of Evil” seems to leech off that somewhat.
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