Messiah of Evil (1973)

November 21, 2022 9:49 AM

[TRAILER] A young woman (Mariana Hill) searching for her missing artist father finds herself in the strange seaside town of Point Dune, which seems to be under the influence of a mysterious undead cult.

Also starring Michael Greer, Joy Bang, Anitra Ford, Royal Dano, Elisha Cook Jr.

Written, directed, and co-produced by Willard Huyck (Howard the Duck) & Gloria Katz. A US production.

Currently streaming in the US on many, many services, many of them free. JustWatch listing.

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posted by DirtyOldTown (1 comment total)

I really liked this; it seems like the ideal intersection of Italian giallo and Carnival of Souls style flat surrealism. It's hard to parse what's dream logic and what's bad plotting, but the overall feel is haunting and overall I really liked it.

I loved, loved, loved the art in the house from the missing father, from the wall paintings of hardcore forced-perspective bridges to his own canvases with the amorphous faces. I'd love to get something in that style.

I'm a land of contrasts in that I often find it hard to get into "surreal" movies because they have no stakes, but I think that depends a lot on whether I'm asked to develop stakes in the first place... this movie doesn't start off with an implicit promise of a plot and then get dreamy, it's gauzy and surrealist from the jump.

Although I do wish they'd've had some sort of follow-up to the cold open...
posted by Shepherd at 5:07 PM on April 13