Messiah of Evil (1973) Film Review - I See the Blood Moon Rising

It’s always great to stumble on a film that’s a real lesser known horror gem. The sort of film that, despite it’s clear merits, few have seen and even fewer have heard of. One such film is Messiah of Evil.
I honestly can’t believe I hadn’t seen this mostly forgotten classic until recently. It perfectly encapsulates what I think is best about Seventies horror; an eerie desolate atmosphere, trippy visuals, a dream like ambiance, and enigmatic characters.

It’s about…well this is very easy and very awkward to explain, on account of the movie being unfinished. A young woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) heads to the strange beach town of Point Dume, California, to find her estranged artist father (Royal Dano) who is missing. Whilst there she finds three hedonistic individuals – sleazy aristocrat Thom (perfectly played by Michael Greer) and his two groupies Toni (Joy Bang) and Laura (Anitra Ford) – who are essentially squatting in her father’s house and the story at large.

Greer is great as the debonair playboy Thom, and he gets some fantastic lines in: “You don’t just unzip a man – and say goodnight”. Both ‘his girls’ are well realised and have as much agency as a woman can have in a cosmic horror film from 50 years ago.

Toni in particular is an enjoyable character with an infectious, if a little too child-like, energy. Maybe don’t ask too many questions there – rock music has taught us that people in the Seventies loved two things – cocaine and banging underage girls.

Anyway! From Thom and the requisite town drunk who knows too much, effortlessly played by character actor Elisha Cook Jr, Arletty learns of a blood moon that turns people into vampire style creatures. Things only get stranger from there.

In terms of story it’s basically H.P. Lovecraft‘s short story The Shadow Over Innsmouth but if the central characters are the sort of people Andy Warhol would hang out with. It follows the same basic beats: an outsider comes to an isolated, coastal town and finds it desolate and filled with strange, aloof people.

There’s a cosmic event in the town’s past that has made everything weird, which the protagonist’s family have been caught up in. And the whole thing ends with the locals chasing down the main character like they’re Zoomers who can’t wait to tell you the name of Lovecraft’s cat.

The main difference is that instead of the antagonists being weirdos who like to knob fish people, they’re vampire-ghouls who worship a mysterious cannibal clad in black. He comes from the sea, dressed like something between a cowboy and a preacher man, and seeks to corrupt mankind and supplant our society with his own vision. Think along the lines of Nyarlathotep from Lovecraft’s mythos, or Stephen King‘s Randall Flagg – though this predates the latter by a few years.

Now, whilst that sounds cool and all, the film’s man in black (the titular Messiah of Evil) is one of the weaker aspects. He only appears twice – once in an expository flashback, and a final time right at the end where Arletty is forced to undergo some vague ritual that the film devotes no time to exploring.

The ghouls, vampires, zombies, or whatever they are, aren’t really explained either. They’re followers of the Messiah, transformed by the blood moon, sure, but the film never says what they are. They’re just these creatures that wander the streets eating raw meat from supermarkets, or wild mice, or whoever they can get their hands on. And when they’re not doing that they hang around on a beach at night or go and see a film.

The rules for turning into one of these creatures are nebulous at best. With the focus on the blood moon, it would seem that’s what transforms people into the ghoulish figures. But they show up before the blood moon, so who knows. Arletty seems to be turning, as she begins to cry bloody tears (a signature of the monsters) and vomit up bugs like she’s wearing one of the those masks from Halloween 3. But then she’s fine. Again, who knows.

But like many horror films the story, or what counts as it, is really only there to justify the horrifying set pieces and atmosphere. And this is something that that Messiah of Evil excels at.

Point Dume as a setting is bleak. Whilst it has the modern trappings of a place people live and work, there’s just something not quite right about it. The scenes depicting the town at night are downright desolate. Especially when put against Phillan Bishop‘s creepy minimalist synth score.

The film makes effective use of twisting the everyday into something sinister. In modern parlance you’d refer to the places depicted in the film as liminal spaces.

A supermarket is not normally a scary place (except for if you go to Tesco without a Clubcard). But it is when it is otherwise normal except for seemingly being abandoned – save for the odd figure or two, oh-so-briefly spied between the aisles.

A cinema is not normally a scary place, either. But the one depicted here qualifies for one of the most nightmarish ever put to film. Before the horror even starts it just looks so strange. It’s all decorated in a pinky-red – walls, carpet, and curtains covering the screen. Whilst this is likely merely typical Seventies aesthetic, out of context it just looks so odd and disquieting.

Then the horror starts. Seeing a film at the cinema can be a great communal experience (except when some gobshite behind you just won’t shut up, or stop rustling their pack of M&Ms), so normally you’d associate a cinema slowly filling up with people as a positive experience. If anything, you’d argue that the inverse was far creepier.

Here though, we’re treated to the anxiety building scene of Toni watching the film, oblivious to the room slowly filling with more and more of the grim faced ashen ghouls, bloody tears pouring down their cheeks. The dread builds and leads to its inevitable, foregone conclusion, when Toni realises what is happening – far too late to save herself.

The crowning achievement of the film’s mesmerising set design, however, is Arletty’s father’s beach house. I mentioned that he was an artist and that is paid off in the story by giving his house one of the most uniquely designed sets I’ve ever seen in a film.

Entire walls of rooms are devoted to the man’s pop art style depictions of people and places. It lends the house a hallucinatory atmosphere that it uses to play with your perception and expectations. I was on edge the entire film, as I just knew that something was going to turn out to be hiding among these distracting images. I won’t say if I was right or wrong in my predictions, as I feel Messiah of Evil is best experienced by going in fairly blind. But it’s just one example of how the film constantly has you on edge.

There’s a sense of inevitably about the whole thing. Like the characters who are trapped in the town – first by their own curiosity, insecurities, and dependencies, then by a literal blood curse and monsters – we too are trapped by the doom that’s slowly unfolding. We get to watch as the metaphorical noose is tightened around the neck of each character, the danger all so obvious in retrospect.

From its very opening scene – featuring a very giallo esque murder unrelated to the rest of the film – and banger of a theme song, the film builds a powerful dread that never really lets up until the grim conclusion that suggests that the bad guys win.

And considering that the directors went on to direct Howard the Duck, maybe the bad guys really did win.

Enjoyed this piece? Then check out these other reviews: The Beach House; Prince of Darkness; Halloween III