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Messiah of Evil (1974)

Revenge of the Screaming Dead
Dead People
The Second Coming


Cast:

Michael Greer is Thom
Marianna Hill is Arletty
Joy Bang is Toni
Anitra Ford is Laura
Royal "I was in Killer Klowns fromOuter Space?" Dano is Joseph Long
Elisha "House on Haunted Hill is truly haunted" Cook Jr. is Charlie



What the box says:

When the moon turns red and all the regular folk become flesh-eating zombies, it can only mean one thing: The Messiah of Evil has returned...


Plot:

Some running guy collapses at a pool when a girl kills him.

Narration with a crazy rant ensues. Arletty is heading to visit her father. Stopping at a gas station, the gas attendant is acting creepy and suspicious. Some other guy hides some bodies under a tarp in his truck bed. After, she leaves, the attendant was killed.

Arletty stops at her dad’s cabin to search for her dad. The house is disarray. She examines her dad’s journal. Let the crazy narration about monsters and how he is the only one. Next day, Arletty looks around the beach before going to town. The art gallery owner tells her that some strangers had been in asking about her father.

Arletty finds them at the motel: Tom, blonde girl, and brunette. They are listening to Charley, the old crazy drunk guy;

This place is evil and cursed, cursed, I SAY!!!
This place is evil and cursed, cursed, I SAY!!!
tell them about the Blood Moon how people started to bleed and do things. Arletty leaves.

Outside, Charley warns Arletty that her father must be set on fire not buried.

Arletty reads more of her father’s journal. He thinks he’s going crazy. The other people are at place. They learn that Charley was mauled by dogs according to the police. According to Arletty’s narration, she lets them stay. At dinner, Tom was researching the Blood Moon. His women are fighting again. Tom has been researching legends. That night, Tom spots something before placing the moves on Arletty.

One of the chicks decides to leave. She’s sick of Tom. Outside, she’s walking down the road before hitch-hiking with the pseudo-Ron Perlman who is eating a rat.

How's my Ron Perlman impression?
How's my Ron Perlman impression?
He lets her off. Going to the motel, and going through the town getting the cold shoulder. She stops at the creepy grocery store and sees a number of townsfolk eating raw meat.
Everyone, there's a free all the raw-meat you can eat promotion in the meat department.
Everyone, there's a free all the raw-meat you can eat promotion in the meat department.
They chase her and Caucasian feast ensues.

Narration of dad’s father, things are real and evil. Arletty wakes up. She goes to talk to Tom. Blondie gets aggravated and storms out.

In the morning, Arletty gets a phone call. More narration ensues. Her father apparently was killed when a sculpture collapses on top of him. She studies her dad’s art. According to his journal, he knew something was taking control of him. Arletty is sure that the body wasn’t her dad’s.

Blondie goes to the movies. The theater closes after she goes in. It’s a Sammy Davis Jr. as Kid Dandi in a Western, Gone With the West.

Time to show everybody how the Candyman makes his day!
Time to show everybody how the Candyman makes his day!
More and more people come in the theater. Blondie starts to get creeped out.
Do you ever feel alone in a group of zombies?
Do you ever feel alone in a group of zombies?
Trying to leave, she finds the doors are locked. The audience grabs her.

Tom sees the theater is closed and checks out throughout the town. Zombies see and chase Tom. Some girl asks Tom for help but he refuses when he realizes she’s been bitten and is infected.

Narration dad journal ensues, he ripped his finger off. Arletty has a spider on her tongue?

Tom is running down the street when the police pull up. They shoot at the zombies but one officer shoots the other.

Arletty is sick when her dad walks in. She’ll warn the outside. 100 years ago, the priest from the Donner party tells a hunter about how they survived. The priest has a new master and started a new religion. The dying hunter tells others how the stranger walked into the sea and vowed to return 100 years later to lead people.

Dad tears the studio up. Losing control, he chases Arletty, who stabs him. He’s still after her until she grabs some kindling which sets dear old Dad on fire.

Later, Tom returns. Arletty attacks him at first until realizing who he is. Tom tells her about the town.

Zombies crash through the windows and skylight. The fight is on. They make a break for it. Running down the beach, they see the zombies standing on the beach staring at the ocean. Tom and Arletty go into the ocean. Arletty’s narration, they try to head for a boat. She loses Tom who was wounded. Setting sun, Arletty is pulled from the water by the zombies. She was to be offered to the dark stranger.

Arletty is let loose. Trying to tell the story, she is placed in an asylum. Flashback to the attacks.


What I say:

Someone goes to a small town to find out what happened to a friend or family member. However, the townsfolk act awfully strange. What does our perplexed protagonist do? Stay in the town and become so much of a pest to uncover the shocking secret. If the zombies start attacking the town, you better hope someone with firepower is there to rescue you or not get gunned down by their friend.

I try to keep horror, kung fu, 1950s sci-fi, etc... movies apart. Think of it as the standard of bad-movie wine-tasting to cleanse the palate to help from burning out. The night of finishing my review, I watched a couple of movies from TCM: Blood on Stan's Claw and Brotherhood of Satan. While both of those movies had devil worshipping, Messiah of Evil has only the flashback about the real story of the Donner Party.

Zombies movies were made a bit more frequently after Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Though, his sequel, Dawn of the Dead let loose the zombie movies. However, the mid-1970s didn't quite have that large a number of zombies movies.

The 1970s did start pushing the limits of horror: Exorcist, Omen, , and Rosemary's Baby. When, horror movies can be blockbuster hits and also be shocking to most audiences, one has to expect that low budget movies will try to do the same thing. It wasn't until the late 60s that the modern ratings were established. With the rise of more graphic horror, it has to be expected that the body counts have to rise. While else were those women with Tom? One of the becomes the meat departments special and the other discovers that going alone to a strange movie theater might not be a good idea if you're surrounded by a gaggle of creepy townsfolk.

Actually, this movie is trying to do the Lovecraft small town with a secret. Say the Shadow Out of Innsmouth. We've seen that in plenty of horror movies from a werewolf towns in a number of the Howling movies to a vampire town in Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat. The big problem is what are the townsfolk getting for turning into zombies feasting on flesh? At least, Lovecraft had them become successful fishers who find plenty of gold in the sea.

For people who don't think the world is small place, normally name dropping a director because of another one of his movies is not a good idea. You may have heard of one the movie and are surprised he's done something entirely different. However, sometimes, it is necessary for others to scratch their heads, too. When I learned the director of Messiah of Evil is better known for directing one of the great bombs of the 1980s: Howard the Duck, I knew that useless trivia must be shouted from the mountaintops or at least included in some of inconerent paragraphs.

What does it say about a movie when seeing a clip on of another movie in it gets you more excited? Gone With the West has Sammi Davis Jr as the gunfighter, Kid Dandy. That western has to be more interesting than this movie. Just a few This movie talked about the Dark Stranger, while Howard the Duck had to fight the Dark Overlords. A anthropormophized talking duck would definitely have improved this movie.

Point to Ponder Arletty may be the worst character name ever.


2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"No one will hear you screammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"
"I've got the munchies."
"Maybe you can learn to body surf."
"They found children eating raw meat."
"Help me!!Help me!!"
"Tommmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


Morals of the Story

1970s music makes me run in terror.
Gas is free if attempted to buy with a credit card.
Burglary is totally legal.
The gravitational pull of the moon can turn you into zombies.
Zombies love Westerns.
White leisure suits are battle armor.


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