Monday, October 08, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8 - Movie 2



Messiah of Evil (1973) is an eerie, dream-like movie from frequent George Lucas collaborators Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck. My favorite Star Trek babe, Marianna Hill, travels to the coastal town of Point Dune in search of her father. He's missing and there's something very odd about this town which is populated by characters that would be right at home in a David Lynch movie. Eventually she learns that the town is cursed and the population is turning into soulless cannibals who hunt in packs, and that just by being in town she risks turning into one of them.

Messiah of Evil is definitely worth watching even though it is wildly uneven with some serious flaws in editing and narrative which make it sometimes hard to follow what's happening, and some less bothersome flaws in logic. These problems actually support the dream-like quality of the movie. There are some real stand-out haunting imagery in the film; brief glimpses into the strange behavior of the zombie-like residents, particularly where they gather to feed at the meat department at the super market. The out right horror scenes that take place in the same super market and inside a movie theater are well staged and very effective.



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