Arletty Lang (Marianna Hill) has been receiving some strange letters from her father, Joseph Lang (Royal Dano). Joseph is an artist who moved to a secluded seaside town called Point Dune. When the letters stop completely Arletty decides to visit her father to make sure he is alright. When she gets there, she finds the beach house abandoned. All she finds are some journals that her father left behind. The journals explain that her father had begun to experience some strange things happening in the town, things that were affecting him.
The next day Arletty visits the local art gallery to see if she can find out what happened to her father. The gallery owner (Morgan Fisher) tells her that there are a couple people at the local motel that have also been looking for Joseph. At the motel Arletty meets Thom (Michael Greer), Laura (Anitra Ford) and Toni (Joy Bang). Thom is a collector of legends and folk stories and was looking for Joseph to see if he had any stories about the town. At the time, Thom is interviewing a local crackpot named Charlie (Elisha Cook Jr.). Charlie is telling Thom about a local legend where a hundred years ago the people of the town resorted to cannibalism during a red moon.
The next day, Thom, Laura and Toni show up at Joseph’s house, looking for a place to crash. It seems that Charlie was found dead in an alley near their motel room and showed signs of being eaten. Thom assumes that the man was killed by wild dogs, but they were not allowed to stay in town anymore. Arletty lets them stay. Thom mentions that the town’s people have been gathering at the beach each night and making a huge bonfire.
Thom shows signs of being attracted to Arletty which pisses off Laura. She decides to leave and heads for town. In town Laura is attacked and eaten by zombies. The next night Toni is bored so she goes to the local movie theater where she is next in line to be attacked by zombies. By now Thom is concerned about how strange the townspeople are acting and goes looking for Toni. While he is away Joseph returns and warns Arletty to leave before it is too late. Joseph tells her the story of the blood moon and how a stranger, having been part of the notorious Donner Party had tasted flesh and turned into a zombie. The stranger infected the town, and the townspeople were waiting for the next blood moon and the return of the stranger.
“Messiah of Evil” was released in 1974 and was produced written and directed by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck. It is an American supernatural horror movie. The movie was mostly made in 1971 but wasn’t finish or released until 1974. The movie also seems to have had a plethora of other titles after being rereleased in 1975 such as “Return of the Living Dead” “Revenge of the Screaming Dead” “Night of the Damned” and “Dead People”.
It’s an odd movie. It’s got some artistic images and a couple of really memorable scenes but there’s also a fair amount of blah as well, however, patience is rewarded. The explanation for why everyone in town is turning into a zombie is a teeny bit farfetched but I’ve seen stranger correlations before. It doesn’t change the actual horror of the film. All in all, the movie is well done and quite surreal. Mundane things like going to the grocery store or a movie theater turn into your worst nightmare. It’s a really good example of a zombie movie and for some reason it mostly fell through the cracks. It’s definitely worth watching, the restored version that is. If you have a one of those compilation DVDs with the movie included, then you may want to find an updated restored version to get the best experience from it.