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Messiah of Evil



A woman arrives in a sleepy seaside town after receiving unsettling letters from her father, only to discover the town is under the influence of a strange cult that weeps tears of blood and hunger for human flesh. From Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the writers of American Grafitti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Howard the Duck, this dreamy and atmospheric film transposes the post-Night of the Living Dead zombie movie to a surreal small-town American setting, presented through gorgeous Techniscope visuals that echo the stylish European horror of Mario Bava and Hammer. A true cult film, Messiah of Evil, which was also released as Dead People, has overcome distribution challenges to enjoy growing awareness and high acclaim after decades of word-of-mouth enthusiasm among horror cinema fans and critics around the world.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New 2023 restoration from a 4K scan of the best-surviving elements of the film from the Academy Film Archive
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Audio commentary by critics and horror experts Kim Newman and Stephen Thrower
• Archival interview with co-writer-director Willard Huyck by Mike White from the Projection Booth Podcast
• A new documentary on the film with more information to be revealed
• Visual essay on the American Gothic by critic Kat Ellinger
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition 80-page booklet featuring new and archival writing
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in rigid box and full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
• More to be confirmed!

My writeup

domino harvey wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:45 am Messiah of Evil (Willard Huyck 1973) Stylish but hollow horror film in the spirit of Let's Scare Jessica to Death, with the symbolic treatment of clashing cultures manifesting itself in an entire townspeople feeding off any unlucky interlopers like ravenous ghouls. This one was written/produced/directed by the screenwriters of American Graffiti but there's none of that film's well-observed humanism on display here. The film does feature some good mood set pieces and one wholly effective sequence at a movie theatre, but otherwise this wasn't worth the $$$ I invested in the Code Red release (the only place to get the film in its proper 'Scope format)

Obviously that last line no longer stands…

All I really remember about the film is a scene at a movie theatre, but it´s a classic.I´m gonna put this one on a wishlist.

Extremely pleased to see this pop up with Radiance, though it seems many hands were wringing through it over the years (could've sworn Brad Henderson/Terrorvision had it on the horizon, since he's hinted it so frequently, & is probably his favorite film of all time?), and it probably would've sunk with Arrow without someone like Fran to champion it from getting lost in the shuffle. The restoration I hope will be enough to convert folks to take the dive, especially as the film, for me, surpasses what is usually expected from this kind of genre fare. Thankfully, I never splurged for the grey-market version of the Code Red that keeps popping up for sale, so's now I can legitimately absolve my sin of hovering the cursor once & for all.

I saw a few folk complaining about a label like Radiance releasing this, but wanted to draw the high brow connections here. Artist/filmmaker Morgan Fisher had a brief role in this film that was cut. He explains it in his film Standard Gauge and shows a few shots. If I recall, he may have been an assistant editor on this. In addition to the Fisher connection, it’s an important reference point in Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself.

It seems this will be re-released as a special edition now, with the usual obi strip packaging and a slimmer (with less content) booklet.

Messiah of Beavil.

anyone who wants the super deluxe hardbox thing can get one at Orbit

I'm not liking the high contrast, blown out look of the Radiance release at all and am glad I got the Code Red release.

caps-a-holic

It's the overall balance that seems off, with the creamy whites on top of blown highlights. Is it sourced from an exploitation print ? Such a look usually is seen on restorations sourced from those.

It has the look of a TV set to Vivid/Dynamic.

tenia wrote: Sat Oct 21, 2023 8:24 am It's the overall balance that seems off, with the creamy whites on top of blown highlights. Is it sourced from an exploitation print ? Such a look usually is seen on restorations sourced from those.

Radiance is touting it as being sourced from "the best surviving elements" though I wouldn't be surprised if it was sourced from the same element as the Code Red release (which I believe was already some sort of preservation print). If they are both sourced from the same element, it almost seems like a deliberate choice for a more "grindhouse" look.

I too get the feeling they are trying to give it a faded 'grindhouse' look, which for me undermines its appeal. The movie is like (or at least wants to be) Carnival of Souls or Night of the Living Dead as made by Antonioni.

I've now watched this three times in the last year, and while it's not a particularly well-crafted movie, there's an especially unsettling charm about its sloppiness. In eliding a lot of character and event establishment tactics, we're afforded a strong sense of displacement from normally-'known' information that draws us into horror films: From the ghostly unlit gas station at the start (complete with the attendant wielding bullets in fear at unidentifiable creatures), to the group of hipsters laying around town and inviting themselves into homes without a considered rationale, to the hollowness of the lead herself, and the slapdash mythology of the atrocities taking place. There isn't even any sex to superficially cue us into harmony between any two people; this is a setting and plot devoid of connection, just a bunch of lonely, confused, or languid souls musing around, out of their element, until it all comes crashing down. We're not granted the slight-omniscience to get in on the joke, so the violence (not just literal, but as theoretically intrusive violations of audience expectations) is at our expense too. I don't blame anyone for disliking this movie, it practically asks to be loathed as it doles out some basic horror pleasures amidst the off-putting rattling anxiety of self-reflexive alienation