Early attempt still one of the best.

Zeegrade

An excellent fusion of H.P. Lovecraft storytelling mixed with flesh eating zombies results in the criminally underrated Messiah of Evil, the directorial debut of Willard Huyck who would go on to direct far less ambitious projects like the infamous Howard the Duck. Was it beginner's luck? Perhaps, though that takes nothing away from how engaging and original this movie was and how well it holds up today.

Arletty is traveling to Point Dune on the California coast to look for her father, an artist, whom she hasn't heard from in some time. When she arrives at his place and finds it empty she begins to realize that the town inhabitants aren't quite what one might call normal. After Charlie, the town drunk and maybe madman as well, gives Arletty disturbing measures that should be taken upon her reunion with her father she moves from concerned daughter to frightened outsider. Her pursuit of the truth introduces her to Thom, an eccentric man who seeks out old legends and his female companions Laura the sultry vixen and Toni the blissfully ignorant tomboy. According to legend a "dark stranger" arrived in Point Dune one hundred years ago and placed a curse on the town that turns the inhabitants into flesh eating zombies with the rise of a red moon. This stranger is scheduled to return as the citizens begin exhibiting the traits of the undead. Will Arletty get out alive?

Messiah of Evil is like the west coast version of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" with the stranger as one of the Deep Ones and the townspeople turning into zombies rather than fish. Do not mistake these zombies however with the typical slow shuffling mindless beings normally depicted as these ones move with the same fluidity as normal humans. Sorry fans of 28 Days Later, you added nothing new to the zombie genre. There is plenty of eerie atmosphere as the town inhabitants embrace their otherworldly strangeness much like in the first season of Twin Peaks. The cryptic rantings by Charlie and the downright disturbing albino truck driver are prime examples of this. Marianna Hill is still very sexy as the distraught Arletty and I would have loved to see more of her along with the lovely Laura though that is my only complaint with this film. I owned a copy of this packaged with The Devil's Nightmare before I found this included with far lesser public domain fare as part of the Chilling Classics collection. Do not confuse this with the other senseless fluff as Messiah of Evil should be a stand alone film that should be recognized as not only one of the first of its kind but also one of the best. It almost makes up for Howard the Duck. Almost.

score 9/10

Zeegrade 7 December 2009

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2170248/