X
- 1974
- R
- International Cine Film Corporation
- 1 h 30 m
- 1974
- R
- International Cine Film Corporation
- 1 h 30 m
Summary A young woman goes searching for her missing artist father. Her journey takes her to a strange Californian seaside town governed by a mysterious undead cult.
Directed By: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
Written By: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
- 1974
- R
- International Cine Film Corporation
- 1 h 30 m
- 1974
- R
- International Cine Film Corporation
- 1 h 30 m
Messiah of Evil
69
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Summary A young woman goes searching for her missing artist father. Her journey takes her to a strange Californian seaside town governed by a mysterious undead cult.
Directed By: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
Written By: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 6 Critic Reviews
69
83% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
17% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 6 Critic Reviews
69
83% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
17% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz’s eerily brooding Messiah of Evil remains an undervalued gem of American gothic filmmaking.
Messiah of Evil is an underseen gem that manages to creep under the skin despite its very low budget.
Given its troubled production history, Messiah of Evil is far from perfect. Mood can only get you so far when not much happens for a good hour of the film. But it flows with the blood of New Hollywood in its veins, defining the wave as more than just gritty dramas and excessive blockbusters.
The film melds a “California Girls” sensibility (the Beach Boys song, to be clear) with boho fashion and depraved supernatural horror in a way that’s feminine, mesmerizing and lurid. There’s no other horror film quite like it.
Co-writers/co-directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz confound life and art, reality and dreams, sanity and madness in their surreal vision of conservative America succumbing to – or biting back against – the encroaching counterculture.
Incoherent horror film about a woman, Hill, searching for her father, a surrealist painter in a small California coastal town that has become overrun with flesh-eating zombies. Katz and Huyck, who enjoyed great success as the writers of George Lucas' AMERICAN GRAFFITI, stooped to ripping off George Romero's low-budget masterpiece NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
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