Messiah of Evil

The film buff in me wants to compare this to Bergman or early Polanski based on the bleak and unsettlingly nihilistic atmosphere. The inept jackass in me however assumes that's just because I have no idea what the plot was but, damn, it sure did look cool. Once again, inept jackass wins.

A surreal, creepy, slow-burning and quite curious take on the zombie genre. It features some stylish and competent direction from the couple behind such classics as Howard The Duck and Best Defence, and features some great scenes. The actors were decent, especially stalwarts Cook Jr and Dano. Sure, it's a bit bleak, and difficult to pin down, but quite enjoyable and probably deserves to be more well known. It also made me realise that I need to see Gone With The West. Nightmarishly appealing.

While the ending isn't as strong as it should be, this is some weird and creepy stuff that seems like it should've been made in Italy. Wonderfully desolate mood, and the theater scene alone makes it worthwhile.

Bizzarre, lowbudget fleshmuncher flick, more indebted to Polanski than to Romero. The plot kind of comes and goes, the pacing is all over the place and the zombies themselves sometimes come off as little more than an afterthought. It's not necessarily going to appeal to horror buffs, unless they're the kind that also got a kick out of slow, nightmarish fare like Let's Scare Jessica to Death and The House with Laughing Windows.

Antonioni by way of Carpenter

Has a masterfully created, uncompromising atmosphere of darkness and evil. Plus, it has the slow rythm of a nightmare: she starts to live with those strangers as if it's the most normal thing on earth. Could have been more than a successful example of a specific genre if it could connect some subtext with this rich soil of bleak nightmare. Still a very distinguished stylized example of zombie genre.

I'm not completely sure I understood what was happening during this film to be honest, but it's a weird lurid slow-burn of a film with subpar acting and muddied sound design, in which a woman slowly succumbs to madness by way of some weird prophecy. There are a handful of just extremely awesome, creepy, unique moments in this film that but as a whole it's too slow, too unintentionally jarring, too cheap and badly acted at moments, to be actually good.

It kind of feels like Last Year at Marienbad with zombies.

The visuals are just so good. The story feels a tad inconsequential, buried under the vibes™; this isn't to say that it's not interesting or that there's no substance to it, it just didn't feel particularly transcendent. It's the vibes™ that matter most here.

So the first half hour is pretty amazing but then it kind of fumbles the atmosphere of dread which had been building to that point. I still prefer this to every European giallo I've seen, and now with that admission I'm fully expecting a death like the one in the cinema at the hands of a bunch of Criterion elitists.

Slow and meandering, with a focus on mood over plot. Some great sets too.

Creepy and atmospheric, though also poorly paced and acted. Unabashedly weird in a way few films today dare to be.

Feels like a post-hippie proto-slasher version of "The Horror Over Innsmouth". Oddly paced and with some editing that looks unfortunate today, but it's very stylish and has a nightmarish atmosphere that draws you in.

Interesting almost shagadelic 70s horror flick with some pretty good scenes! A mash-up of European, zombie, Lovecraft, "Carnival of Souls" that almost works.

A strange one indeed, with a lot of humorous touches ("Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" etc). The DP/art director achieve some quite cool effects. Not sure any of it quite made sense (some convert immediately, some linger, some are killed, some are predators), but fun anyway, with two quite creepy standouts: the albino's rat nosh and Mariana's bug barf. Joy is also very hot indeed (reminiscent of Jane Fonda)...and Greer is a bit similar to Jane's brother (shag 'do and all).

Similar energy to a Dario Argentine film. Glad that I was insanely high while watching this since I think that was the film makers intention.

Pace might be an issue, but this is so beautifully shot and batshit weird you can't help but be totally engulfed by it -- young woman goes to this coastal town to trace her missing father, only to get herself trapped by a destiny defined by his diary (detailed reports about being slowly turned into one of the members of an undead cult). Gems: dude eating rat in the car, girl at movie theater about to become cult's meal, daughter attacking artist father while he's painted in blue and red.

A low-key, high-atmosphere piece of art-schlock that takes cues from giallo films. The death scenes are some of the weirdest ever.

Messiah of Evil is an American take on 60's and 70's creepy Italian cinema. If you told me that this screenplay was written by Charles Manson, I would believe you. There is a lot of nihilistic writing in this movie that I enjoy. It picks up on some of the best parts of 60's era writing and music and makes it entertaining to watch. The monsters aren't zombies but they aren't far off. It's easy to see that this movie was inspired by George Romero's films. It's not for everyone but I liked it.

Terrible

It's flawed ... the low budget really shows at times and it was literally not finished leading to a very abrupt ending that's pretty unsatisfying. It makes up for this flaws with a really odd and disturbing atmosphere and an unusual, Lovecraft inspired plot. (It's reminiscent of "Dead & Buried" from the following decade, but has quite a different tone to it.)

Zombiskie Point

Yey for freaky, strange 70s cult movie cinema!

Very taken aback by this. Perhaps I just was in the perfect mood to jive with this and it really isn't this good, but wow.

With not much of a story and a slow pace, this movie is like a quiet meditation on the nature of zombie-infested towns and on zombies in general. That, and some flesh-munching scenes. So, I guess that if you are interested in zombies or their eating habits you might enjoy this film. I find zombies kind of boring (I mean, it's not like they have a very impressive behavioural repertoire, is it), so I did not like it much. I'll admit that there were a few properly eerie scenes, though.

Bizarre almost plotless horror film that feels like the director pretty much just translated his most f-ed up dream to the screen.

Not bad for 1973 but by no means does it translate to current audiences.

61.500