Messiah of Evil. 1974. USA. Written and directed by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz. With Michael Greer, Mariana Hill, Joy Bang. New York premiere. 90 min.
Of the countless loving homages (and blatant ripoffs) of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, this is one of the most original and compelling. Presented in a newly struck 35mm print that captures the film’s giallo-inspired widescreen color compositions—it’s no accident the film’s missing father is a painter of macabre subjects— Messiah of Evil is a time capsule of 1970s indie Los Angeles (even The Driver ’s Walter Hill and experimental filmmaker Morgan Fisher make cameos) and forgotten city monuments like Ralph’s supermarket, the Culver Center shopping mall, and the Fox Venice movie theater. It is also a Lovecraftian drive-in horror flick with the requisite undead flesh eaters, sinister preachers and Albinos, insane asylums, blood-red moons, mass hysteria, and widespread contagion. Writer-directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz would go on to achieve greater screenwriting notoriety with American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom …and Howard the Duck.
New 35mm print from the 4K digital restoration courtesy American Genre Film Archive and Radiance Films.