soulexpress
The population of the seaside town of Point Dune has turned into zombie-like beings who bleed from the eyes. (Sitting through 90 minutes of this made me want to do the same.) The plot also involves something called a Blood Moon, which signals the return of a Dark Stranger from 100 years ago. Each night, the townspeople gather on the beach to await his return. The rest of the time, they're at the supermarket, eating raw meat, or else killing the few people who haven't succumbed to the zombie sickness.The film also has a running theme of dreams and nightmares. This leads to such dialogue as, "I've been told that nightmares are dreams perverted," "You're about to awaken, when you dream that you're dreaming," and, "We sleep, and we dream, each of us dying slowly in the prison of our minds." The dream references are pointless and only bog down what should have been a simple horror film. I can hear director Willard Huyck saying, "Scary? Hell no! I want my zombie film artsy, pretentious, and dull."Item: At the beginning of the film, a zombie kills the owner of a service station. For some reason, his doing so knocks out the building's electricity.Item: The worst violence takes place off-camera, which makes even the murder scenes come across as weak.Item: The film attempts irony in the form of a blind art dealer.Item: Though Point Dune has been zombified for weeks, the supermarket's meat and produce are still fresh.Item: The whole "Dark Messiah" thing is insubstantial and comes off as an afterthought.Item: Given what happens in the film, it could have been titled "Point Dune" or "Blood Moon." Either would have been far better than the two feeble names under which it did come out.
jarretyoung123
This film technically isn't completely a zombie film but a mystery, it's a true look into a nightmare and is by far the greatest hidden gem of the seventies if you ask me. A young woman named Arletty enters the sea side town of point Dune searching for her father, but she unexpectedly enters a nightmare fueled hell for she has Arrived on the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the dark stranger, a priest who came with intentions of spreading his new order. But The anniversary is nothing to be celebrated for the moon, blood red, has turned the whole town into zombies. Arletty along with the suspicious threesome, must solve the mystery of point dune and escape, before they too are changed.This film ends fairly ambiguous with the viewer wondering if the events ever even happened, no loose ends are tied by the end of the film but it's fairly obvious that this was done on purpose to give the film a more mysterious feel. This is truly a strange film and it has to be one of the best paced films I have ever found. Truly a one of a kind I could not recommend enough.
artpf
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.This is a very very strange trippy surreal movie that is American made but directed like an Argento Italian horror movie. Complete with tinny wind sounds indoors!The plot is hard to follow and little of it makes sense, which might be why I like it. It takes no prisoners. And the more odd it gets the more you are drawn to watching it.Is it a great film? I don't think so. But I'm not sure. It's that odd. You are left with the feeling that there is a subtext that only the husband and wife team who wrote and directed it know about. Like the entire trip has a different meaning than what you just watched.I'm giving it an 8. Part of me want to give it a six and part of me a ten.Also, we're never sure if the creatures are zombies or vampires or something else. But I'll tell you this: this movie has two of the most down right creepiest scenes ever filmed on the planet.Both involve woman who become victims of being eaten by the creatures. And when they get eaten, it's not in a way that's enjoyable to either.Had I seen this movie was I was a kid, I think those two scenes would have given me nightmares for years.
amesmonde
Arletty (Marianna Hill) arrives in a small, odd, creepy coastal town in California looking for her father and she quickly learns little is as it seems. Before Romero's Dawn of the Dead and The Crazies, there was Dead People a.k.a Messiah of evil. Shot in 1971 the film was not released until 1973. Like H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon and The Wicker Man (1973), weird locals are hiding a horrific secret... In Messiah, the people of Point Dune worship the rise of a red moon as they become zombies. The storyline is disjointed, but this adds to the mystic, surreal and dreamlike quality of the film. Admittedly, it feels art house, there is some irregular editing and the score is very much of its time, but there's plenty to like about it. Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Dead & Buried (1981) and the aforementioned Dawn of the Dead clearly have taken a cue from Willard Huyck's jumbled but effective film. Especially the scene where slinky brunette Anitra Ford is pursued through a supermarket. There is also truly creepy scene again with Ford and an albino trucker, played by Bennie Robinson, who you'd think would have been in a lot more horror movies. If you liked Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) and Night of the Living Dead there's some horror delight to be found here from the shocking first kill to the insane asylum ending.Messiah of Evil oozes dread and suspense, it's a chilling 70's horror flick that despite its faults is a lot better than some of today's so called horrors.
AD
