Horrorfest 2017: Messiah of Evil

I went into Edgar Wright's last favorite of the month, MESSIAH OF EVIL, a little excited because it was written and directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband and wife team responsible for punching up the screenplays of AMERICAN GRAFFITI and STAR WARS (by all accounts making them more human and less George Lucas-y) and for writing INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.

Unfortunately I didn't end up liking it much. This team also made HOWARD THE DUCK, which should have been a warning to me, except I loved that movie as a kid, so who knows.

MESSIAH OF EVIL is a low budget, artsy horror flick from 1973 starring Marianna Hill as a young woman who travels to a northern California town to find her father (Royal Dano), who has disappeared. Clues lead to a cult-leader type figure (Michael Greer) who seems benevolent enough, despite the warnings of a crazy dude played by none other than Elisha Cook, Jr. What a casting coup! And he's amazing as always in his limited screen time.

Eventually it turns out the whole town is possessed and waiting for an ancient evil to return, ever since some stuff that went down back in pioneer days and blah, blah. To be honest I kind of zoned out. On one hand this might be to the film's credit, because it does capture a very surreal and dream-like quality, despite its low budget origins. On the other hand I might have just been bored.

This is the third case in a row of a DVD's presentation getting a little bit in the way of my enjoyment of the film. I can't tell if the source material sucks, or the DVD sucks, but maybe the movie was easier to follow on opening day with a pristine print. That's really no excuse though, I've enjoyed plenty of hard-to-watch movies. I guess I just wasn't in the mood.