It Came from a Location
A woman goes somewhere and then there are zombies, sort of. That's about as solid as the premise is for 1973's Messiah of Evil. Written and directed by husband and wife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, best known for their collaborations with George Lucas (they were screenwriters for American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Howard the Duck), Messiah of Evil has been called surreal, which in this case I think is a charitable way of saying it doesn't make any sense. But it has a lot of little moments that are effective if one forgets about the context, or lack thereof.
The film begins with an interesting shot of Arletty (Marianna Hill) walking down a corridor in a madhouse. In voiceover, she promises to tell us about the strange events that no-one believes her about. The ensuing flashback, essentially the whole film, leaves her point of view frequently, ruining the whole "survivor's account" quality. One of my favourite moments is when Arletty pulls into a gas station and sees the attendant firing a gun into pitch darkness. Then he walks back to the station and the two have a completely normal, casual conversation about filling her gas tank.
Arletty's going to a small town to visit her father (Royal Dano) but at his house instead finds just a few lazy young bohemians. She finds them lounging on a bed while none other than Elisha Cook Jr. is monologuing for them next to a TV.
He's telling them about the horrors of the zombie infestation but the whole scene is presented like they've hired the famous character actor to give a private performance.
The zombies start picking off the group one by one in ways that only make sense if the zombies are aware of being in a horror movie and know that their job is to be creepy. One of the bohemians (Joy Bang) goes to see a movie and all the zombies quietly file in and fill up the seats behind her.
It's creepy but what the motive is is certainly not clear.
We get a vague back story about how a strange man appeared a hundred years ago and infected the town in some way. The stranger comes from the sea in one scene, one of several things that indicate an H.P. Lovecraft influence.
The disconnect between the movie and internal logic could be taken as a postmodern commentary on horror movies, I guess. But like a lot of postmodernism, it seems suspiciously like the writers were just too lazy. The film does have a lot of interesting shots, though.
Messiah of Evil is available on Shudder.