Cubussoli
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Afouotos
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
MJB784
I was very disappointed. It was too slow and mostly boring with no interesting characters. They also threw in a flashback of what happened 100 years ago which I don't know what that has to do with the zombies or her finding her father.
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.
fnord_one
For true horror fans this is an absolute gem. Despite all its glaring faults or because of them?, this sometimes abstract and always unpredictable movie is endlessly entertaining. Imagine if David Lynch would have grown up a hippie. He might make this film as a young acid head in California circa '73 (you know, in an alternate reality). Okay, got my Lynch reference in there... Oh, yeah, this movie is a real piece of work: the music is worth the time in itself-- through a huge spectrum, my friends. The sets (Artist's Home Studio, a Ralph's, etc) are used to creative ends. There are some good suspenseful set ups, like the unsuspecting movie goer picking the wrong theater. The Horror here is in the drab normals sucking the soul out of our "cool" protagonists; or, is it? Oh the glory of the fantastical explanation (that goes all Western, don't you know?) at the end. Yep, I can't believe it took me so long to come aboard, somekindoffreakyweirdmasterpiece
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.
