Re-Introduction! / Messiah of Evil

It took me long enough -- a few years, at least -- but I think it's about time for this blog to rise from its grave and walk around for a bit. New name, new focus, new purpose. I'm in a better state of mind to run it now, and much as I've decided to look at life in general from a new, more positive perspective, so too will this blog be more of what I like and less of what I don't.

Namely, horror movies. I love horror movies. I like to watch them, think about them, talk about them with friends and, in the case of the bad ones, laugh at them. A few people have told me they like my brief movie reviews I sometimes post on Facebook after seeing a new film, and perhaps brevity is the way to go here as well. The fact is, I don't have much to say about movies. I know why I like them, I know what works for me and what doesn't, but long reviews have never been my strong point; much of what there is to say about them is said in conversation, not in long, rambling posts such as I was trying to force myself to write here.

So, here's my format, and I hope you all enjoy it:

Once a week, every week, I'll post a mini-review of a worthwhile horror film that's currently available for streaming, whether through Amazon Prime Video, Netflix or some other service -- but mostly those two, since they're what I have. Nothing too in-depth or long-winded, just two or three paragraphs, along with a trailer (when one is available) and the service where you can find it. Some old, some new, some good, some so-bad-they're-good. I would love to discuss these movies with anyone following this blog. Think of this as a sort of book-of-the-week club, but for horror movies.

It seems appropriate to start with the movie that inspired me to start writing this blog again.

Messiah of Evil (1973)

What It's About: We open with our heroine Arletty in a mental institution following the events of the film. Apparently there's a kind of slow apocalypse happening outside, the nature of which remains generally unclear. Flashback time. Having received a series of disturbing messages from her father, an artist who lives in a small seaside town called Point Dune, she ventures out to the town and finds it largely deserted. She encounters a weird Portuguese-American aristocrat named Thom and his amazing 70s hair and his two female companions, and the four of them decide to investigate the situation. The residents of Point Dune are a creepy bunch, coming out at night with bleeding eyes to pursue and devour the few townspeople who haven't joined them in "the waiting," a nightly ritual where they all stand around on the beach and await the return of the "dark stranger" whose coming will mark the end of the world.

Why You Should Watch It: Messiah of Evil is a really weird one, and obscure enough that I was kind of surprised to see it on Amazon Prime. I first saw the movie over five years ago when my sister picked up one of those "50 Horror Movie" boxed sets you find at Best Buy or Target. It was one of the few gems in the set. The atmosphere is weird. The colors used are surreal. The characters are about as weird as it gets, especially Thom. The plot doesn't make much sense. And it is basically a B-movie, when all is said and done, so the acting -- by turns wooden and over-the-top -- is entertaining for all the wrong reasons, the dialogue is overwrought and pretentious, and there are several moments throughout that always make me laugh. The guy who eats mice and talks about classical music while mispronouncing Wagner. Thom's speech about how he has a castle. The stunt misfire where one of the zombies is supposed to swing down from a skylight but smacks into the ceiling and falls on his ass instead. The weirdest thing about it is that I had the nagging feeling throughout that this could actually have been a good movie in the hands of a more skillful director and with better actors involved. It's thoroughly unsettling throughout, and a few sequences are actually pretty creepy. Still, even when it falls short of what it could have been, it's at least bad enough to be entertaining and surreal enough to be legitimately interesting. It's unique, if nothing else.

Available on: Amazon Prime Video.