Messiah of evil (1973)

Here is a classic little flick that has been unseen for a long time, only showing up on poor bootlegs och those cheap public domain dvdcollections with vhsquality. It deserved better and finally Code Red stepped up to the challenge and provided us with a fine, remastered special edition. We love you, Code red!

The story starts with a bit of hyperbolic narration, where the main character (Mariana Hill) starts to tell us her story of trying to find her father in a small californian town and the madness that came with it. Stuff like this:
"They're coming here. They're waiting at the edge of the city. They're peering around buildings at night, and they're waiting. They waiting for you! And they'll take you one by one and noone will hear you scream. Noone will hear you SCREAM!"
Yes, subtle. Seems the town is full of some sort of flesheating psychopaths but of course, there is a bit more than that. The explanation to all of this is shown in a couple of really cool flashbacks and I really like the reason for all this.

Not thats its really a zombiemovie. Technically, they seem to be dead and they do eat flesh but you dont really see this as influenced by Night of the living dead. This is a bit more arty and focused on moods and ambience, as you can tell from the instance our heroine arrives in her fathers house, with the walls full of grand murals. The lights and camerashots are all in a similar vein. Not that the movie isnt without horror. There are several excellent scenes that stand out, particularily the one in the supermarket and especially the scene in the cinema when a victim watches a movie and realizes that the seats around her are slowly being filled by ashylooking people with bleeding eyes. Great stuff.

A great 70s horrormovie that might not appeal to everyone then. I myself liked it a lot and recommend it to all the fans of 70s horror and exploitation.