Genre:Horror - Sci-Fi Release Date: Run time: minutes Director: Actors:
Messiah of Evil (later also shown under the title Dead People) is a 1973 American horror film co-written, co-produced, and co-directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband and wife team behind the film version of Howard the Duck as well as the screenplays for American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.A young woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) drives to the beach town of Point Dune, California, to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his house, abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically. In it he complains about darkness consuming the town, and horrible nightmares he is having, and implores Arletty to never, ever look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings, does not sell them, no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and says he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dune is "an artist colony" and he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, like dead men at a funeral). It is never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both.
