There are lots of words flung like so much snow, at films like MESSIAH OF EVIL. Words like transgressive, transformative and erudite. thankfully Kim Newman and Stephen Thrower avoid much of these well worn verbal tropes. I point this out because most of what I can say about the film, really pales in the face of what they do. The story, a threadbare conversation about a young woman arriving in a sleepy seaside town, is nothing new. Once there she unpacks the problems her father had with the place. You see the town is a wash with more than just super marts and fuel stations. It is alive with the creeping dead. Are they vampires? Are they the undead? No one is sure. They know a few things. One is that the town has been taken hold by a strange cult that bleeds tears and devours human flesh. The other is that a playboy and his muses have turned up and are stuck in a hotel that just isnt happening enough for them. The woman is now forced to devoir to save her father from the town (and me from more pretentious words). Directed and written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the writers of AMERICAN GRAFFITI et al, the fil is crafted as a rather surreal story of Americana. It lives inside a mansion of tourtured art and nightmare. Imprisioned in a horror realm of George Romero, vampire films and zombie movies, is an America of sides. The consumer, conformer and the rebellious.

I wont bore you, knowledgeable reader with the names this film has had and the law suites that followed. The commentary covers that really well indeed. I also will not bore you with the comments on what this film means in the cannon of American indie film, its themes and its rather odd sense of briliance, often thrown at a homogenous lump but really metered out for films like this. Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger documentary, that features many great and good, does this with there being a sense that it is rather over egging the omelete. Instead I will applude the 4K scan version of the film. I havent seen the original version and this is my first time clamping eyes on the movie. What I can say is that its richness of colour, for the film is awash with it, is mesmeric. I rewatched the scenes in the house, with those earthen blues. I loved the regal reds of the cinema, showing a banged up version of GONE WITH THE WEST. Which has a glorious death scene that shimmers with the hue of blood. Then the supermarket, which has another well talked on scene. The lumi bulbs often wash out colour, even on restoration but not here. That is the real reason to own the film.

FEATURES:

• New 2023 restoration from a 4K scan of the best-surviving elements of the film from the Academy Film Archive
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Audio commentary by critics and horror experts Kim Newman and Stephen Thrower
• Archival interview with co-writer-director Willard Huyck by Mike White from the Projection Booth Podcast
• What the Blood Moon Brings: Messiah of Evil, A New American Nightmare – A documentary feature which explores Messiah of Evil in the context of American independent cinema of the 70s, as well as examining the film’s allegiance to several subgenres of horror film through its underlying themes. Co-directed by Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger; featuring film scholars Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Maitland McDonagh, Guy Adams, Mikel Koven and David Huckvale (2023)
• Visual essay on American Gothic and Female Hysteria by critic Kat Ellinger (2023)
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition 80-page book featuring writing by Bill Ackerman, Joseph Dwyer, Amanda Reyes, Andy Marshall-Roberts and Larissa Glasser
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in rigid box and full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings