Messiah of Evil
This week we’re presenting Messiah of Evil (1974, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz) on MONDAY, November 17th, at 7 PM.
Here is the link to RSVP. Doors will be at 6:50 and we’ll start the show at 7:10!
Messiah of Evil is an eerie, unpredictable, and psychedelic horror film that recently received a quite nice new restoration. I’m particularly excited to revisit it for reasons tied to why this write-up may be particularly scant. The first time that we (Charlie and Stefan) viewed Messiah of Evil is tied to the primordial origins of the From Below itself. Our group of friends used to have a semi-annual movie marathon tradition called FEEDBAG, in which everyone invited would bring one movie tied to a particular concept or theme (past themes include “Reversal of Fortune” and “Big Guy, Little Guy”) and we would pitch our movies, organize a viewing order, and marathon films from dusk til dawn. Yes, we were a bit younger and more physically elastic then, but part of the experience of FEEDBAG was to drift off to sleep on a friend’s couch, and wake up to, say, Mind Game (2004) or The Blob (1988) playing at 4 AM.
Messiah of Evil was Friend-of-the-From Below Gem’s contribution to the first ever FEEDBAG, which had the looser theme of “horror.” I remember it playing, in my old, pre-Killingsworth apartment, around 2 AM, but I don’t remember much else besides some of the impressionistic, pop-art and hippie-indebted visuals. We’re excited to re-experience this beautiful, sinister oddity with you! Also, to drop a hint about future screenings, it’s part of a little two-parter of coastal California horror we are cooking up!
On the Shore,
Stefan, Charlie, and Stark