Messiah of Evil | 100 Movies Bucket List

 

I hadn't heard of this film before the bucket list, and the premise was a bit vague so it felt like going in blind.

Unfortunately I didn't love this one.

This is a 1973/4 movie, but even for the 70s, everything feels old-fashioned. And it doesn't seem that this was a stylistic choice; it wasn't set further in the past. If I had to guess the time period I would have said much earlier.

We're thrown into the story with not much context. We don't know who we're following or why, which is a positive and negative. On the one hand, we're able to understand the main character's frame of mind because she's also in a new place with no context for what the town is. But on the other hand, it makes it harder to get into the story.

And for me it was hard to get into for quite a while.

The film is at its best when it really leans into the horror. Sometimes subtle horror really works, but for this one in particular I would have preferred much more overt horror. And the few scenes that go in this direction really make the film worth watching. The tone and tension are perfect and genuinely scary.

Considering the film is so short, I wanted a lot more to happen. As it was, I wasn't particularly interested in either the story or the characters. One could have saved the other, but both just didn't really work for me.

And because not much happens, there's not that much to say about it. I think it was well made, and at the centre is a really interesting story, but the way it's told wasn't for me.

There were certainly interesting moments and things that could have been explored in more detail, like the relationship between father and daughter, but anything really meaningful tended to fall flat.

So overall, while there's great scenes in this movie, I wouldn't recommend it overall and probably won't re-watch it.