Messiah of Evil (later also shown under the title Dead People) is a movie made in 1972 by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband and wife team behind Howard the Duck (film). The movie is in the public domain and is available on DVD alongside The Devil's Nightmare

Plot

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, doesn't 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. By chance, Arletty meets a Portuguese-American aristocrat Tom and his two extremely provocative, groupie-like female companions, Toni and Joanne. They are drinking, smoking, and walking around in states of undress, except for the man. He always wears an ivory three piece suit, 24 hours a day. He is fascinated by the town, and the legend that a blood moon rises above it periodically, and darkness then consumes the town. Back at his motel, he is interviewing Charlie (played by Elisha Cook, Jr.) a village idiot/'wino'-type character. He tape records his bizarre rants. Charlie speaks at length about 'the blood moon' and 'the dark stranger' and how he has lived through both. He says very soon it will be the 100 year anniversary of the first appearance of the 'dark stranger', he will return, the moon will turn red, and the town will be overrun with evil. He says the stranger's followers don't kill him as they think he is a harmless hobo---they let him sleep on the sidewalk undisturbed every night. Elisha warns Arletty about her father, he says he is 'one of them' now, and must be killed, but with fire as only fire will do the job. Moments later he is murdered off screen. Tom tells Arletty he also went to the gallery, and saw one of her father's paintings in the window! The man and his women are kicked out of the motel, supposedly because the police questioned them about the wino, and it bothered the management. (All the police in town are 'normal' and clueless about the vampires massing at night). They all move in together, at Arletty's father's house. Each night at the house, strange things happen, shadows crawl about on the skylights, and Arletty reads more of the diary---her father reveals his body temperature is 85 degrees! This proves he is dead, but thinking and moving about, and suggests the local vampires are fully sentient and aware of what they do, and only Arletty's father feels remorse and is actively fighting his 'condition'. Meanwhile, each night, creatures gather on the beach in front of bonfires, staring straight up at the moon. The locals call it 'The Waiting'. These 'vampires' will eat anything---dead vampires, dead people, live people, live animals, etc. Each day 'order' returns to Point Dune. These vampires are especially interested in eating Arletty, Tom, Toni, and Joanne. First to die is Joanne, devoured inside a Ralph's supermarket, in one of the film's two semi-famous scenes. Next to die is Toni, in the other semi-famous scene, she is literally devoured in a movie theater filled with blood red seats, and greenish vampires---these 'things' act like vampires, bite their victims necks, but then eat them like George Romero's zombies. (Note: Almost nothing in the entire plot is ever explained, but rather left to the viewer's interpretation.) The night Toni is eaten alive, Tom races downtown, realizing she is in danger. But he's too late. Things quickly get completely crazy as the 'blood moon' rises, every resident turns monster, and the titular Messiah of Evil, the dark stranger, a former minister, and a Donner Party survivor from the late 1800s turned vampire/cannibal, returns. He says he has come to lead his people up the coast and inland, to spread his 'religion'. Tom gets bitten on the neck, and then suddenly two policemen in riot gear drive up, and empty their guns into a swarm of townspeople/vampire/zombies; immediately they are bit and turned into monsters. Tom drives to the beach house, but Arletty is half-crazed---she is cold, can't feel pain, thinks she may be dead or un-dead...she even finds a bug crawling around in her mouth, suggesting she has been dead quite awhile and doesn't know it. Startled by Tom, she stabs him with garden shears. Later bandaged up and ready to go, the two of them flee to the beach. It is swarming with the ersatz vampires. They swim out to the breakers. Tom drowns. Arletty lives. Instead of being eaten, she is tied up, to be 'sacrificed to the Messiah'. Instead of killing her, he turns her loose, and tells her to spread word of his religious movement throughout California and the world. Of course once she is freed Arletty tries to spread word of the menace of his cult. This causes her to be locked up in an insane asylum. She is the woman sees dancing in the hallway at the beginning of the film. Each day, all day, she sits in the sun painting. But she says she is really waiting for, and dreading the day the Messiah and his followers come to her asylum, and she is taken away to live forever as his bride....