Messiah of Evil

media release: USA | 1974 | 35mm | 90 min.

Director: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz; Cast: Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Elisha Cook Jr.

Best known as co-screenwriters for George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973) and Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck also directed this creepy and distinctly alluring high point of 1970s horror cinema. Searching for her father in the beachfront town of Point Dume, Arletty (Hill) gets more than she bargained for when she encounters unusual happenings in this remote California community. With art direction from the legendary Jack Fisk, Messiah of Evil is a spooky exemplar of the genre that ultimately taps into a dreamier, more disquieting wavelength. Beautifully restored in 2023 by the Academy Film Archive, a recently struck 35mm print, courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive, will be screened.

The Cinematheque at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is proud to announce its participation in Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, a global film festival presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. The UW Cinematheque joins over 80 venues across North America, South America, and Europe for this global festival, with programming selections focused on cinematic misery from all corners of the world.

The Cinematheque’s edition of Bleak Week will begin with a 35mmscreening of Steve De Jarnatt’s apocalyptic LA comedy Miracle Mile (1989) on Wednesday, June 24. It will conclude on Tuesday, June 30th when the Cinematheque screens an archival 35mm print of Testament (1983), an Oscar-nominated drama about nuclear devastation. Now in its fifth year, Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair was created by American Cinematheque head of programming Chris LeMaire in 2022. Bleak Week screens “some of the greatest works of cinema from across the globe that venture into the darkest sides of humanity and the bleakest points in human history,” ranging from marathon-length exercises in harrowing European art cinema to unexpectedly dark Hollywood films.

Immensely popular with Los Angeles audiences, the festival has expanded to additional venues across the globe, such as the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and the Prince Charles Cinema in London, in the years since Bleak Week’s initial commencement.

Programmed by the UW Cinematheque’s Josh Martin, Bleak Week Madison features a curated selection of films designed to capture the many flavors of cinematic bleakness offered by various genres and national cinemas. In addition to Miracle Mile and Testament, seven additional films will screen as part of the Cinematheque’s Bleak Week programming. On Thursday, June 25, a DCP restoration of Sergio Corbucci’s uniquely violent and hard-edged Euro-western The Great Silence will screen. On Friday, June 26, the Cinematheque presents a tribute to the unsettling horror cinema of Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The 2024 featurette, Chime, will have its Madison premiere at 7 PM, followed by Kurosawa’s procedural masterpiece Cure at 8 PM.

The horror will continue on Saturday, June 27 with a 35mm screening of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck’s classic chiller Messiah of Evil. Sunday, June 28 offers a pair of exciting films from France. At 7 PM, experience the rain-soaked misery of the newly restored Such a Pretty Little Beach (1949). Preceding Yves Allégret’s underseen noir, bleakness of a different sort will emerge with Agnès Varda’s sunny-yet-sinister classic Le Bonheur ,screening at 5 PM.

On Monday, June 29, the Cinematheque is excited to have the first ever screening of a brand new 35mm print of Tsai Ming-Liang’s slow cinema musical The Hole. The Cinematheque’s regular summer screenings begin the day after Bleak Week, July 1 and will continue through July 24. The full Summer calendar schedule will be released later in May.

All screenings are at the Cinematheque’s regularvenue: UW Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706.

Admission is free, seating limited. No admission 15 minutes after scheduled start times.