Messiah of Evil

Messiah of Evil later also shown under the title Dead People is a 1973 horror film cowritten, coproduced, and codirected by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband and wife team behind the film version of Howard the Duck as well as the screenplays for American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

By chance, Arletty meets a PortugueseAmerican aristocrat Thom Michael Greer and his two extremely provocative, groupielike female companions, Toni Joy Bang and Laura Anitra Ford. They are drinking, smoking, and walking around in states of undress, except for the man. He always wears an ivory three piece suit,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 Elisha Cook, Jr. a village idiotwinotype 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 strangers followers do not kill him as they think he is a harmless hobothey let him sleep on the sidewalk undisturbed every night. Charlie 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. Thom tells Arletty he also went to the gallery, and saw one of her fathers 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 Arlettys fathers house. Each night at the house, strange things happen, shadows crawl about on the skylights, and Arletty reads more of the diary. In it, 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 Arlettys father feels remorse and is actively fighting his condition. Meanwhile, each night, creatur

Source: Wikipedia