Messiah of Evil

Point Dume is a sun-drenched California beach town where Arletty visits her estranged father. The local gallery and the artist father’s diary hint at a creeping darkness that grips the community. At night pale crowds gather on the beach for a ritual called The Waiting, signaling the town’s impending horror.

🕯️ Religious Cult

Arletty's father's diaries reveal a century-old belief in a Messiah who will lead a new faith along the coast. The legend of a 100-year anniversary and the 'dark stranger' is weaponized to mobilize the town's fear. The Messiah figure embodies the manipulation of faith to justify cannibalistic violence. The film uses this plot to explore how charisma and ritual can turn a community into a predatory collective.

🩸 Cannibalism

Nightly transformations culminate in townspeople feasting on flesh, blurring lines between predator and prey. Laura and Toni are consumed by the crowd, showing how crowds can erode morality. The violence takes on a mythic, dreamlike quality rather than graphic realism, heightening the horror. The blood moon functions as a symbol for the town's uncontrolled hunger.

🌊 Transformation & Survival

Arletty grows cold and numb to pain as the horror overtakes Point Dume. She experiences disturbing visions—spiders in her mouth, mealworms, beetles, and an anole—that hint at a link to the undead. After killing her father in self-defense, she is freed with the condition to spread the movement and is ultimately institutionalized, painting in the sun. The arc tracks identity under supernatural pressure and how survival may require becoming part of the cult's machinery.