10 MORE Horror Movies That Actually Benefitted From Bad Acting

10. Messiah Of Evil (1973)

Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz’s Cali cult horror Messiah of Evil is, on the face of things, supposed to be a serious horror movie. Released in the early 1970s, when filmmakers and studios had thrown off the shackles of the Hays Code, it arrived during a glut of US films inspired by the excesses, tropes and aesthetics of their European art-horror cousins. No matter Messiah of Evil’s inspirations, however, the end product is something entirely its own.

The film follows a young woman (Marianna Hill’s Arletty) who goes looking for her father in the Californian sticks. What she finds is a kooky coastal town - Point Dune - under the rule of a mysterious cult. Thanks to some wild casting on the part of the husband and wife directing team, and some schlocky acting therein, pretty much every character is a real character. Kooky and bland at once, and generally untethered from social norms, with dull-eyed townsfolk, artsy types, groupies, prophecies, and off-the-cuff murders, each encounter is as strange as the next - but this kind of ends up being the point.

The big secret is that the townsfolk have been zombified and are losing touch with their humanity while coming into alignment with a much larger, cosmic horror. Given the fluctuations in acting approaches offered throughout Messiah of Evil, Huyck and Katz clearly never meant to make this film, and yet somehow the acting ends up serving the style and really makes things click.