Somehow, The Day of the Locust is one of the few movies where William Atherton isn’t the villain. Well, he’s not the nicest guy, but he’s not the main heel here, not that anyone is the hero.

Tod is a recent Yale graduate Tod Hackett, who has just come to Hollywood to paint backgrounds in movies. He settles in the falling apart San Bernardino Arms, an apartment building that houses those at the start or the close of their Hollywood dreams.

There’s actress Faye Greener (Karen Black), her dying vaudevillian father Harry (Burgess Meredith), Adore Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) whose stage mother (Gloria LeRoy) is pushing to be a movie star, the always angry Abe Kusich (Billy Barty) and his girlfriend Mary (Lelia Goldoni) and accountant Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland). Everyone is in love with Faye but she only wants to settle for a rich man, even if she plays with the hearts of Tod, Homer and stuntmen Earle Shoop (Bo Hopkins) and Miguel (Pepe Serna).

Homer and Faye try to save her father by bringing him to be healed at a church led by Big Sister (Geraldine Page) that is based on the ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson. For a few moments, being in front of the crowd gives him a surge of adrenaline and he’s able to do one of his old routines before dying that night.

Faye moves in with Homer but she tells Tod that it’s a sexless relationship. At a party later, Homer watches helplessly as every man there makes a play for the woman he gives everything to. She screams and calls him a spy and launches a vase at him. Later, Tod catches her making love to Miguel, as does Earle, which leads to a fight.

The film closes as the entire cast is near the premiere of The Buccaneer. Tod tries to speak to Homer who just stares into the void. The only thing that brings him to reality is when Adore throws a rock at his head. He loses his mind and chases the boy through the night, finally catching him and repeatedly stomping him to death as the entire crowd watches. This unleashes a horrific riot that takes over the premiere, thought to be mania over the movie but instead feeling like the end of the world as Tod sees his paintings come to life and chase him into the night. He leaves Hollywood behind and the film closes on his abandoned apartment and Faye crying as she sees the flowers he left inside a crack in the wall.

I didn’t even mention that William Castle is the director of the movie within the movie!

Directed by John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) and written by Waldo Salt (Coming Home) from the book by Nathaniel West, this is one of the most depressing and nihilistic movies that I have ever seen, one that shows that all of these characters are lost, their dreams are meaningless and the moments of connection that they have mean nothing to them other than sheer biological impulses. The only one of them that will be remembered is Homer and that will be as a child murderer.

The Arrow Video blu ray of The Day of the Locust has a brand new 2K remaster by Arrow Films from the original negative. Extras include a new oral history audio commentary conducted by writer and film historian Lee Gambin, featuring assistant directors Leslie Asplund and Charles Ziarko, production associate Michael Childers, actors Grainger Hines and Pepe Serna among others; an appreciation of the film by critic Glenn Kenny; a discussion with film historian Elissa Rose; a visual essay on the film’s themes with Gambin and behind the scenes image galleries. It comes inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch and has an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Pamela Hutchinson. You can get it from MVD.