Messiah of Evil

A young woman named Arletty drives to the beach town of Point Dume to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his beachfront house abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically, complaining about darkness consuming the town and horrible nightmares he is having and imploring Arletty to never look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings and does not sell them, that no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and that he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dume is "an artist colony," but he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, as if at a funeral). It's never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both.