Prophecy (1979)

A log company's waste mutates the environment, creating a giant killer bear-monster.

Director:

John Frankenheimer

Writer:

David Seltzer

Stars:

Talia Shire, Robert Foxworth, Armand Assante

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Talia Shire	...	Maggie
Robert Foxworth	...	Rob
Armand Assante	...	John Hawks
Richard Dysart	...	Isely
Victoria Racimo	...	Ramona
George Clutesi	...	M'Rai
Tom McFadden	...	Pilot
Evans Evans	...	Cellist
Burke Byrnes	...	Father
Mia Bendixsen	...	Girl
Johnny Timko	...	Boy
Everett Creach	...	Kelso (as Everett L. Creach)
Charles H. Gray	...	Sheriff
Lyvingston Holmes	...	Black Woman (as Lyvingston Holms)
Graham Jarvis	...	Shusette

Storyline

A Savage beast, grown to monstrous size and driven mad by toxic wastes that are poisoning the waters, spreads terror and death on a Maine countryside.

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Plot Keywords:

pollution | ecology | psychotronic film | paper mill | cabin | 

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Taglines:

She lives. Don't move. Don't breathe. She will find you.

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 August 1979 (France)

Also Known As:

Prophecy: The Monster Movie

Filming Locations:

Crofton, North Cowichan, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$18,389,402

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$18,389,402

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A review for this film that appeared in "Time" magazine described Katahdin as "Smokey the Bear with an advanced acne condition".

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Goofs

Dr. Verne and his wife fly from Washington D.C. to Maine, but when they pass over a lighthouse on the coast the plane is clearly traveling south.

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Quotes

M' Rai: This camp is as the old people did it. I'm teaching these young people so that someone here will remember. There are underground tunnels beneath the frost line to store perishables. The forest provides more food than a man could possibly need. Here, everything grows big... real big.
Dr. Robert Verne: Well, I saw a salmon that, uh, took my breath away.
M' Rai: It is the garden of Eden. I've let no one come here. You are the first to see it.
Maggie Verne: It's magical.
John Hawks: We were once a magical people.
Ramona: It's true. When I was a child, every...
[...]

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Alternate Versions

UK cinema and video versions received 8 secs of mandatory cuts by the BBFC to remove the shots of the raccoon writhing on the floor outside the cabin before the attack scene (the animal had been genuinely poisoned).

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Connections

Featured in The 50 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen (2014)

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Soundtracks

Chanson Triste
(uncredited)
Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Arranged by Carmine Coppola

User Reviews

Absurd horror movie could have been terrific

PROPHECY is the kind of movie that makes you go, "Aw, man!" Not because it just plain sucks, but because the movie never once lives up to its potential. It repeatedly pulls its punches and draws back just as it's getting good.

The poster is probably the best thing about it, showing a creepy little mutant fetus floating in a womb. A movie about that thing? As an eight year old kid, I was the first on line! And, as an added bonus, it was PG, so I knew I could get in. Not to mention the fact that this was when Hollywood still had some balls, and a PG movie could still contain some hefty doses of gore and T&A.

I remember finding individual scenes to be pretty scary. A family is slaughtered while camping in one scene. A guy in an overturned jeep gets his head ripped off. And the giant mutant bear is, at times, genuinely freaky.

But even I, as a little kid, could tell that the movie was uneven and poorly paced. When the monster isn't attacking, it's yawn city, with Robert Foxworth pontificating endlessly to the point where, even though I agreed with every word he said, I wanted to bash his face in. And Talia Shire's eye-bugging and whining got pretty tiresome after a while as well.

You rarely, if ever, get a good look at the monster. That technique worked in ALIEN, but, whereas ALIEN kept the monster hidden through stylish photography and sly editing, PROPHECY is just poorly shot, badly lit, and sloppily put together.

Ridley Scott wanted to keep the alien partially hidden, so all you saw was teeth and claws and could put the thing together in your mind. I think John Frankenheimer just couldn't figure out how to hide the seams in the dime-store monster costume he had to work with, so just lit everything so dimly you could barely see anything. The monster is pretty grotesque and occasionally looks fearsome, but usually looks like nothing more than a big gray blob.

The baby monster bear that Shire cradles through the second half of the movie is much more freakish looking. PROPHECY is watchble enough if it shows up on cable one rainy day when there's nothing else to do. Just remember to watch it through an eight year old's eyes.