Image of the Beast

This is the third film in a four-part series. The previous movie, "A Distant Thunder", followed a young woman by the name of "Patty Myers" (Patty Dunning) up to the point where she had to make a choice between accepting "the mark" or being executed. This film essentially takes up where the last one left off with Patty making her decision and then shifting the focus to three other people: "David Michaels" (William Wellman Jr.), "Kathy" (Susan Plumb) and "Leslie" (Wenda Shereos). Not only do each of them have tough choices to make but the situations get much more difficult as "the tribulation" continues. Now, while a couple of the interpretations concerning this period may seem a bit out-dated, the main prophecies are still quite possible. For example, the emergence of a "world church" which replaces Christian gospel with ecumenical humanism is already taking root. Same thing with the advent of a "mark" in the form of a bar-code or microchip to replace paper currency and to provide easily retrieved personal data whenever necessary. The technology is already present and it could easily be used for all kinds of reasons. For example, it could practically eliminate counterfeiting and identity theft. So who could possibly be against something like that? Christians, of course! And if they refuse to get it then the case could be made that they are "trouble-makers" who need to be dealt with. And for anyone with complete control of all media outlets that shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Be that as it may, I thought this film was pretty good. Yes, there were some scenes which could have benefited from better equipment or special effects. But the acting was surprisingly good and for a low-budget movie of this type I thought everything turned out rather well. All things considered. Overall then, I'd rate it as slightly above average.