It's true.
Frankenheimer nobly injects artistic flourishes into a film about giant tadpoles.
Prophecy focuses initially on Maggie (Talia Shire), a concert cellist who can't focus on her music because she's got a baby on the way. Later, stuck in the forest with her distracted husband Robert (Robert Foxworth), she learns that all the mercury byproducts from the evil paper mill provoked mutations in the local wildlife and can - cello roll - even affect fetuses. She eventually comes to terms with this symbolically, by swaddling and hugging a mutant bear cub like a newborn. She's so determined that she doesn't let go the whole time, not even when the mutant bear cub bites into her neck. This will give her some idea of what to expect when her own child enters the terrible twos. Am I right, moms?
Oh my God, Talia Shire was in the movie Rad! Did you ever see Rad? I grew up watching that flick. It had Lori Loughlin of Full House fame, and she was lookin' fine back then. I wouldn't mind summiting her Katahdin, if you catch my drift.
Where was I? Oh. I mentioned the evil paper mill, right? Richard Dysart plays the floor manager of the company, and the face should look familiar. He played the doctor who got his arms bitten off by the stomach-mouth in The Thing, and in this film, Katahdin bites off his legs, which gives the two films a nice symmetry. Early in the film, Robert accuses Richard's character - given the manly name of Bethel Isley - of hiding the facts about using mercury, and Bethel responds by demanding that Robert can't accuse Bethel. If anything, Robert needs Bethel, because Bethel produces the very paper that Robert would use to file his pollution reports. Check and mate.
Katahdin does not need continuity!
He needs blooooood!
See, when this kind of thing is happening, the film offers a watered-down Larry Cohen vibe, with its fusion of preposterous monsters and social criticism. Larry Cohen, by this point, already directed the much-superior It's Alive, which starts with a real mutant baby (instead of ending with an implied one) and somehow remained earnest and realistic despite its absurd monster. Prophecy isn't so lucky, offering one-dimensional environmentalism before making its climax entirely about people running away from an enormous mutant bear that can breathe underwater (?) and bite off people's heads like they're gingerbread men. You should be happy to know that, despite the nasty decapitations, this film was rated PG upon release, which is fair, since kids have as much a right to laugh at this movie as adults do.
They might also experience some new sensations.
By the by, I just checked Lori Loughlin's IMDB, and she's in a movie called Medusa's Child, which is not about the monster Medusa and her noisome progeny, but is in fact about a pacemaker-triggered electromagnetic bomb stuffed on a plane that's headed directly into a hurricane. Her co-stars include President Bartlet, Mr. Big, and Johnny Drama. This film's absence from Netflix is a national tragedy.
But I digress. At the end of Prophecy, scientist Robert furiously jabs an arrow at the neck of Katahdin, who serves as either a symbol of industrial malfeasance or a metaphor for Foxworth's agent. Either way, I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't entertained by all this crap. To say if this film is "good" or "quality" is to miss the point. Prophecy is high-energy dreck that's by turns inspired, idiotic, idiotically inspired, and inspiringly idiotic. Nobody who sees this movie could conceivably want their hundred minutes back, because they'll now be able to talk about the absurdity of Prophecy. At the least, it's the most frightening mutant bear movie I've seen since Disney's The Country Bears.
RATING: B-
------
Not to be confused with the previously reviewed The Prophecy. That film demands tea. This film demands cheap beer.
No comments:
Post a Comment