John Frankenheimer directed Prophecy, the same director who through the 1960s made ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate amongst others but due to his alcoholism started on a downward path in the seventies. Although Prophecy was an earnest attempt at an ecological disaster story, and from the viewpoint of 2021 not as silly as it seemed, it clearly was something that the director was reduced to. Even more surprising is the hokey and heavy-hand of the script was penned by David Seltzer who certainly has produced some good work over the years


For a film that was billed in horror magazines at the time and promoted as a terrifying monster feature, Frankenheimer tried his hardest to pare down the monster involvement and up the discussions and conflicts between the ecologically minded doctor, the native Americans and the papermill boss.


I first saw this film way back when I was 17 in 1979 and when I saw it advertised on Cinema Paradiso’s lists, I remembered it and had to hire it. I genuinely can only remember the ‘monster’ from my cinema visit and a teenager and nothing else and to be truthful the film has just finished, and I can hardly remember anything about it already.


Some dialogue and casting show how things have changed over the decades. The mill boss specifically talking to Verner’s wife Maggie about the Maine town as the drive through it pointing out the grocery store and laundromat, Armand Assante from Italian/Irish heritage playing a native American, whilst surrounded by what are clearly real native American’s as background characters. Verner in the slum, an entirely black neighbourhood, where everyone is just skulking around whilst he saves a baby, a bearded white saviour, who is so dedicated he shoots off to the woods of Maine as soon as it is offered.


The message is heavy-handed and sledgehammer subtle right from the get-go, characters, Foxworth’s Verner in particular, virtually staring down the camera and lecturing the audience, but you have to say in hindsight the heart of the movie was most definitely in the right place.


Foxworth, Talia Shire and Assante, all who went on to appear in a variety of well-known and celebrated films and TV shows give their best, but they are working with a clunky script, and uneven direction and what is an unsubtle story that could have done with a subtle hand. Then, could it? Perhaps the heavy-handed message and clear ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ was needed for younger less ‘hip’ audience in the late seventies and early eighties? I was not really an eco-warrior and none of my friends even gave it a thought or any adults I knew. So, being hit over the head with monsters, giant tadpoles and fish was what I needed? But in the end age and realising what was going on did that for me, not puppet monsters on sound stages.

Regardless of this there are good moments in the film, when our heroes and villains are stuck underground in the Opies tunnels(?) we are treated to how they are feeling, what is going on, by quick edits back and forth between their eyes as they wait. See before in crime or war films but used effectively here. The main ‘heroes’ are both not friendly or charismatic characters and the ‘baddy’ played with consummate ease by Richard Dysart, is friendly and helpful in general. Even the wise-old grandpa of the ‘Opies’ when calling out the forest god’s name to the monster, for once in this type of film, does not fare well.


Unfortunately for this type of film the last act, where we meet the mutant bear (sorry spoiler), is the weakest part, the baby bear is a Muppet of sorts, made of unpleasant looking meat, but meat nevertheless. The mummy bear is huge, normal size, huge and back and forth, but also seems to want to kill people and then shamble off, it does not eat them but appears to track them and kill them.


The foreboding pregnancy of Maggie is all but forgotten by the end of the story and what previously happened to everyone is seemingly forgotten as the survivors just go home.


As usual with this type of film characters both human and non-human make strange decisions that seem to be to drive the story to a certain necessary point rather than any logic, okay that happens regularly in films but let us try and disguise it in some way.


Prophecy, not to be confused with ‘The Prophecy’, is a late seventies stab at ecological disaster warning and should be applauded for that but devolves into a monster chasing people through the dark woods and who is going to get offed fare, with a naff surprise ending, that we have all seen thousands of times before and since.


Highlights that you might not forget are the utterly ridiculous chainsaw, double-headed axe fight on a trail in the woods early on – after it ends everyone carries on as if your boss telling you to decapitate a man over a chain across the road is a normal everyday occurrence – and the death of the ‘hopping sleeping bag boy’ who apparently explodes into feathers after being swotted into a rock.

Prophecy was dismissed from my memory many years ago and now refreshed I can see why. A sincere effort to give a monster movie more meaning but sadly it fails more times than it succeeds and ends up just being silly.