Ancient Cult Files #4 -- Prophecy

   John Frankenheimer is a widely acclaimed film-maker who throughout his career has made social drama and action/suspense films that have brought challenging political situations and historical happenings to the forefront. In the year 1979, he made a film that provided a provocative story-line involving the treatment of American Indians and the consequences of having industrial factories in a world that did evolve with their pollutants, in this case paper production. Now, in what way can those two themes be woven together in a plot that intersects properly on all critical levels?
   Add in a mutant grizzly bear of course!
   Prophecy was released in 1979 by Paramount Pictures and starred Robert Foxworth, Talia Shire, and Armand Assante, along with a supporting cast of Victoria Racimo, Richard Allen Dysart, and George Clutesi. The plot is set in Maine, even though grizzly bears don't actually live in that region at all.

   The story begins with Robert Verne (Foxworth), an inner city doctor that has become cynical from dealing with poverty stricken patients, taking a job with the Environmental Protection Agency to do a report on a forest in which the interests of the Native American residents and a nearby paper factory are butting heads. The conflict has apparently turned violent and the situation will soon completely spiral out of control without a federal ruling. He travels to Maine with his

Maggie Verne, Isely, and Dr. Robert Verne

wife Maggie (Shire), who has recently discovered she is pregnant and is afraid to tell her husband since he is strongly against having children after seeing so many emaciated families in his previous line of work.
   The Verne's are greeted by paper mill director Bethel Isely (Dysart) who explains that all the conflict is over the acquirement of a large sum of the forest for logging for the paper mill. This area of forest is part of the traditional homeland of the Native Peoples, or Opies (a shortening for Original Peoples), and that they have been the perpetrators of the violence after refusing to let the loggers through. He says that radical members have even committed murder on some of the mill's lumberjacks and the search crew sent to find them after the fact. They encounter some of the Opies guarding the entrance to the forest, lead by John Hawks (Assante) and his wife Ramona (Racimo), and a vicious fight ensues. Both Verne and Maggie are horrified by the level of hostility between the two parties.

A mutated tadpole

   Maggie attempts on several occasions to tell her husband that she is pregnant, but is continuously interrupted by the strange goings-on in the forest. There are salmon large enough to swallow ducks, a raccoon without rabies seeking to kill people, and various other abnormalities in the ecosystem. 
   Hawks and Ramona eventually persuade Verne and Maggie to come and see their side of the story; the state of the Opies suggests that some sort of pollution has been causing increased mental illness, stillbirths, and children born with mutations in their people since the time the paper plant was built. This seems to be linked to other strange growths in the forest since both the Opies and the wildlife get the majority of their food from the river, which the paper mill uses to float their lumber down to the factory. They also hear the native legend of the coming of Katahdin, a mythic spirit guardian of the forest, from Ramona's grandfather (Clutesi) who claims that the deaths of those in the woods were the deity acting in protection of their natives lands.
   Verne soon discovers that the paper mill has been using Methyl Mercury as an anti-fungal agent for logs they must store before processing. This acts as a mutagen to the entire food chain of the river system and has been know for causing devastating mutations over time, and even eating a small amount of an animal that contains the mutated genes will effect pregnant creatures. This dismays Maggie, who ate a fish Verne caught earlier in the film.

Mutant bear cub

They go to investigate the scene of more murders in the forest and discover two mutated bear cubs washed away in a storm, one of which is still alive. They conclude that the mother of these cubs has been committing the murders and Verne becomes determined to keep the lone cub alive in order to provide evidence of the paper mill's pollution. However, the mother bear attacks the group and kills mercilessly trying to recover her baby. The rest of the film revolves around the characters struggle to make it back through the woods alive.
   Prophecy did not earn back what it cost to make, and Frankenheimer noted that this film was without a doubt the lowest point in his career (during which time he was struggling with alcoholism). To be frank, it's hard to argue with him.

Katahdin (mutant grizzly mama)

   While the plot has some good ideas (mutant bear in the woods with no where to hide), it seems to suffer from poor pacing and predictable script choices. It takes far too long to see the monster (an entire hour in fact) and when they finally reveal the beast, it is such a ridiculous kill scene that you can't help but laugh. The sub-plot with Maggie's pregnancy takes far too long to play out as well; most of Shire's screen time is her looking dreadful of revealing her secret to her husband, and by the time she finally does, we've been begging her to for the last half hour. The creature effects are a bit goofy, but honestly its good to have a laugh after being subjected to the boring affairs of the human characters for the majority of the film.
   The redeeming factors of the film are the beautiful scenery (shot in British Columbia, Canada) and the (few) moments of atmospheric tension. The scariest scene in the whole movie to me is when the characters are in a underground shelter and just listening as the

The Verne and Hawks couples waiting in fear

monster is heard above ground destroying the campsite and murdering the remaining people. No one says a word and they all just stare at the ladder leading to the surface, and we find ourselves wondering the same as their faces convey; can it get down here?
   But other than those few moments of enjoyment, the movie is quite slow, and sometimes you forget you're watching a horror movie, until the bear just shows up out of the blue. Perhaps the greatest legacy of this film was that the creature Katahdin was the inspiration for South Park's ManBearPig. 
   All and all, if your really into monster movies and want a truly unique monster, Prophecy delivers (after the first hour of course). This film may also be fun to view at one A.M. when you have absolutely nothing else to watch, but otherwise, you may want to choose something a bit more exciting.
   Two and two-thirds of a star, check it out if you're really interested!

Human road kill

Ancient Cult Files # 3 -- The Secret of Moonacre

   Some think cult films are synonymous with gore, nudity, and are completely unsuitable for children. This is not at all true. While many of the more well-known bearers of the cult-status are indeed a bit more...graphic...in content, there are plenty of family friendly cult films in the world. Children's films are often hard to make

without major endorsements from Walt Disney Studios or other such corporate giants. But several truly magical children's films have snuck in under the radar through the years.
   The Secret of Moonacre is a 2008 fantasy-children's film directed by Gábor Csupó (best known for his animated Nickelodeon programs such as The Rugrats). The film starred Dakota Blue Richards, Tim Curry, Juliet Stevenson, and also featured Natascha McElhone and Ioan Gruffudd. The story is based off of the novel "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge and concerns the magical land of Moonacre Valley. The valley is occupied by two prominent families; the Merryweathers and the De Noir's. The story begins with the homecoming of Maria Merryweather (Richards) and her quirky governess Miss Heliotrope (Stevenson) to

The pearls of the Moon Princess

her ancestral home of Moonacre after the death of her father. The

only piece of inheritance left to by her dept-ridden father was a book of the ancient legends of Moonacre Valley. Upon reading it, she discovers that once there was a woman in the valley known as the Moon Princess, a pure soul who Mother Nature had taken as her own daughter. She gave to the Moon Princess the gift of magical pearls that could grant the wish of whomever possessed them. The day came for the Moon Princess, who was of the De Noir family, to marry, and she was to wed the eldest son of the Merryweather clan. But upon revealing the gift to the two families, they immediately began to fight over who was to be in possession of them. The Moon Princess was disgusted by their greed and after the pearls were lost, placed a curse on the two households that would plunge the entire valley

Sir Benjamin Merryweather and Wrolf

into the ocean forever, and come to pass with the 5000th full moon if the pearls were not returned.
   Maria initially dismisses the book as a fairy-tale, and instead

occupies herself with trying to understand the dynamics of her new home. Her uncle Sir Benjamin (Ioan Gruffudd) is cold and strict, the house servants are extremely peculiar, and the house dog, Wrolf, is seemingly vicious. She also is bewildered by the unexplained elements of the manor; the painted stars on her room's ceiling move, the piano plays itself, and a little white horse that looks to be a unicorn is seen by Maria outside her window nightly.

Loveday's woodland home

   She soon discovers that the tales of the book are true and that the 5000th moon is set to rise, and that she must now play the part of the Moon Princess. Maria then sets out to attempt to find the lost pearls. She meets a variety of other characters such as the woodland-caretaker Loveday (McElhone) who is an estranged member of the De Noir clan. The De Noir's have attempted to capture Maria on several occasions throughout the film, and she deducts that they must be hiding the pearls. She eventually meets Coeur De

Nior (Curry)at the De Nior stronghold who reveals that they do not have the lost pearls as she thought, and it becomes clear that both the families have no idea where they are and have just been endlessly accusing the one another of stealing them. Maria must then read between the lines of the old legends to attempt to lift the curse to save them all.

Maria at the magic piano

   The film was given a very limited release and has since been mostly forgotten. The only way I found it was through a chance scanning through Netflix. This was Dakota Blue Richards second major film after the Academy-award winning The Golden Compass released a year before. 
   The film, while not being as technically advanced as some of the newer fantasy flicks such as Maleficent and Snow White and the Huntsman, the CGI used in combination with the real sets creates an atmosphere like that of stage play. The sets and costumes are absolutely beautiful; Beatrix Aruna Pasztor creates a steampunkish theme in her garments that adds to the near-apocalyptic setting of the plot. The somewhat deconstructed gowns and frayed edges contribute to the Merryweather house that is falling into ruin as the curse nears. 
   The story itself is a bit confusing at points, but mostly flows well. This is because the film makers wanted to include most of the characters from the original novel, but they could have condensed some of them together.

Maria exploring her new room

   Maria is an excellent example to young girls; she is thrown into a new world and takes initiative to act and not be passive as some of the other characters tell her to be, and instead takes the control of her own life and fights for what she believes in. She conquers her fears, such as horse-back riding, and makes decisions about how she feels for herself for the first time in her life. Dakota Blue Richards is excellent in the role.

Maria as "The Moon Princess"

   Some have criticized the film for having a lacking script and instead being a display of pretty clothes and sets and has no depth. Personally, I think that the film is underrated and has much more depth than anything in the effects shows that dominate the fantasy genre today. The film is engaging for the young and gives them an introduction to common elements of story-telling in a way that appears different and more exciting than other, much more dry in story, British films.
   This is a film that deserves much more recognition than it has received, and deserves attention much more than whatever flashy creation starring Johnny Depp that Tim Burton has created to fill the pockets of Disney executives this year.
   The Secret of Moonacre is a lost pearl and has beautiful glow all its own.
   Three stars, watch it.

The Moon Princess and her little white horse

   
   

Ancient Cult Files #2 -- Attack of the Puppet People

   Bert I. Gordon (or Mister B.I.G.) is a film-maker who sees the big picture, literally. Throughout his career, he specialized in making films where he utilized rear-projection and process shots to make the desired object (grasshoppers, spiders, bald guys, etc.) appear enormous in comparison to the surroundings and characters. In the latter half of the 1950's, he made some of his most remembered films in rapid succession. However, there was a film in this 

giant-themed period of his filmography that was just the opposite;

shrunken creatures, in this case people. Attack of the Puppet People (or I Was a Teenage Doll, Six Inches Tall, or The Fantastic Puppet People) was released in 1958 as a double-feature with Gordon's other film that year, War of the Colossal Beast. It starred John Agar, John Hoyt, June Kenny, and was the first motion picture appearance of Gordon's daughter, Susan.  The film centers around the office of the eccentric but kindly doll-maker Mr. Franz (John Hoyt), who makes amazingly lifelike dolls and pays close attention to every detail of their clothes, hair,

Mr. Franz and Sally

and accessories. Though a bit unsettled by his fondness for his dolls, Sally Reynolds (June Kenny) takes up the job opening as his secretary since her predecessor vanished and has not been heard from. Her employment under Franz goes fairly well despite his odd nature, until a salesman named Bob Westley arrives and goes about trying to woo the young beauty. Though initially irritated by his advances, Sally warms up to Bob as he begins to assist Mr. Franz with making his dolls; all during this time, both Sally and Bob grow more and more curious about what their employer keeps in his back room, which has a sign warning all to keep out. It is also revealed that Mr. Franz was once a successful marionette performer but abandoned the occupation after his wife left him, causing him to obsess over his doll making.

Bob and Sally's drive-in proposal

   Bob and Sally's  relationship heats up in the most romantic place the 50's can offer, a drive-in movie (showing Bert I. Gordon film The

Amazing Colossal Man), and the two decide that they love each other and that they will return to Bob's hometown and marry immediately (remember, it is the 50's). However, the next day, Bob disappears, and Mr. Franz has begun to market dolls of identical likeness to him. Sally's suspicions reach a breaking point and she goes to the police; but they are soon brushed off by Franz who then attacks Sally after the detective leaves, rendering her unconscious. 
   She awakes to find that Franz has shrunk her down to the size of the dolls he makes. Sally also finds that Bob and others who had known the doll-maker previously have been shrunken as well. Franz keeps them in capsules where they are drugged to keep them in a state of suspended animation while he keeps them as trophies on a

Mr. Franz's "special" doll collection

shelf in the office and, when he feels so inclined, takes them out and throws parties for them (complete with mini-champagne bottles). The rest of the film is the struggle of the captives to entertain their insane host and try any attempt to get to the machine which Franz uses to shrink people to return to their normal sizes and go for help. The film features some of Gordon's traditional uses of his special effects with scenes in which the shrunken characters have to avoid normal sized animals.
   The film was released for the drive-in market, which was advertised in the film itself, and was met with poor critical reception for its weak plot and poor special effects. This is a film whose charm is not in the accolades it received, but rather in the time period it time-capsules. The entire film screams 1950's: the style of clothes and hair, the music and dancing, the forms of entertainment, people's manner of speech, the social customs. 

Bob and Sally battling a "giant" dog

   In some ways, it even puts an unfavorable light to some of the encouraged attitudes of the time. Mr. Franz became mentally unstable and abandoned his life's work only after his wife left him. He then became obsessed with the picturesque lifestyle of the time with nicely dressed and polished people, all under control. Many things in the plot are not explained, such as how exactly Franz manages to create such a powerful machine when the only areas of expertise we know of him possessing are marionette performing and doll making. What scientific explanation that the film attempts to give makes no sense at all.
   The special effects are laughable by today's standards of CGI wonderment and explosions, but they add to the cheesy goodness of the film. A good part of the film's inspiration was actually based on the success of The Incredible Shrinking Man a year prior, and American International Pictures wanted to cash-in on the "shrinking" craze.
   But all those technical things aside, this is a fun, convoluted, absolutely delightful B-Movie. To truly enjoy Attack of the Puppet People, don't focus on the details of the plot or the quality of the effects, just smile at this beautiful piece of 1950's entertainment courtesy of Mr. B.I.G. 
   A three star B-movie classic.
   Oh, and just so you won't be disappointed, the "puppet" people don't actually attack anyone.

The next time you wake up on the wrong side of the bed,
remember how Sally must have felt.

   

Ancient Cult Files #1 -- Phase IV

   Saul Bass, a widely recognized figure in the film-making sphere, is best known for his unique talent in the creation of film posters and film credit sequences. He also is the graphic designer responsible for some of the most easily recognizable corporate logos such as Geffen Records, Quaker Oats, Girl Scouts of USA, and AT&T and worked alongside other titans of cinema such as Alfred Hitchcock.
   He only ever directed one film, and he teamed up with over 1000 extras to complete it.
   Phase IV was released in 1974, it starred Michael Murphy, Nigel Davenport, and Lynne Fredrick, along with all the ants which are the true main characters of the film. 
   The story begins with unknown big-bang scale event in space, which triggers a change in one of the living species on earth, but they were so small the no one noticed. This galactic phenomenon causes the ants in a region of the Arizona desert to alter their behavioral structure all together. Their progress is listed in "Phases"; they first begin to meet as though they are representatives in the United Nations, ignoring their usual ecological niches of trying to kill each other to survive. But instead the various species of ants begin to use each other's skills

Ant skyscrapers

to make a more prominent and cohesive race of insects. Only one queen ant is ever shown, and it is unclear if she is the queen of all the ants or rather just one queen of one of the colonies in the new ant-world order. Under their new societal system, they build more elaborate and efficient homes (skyscrapers made of dirt) and begin to slowly take over the surrounding ecosystem. By the time the human characters show up, they have entered "Phase III". Michael Murphy plays James Lasko, who is a specialist on communicating with animals through sound and geometric means (who only had success with emotionally disturbed killer whales, perhaps at Sea World) and is summoned by Dr. Ernest Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) who has been sent to study the ever-expanding ant super-society. 

The scientist's dome

   The ants have mostly run out any residents in the area, so the scientists are working alone in their dome-shaped laboratory equipped with all the essentials for their stay and high powered computer (state of the art 1970's computer).

   Dr. Hubbs decides to provoke the ants to see their reaction, which angers them and they attack the farm of the only family left in the area, including young Kendra (Lynne Fredrick) and the family attempt to flee to the scientists lab. The scientists investigate the next morning and discover Kendra's family dead along with the ants after battling with the swarm all night, but the girl unharmed after taking shelter in a nearby abandoned home. They take her into the dome for protection, since they know the ants are regrouping and will be back.

 The rest of the film details the battle of wits which ensues; Dr. Hubbs becomes hell-bent on proving his superiority over the insects, Lasko trying to communicate with them, and a traumatized Kendra trying to

Dr. Hubbs, Kendra, and Lasko

deal with her grief and anger over her family's death. However, the ants always seem to be one step ahead of the humans in some capacity: they become immune to whatever pesticide they use against them, slowly but surely cripple their equipment, and test their powers of deduction with various messages that they send to Lasko. 

   The film is beautifully shot and has amazing close-up footage of the ants. The special photography of the insects was done by Ken Middleham who worked on several documentaries featuring such intimate camera work. The queen ant shown in the film is actually a female wasp; they could not use a real queen ant because getting one would be extremely difficult and the colony would perish in her absence. The acting is not the strongest, but all the actors do their jobs. The ants are arguably the characters we are meant to sympathize with. You see them come to a higher level

Rows of the fallen in battle

of consciousness in the opening, then watch them go through struggles that humans experience in warfare. The shot that best captures this eerie empathy is a scene in which the ants are laying out their dead as a result of the fighting with the human characters, much like what we see in real-world fighting in the media everyday. This parallelism with war is also seen in the characters themselves; Hubbs being the constantly defensive one, Lasko being the diplomat trying to forge any kind of non-violent relations, and Kendra representing the innocent who has been sucked into the torrent of conflict. None of their forms of coping with the situation can be successful because they continue to quarrel among themselves. The ants perhaps represent all that the human race could have been, and the human characters represent what it is, and now the ants have come to replace us. They operate as humans did upon our sudden jump in intelligence,

One of the film's many extras

slowly conquering each bit of the ecosystem until we could dominate almost every aspect of it.

   Another element of the film that adds to its aura is the soundtrack. It's a fine electronic atmospheric themed score done by David Vorhaus and Desmond Briscoe. In the sequences when it is only the ants, it turns into a style similar to that of the silent age, allowing the music to speak for the insects, only accompanied by the pitter-patter of their six little legs and occasional calls between ants. The ending of the film is like a lot of the plot, open-ended; it leaves the fate of humanity ambiguous, revealing only the end of the conflict between the characters in the film. The end also reveals the title, for this marks the end of "Phase III" and the initiation of "Phase IV" as the credits role.

   The film was a box-office failure and this partially lead to Saul Bass never directing again. However, the film has developed a cult-following thanks to a VHS release by Paramount and some television screenings, one being one of the early episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Modern director Nicolas Goldbart has cited Phase IV as having a great influence on his own film making, and other film makers and also musicians have made homages to the film through their work.It has been criticized for putting the

Title card

cinematography and visual effects before the acting and script, and also for its unexplained plot threads throughout.

   I personally like the vagueness because it ignites the imagination to fill in the holes for yourself; was it an act of God, aliens seeking to destroy the earth, or simply evolution taking place that made the ants so intelligent? The film both provokes thought and entertains the immediate mind, making it a trip into a realm of unknowns; if we replaced the dominate species before us, then how long will our reign last?

   Phase IV is wonderful if you're in the mood for a stylistic science fiction head-spinner. It's also fun to watch with friends if you want to crack up about the, at times, lack-luster acting or the stupidity of the humans in comparison to the ants. 

   A solid four stars. Check it out.

"Go away, please go away." - Kendra