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