Prophecy
(1979) is a
socially-conscious “environmental” horror movie from prestigious director John
Frankenheimer (1930 – 2002), the talent behind cinematic classics Birdman
of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven
Days in May (1964) and, more recently, Ronin (1998).
All
those films have in common a brand of technical precision and visual brilliance
that isn’t often paralleled, especially in today’s cinema.
So
the clumsy nature of Prophecy indeed remains a baffling
puzzle. The film is alternately
brilliant and inept in terms of staging, editing, direction, and pacing. Some scenes of suspense are absolutely
spell-binding, whereas many of the more visceral moments -- including an animal
attack on unsuspecting campers -- play as unintentionally hilarious.
Recently,
I reviewed another environmental horror movie from a “mainstream” director, The
Bay (2012) by Barry Levinson. That film, however, managed to maintain a
consistent tone throughout, even if in the final analysis the director’s
message (about water contamination) played as more important than the movie’s
genre trappings.
The
odd thing about Prophecy is that the film is so damned inconsistent. It’s a work of art of great, praise-worthy
highs and sad, sad lows.
On
one hand, the movie intelligently charts the uncomfortable nexus of big
business/government/environment/pollution, and on the other hand, it consumes
itself with gory moments of decapitation, bloody mutations, and other macabre tricks
of the trade. Now, I happen to like such
tricks of the trade, but Prophecy proves jarring at
significant junctures because it can’t stick to a particularly tone, either the
high-minded “cerebral” horror route, or the messy pathway of bleeding viscera.
As
I wrote in a Memory Bank post before Christmas, here, I remember well the year
1979 and the cinematic battle royale between Ridley Scott’s Alien
(1979) and Prophecy, two horror
films that involved (at least in their ad campaigns…) horrible monstrosities
hatched from eggs. Alien, however, ascended
to masterpiece status while Prophecy remains a cult oddity. Watching the two films back-to-back, one can
see why one effort succeeded and the other effort failed. Scott’s film
maintains a consistent tone of suspense, surprise and curiosity, while Prophecy
lurches from environmental polemic to soap opera, to mad monster party.
At
the time of the film’s release, critics were generally unkind to
Frankenheimer’s genre film too.
In The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote: “Mr. Frankenheimer treats
this material with the kind of majesty usually reserved for movies about
Cleopatra, Napoleon and General Patton. "Prophecy," which opens today
at Loews Astor Plaza and other theaters, is full of lingering lap-dissolves and
elegant camera movements that suggest history is being made. Leonard Rosenman's
soundtrack music is so grand it could be played at a coronation, and it's so loud
that it pierces the ears and threatens the head. None of this fits the movie, which includes a
fight between a man with an ax and a man with a portable power saw, and a
number of attacks by the mutant monsters on random campers and forest rangers
as well as on the film's principal players. For extra gore, there's the
obligatory decapitation and the strong suggestion that one fellow is bitten in
half at the waist.”
Writing in The New Yorker, Susan
Lardner likened the Frankenheimer horror film to an “ill-cut jigsaw puzzle re-assembled by force by someone who has lost a
few of the pieces.” (July 2, 1979, pages 66-67).
And writing for The Progressive, Kenneth
Turan noted the goofiness of the monster: “Unfortunately,
Prophecy begins to unravel the first
time we get a good look at the monster, a berserk mess that resembles a
nightmare version of Smokey the Bear.” (September 1979, pages 38 – 39).
Still, the film had at least one prominent
defender in Master of Horror Stephen King, who copped to having seen the film
three times. He felt that “settling into Prophecy is as comfortable as settling into an old easy-chair and
visiting with good friends.” While
he noted that the monster is “pretty hokey looking,” he admitted to loving the
“old monster” as a spiritual sister
to Godzilla,
Mighty Joe Young, or Gorgo. (Danse Macabre; A Berkley
Book; 1981, pages 205–206).
I should admit that I have seen this
particular film, myself, considerably more than three times, and that I possess
a kind of love/hate relationship with the bloody thing. Portions of Prophecy are
extraordinarily rendered, namely a scene of high-suspense set in an underground
tunnel, while other scenes are either cringe-worthy or intoxicating in their
badness, depending on your love of bad movie tropes. Prophecy is self-important and
preachy, yet it also possesses wondrous bad taste in terms of what it reveals on
screen.
Some might (accurately) note that I have
often praised horror movies on the blog that showcase just such lack of decorum. The problem arises, for this viewer anyway,
in balancing the film’s incredible highs and lows. I can appreciate bad taste
as much as the next fellow, but Prophecy is schizophrenic in
approach.
“Here everything grows big. Real big.”
In a forest in Maine, a rescue expedition
is murdered by an unseen monster.
Not long after, an environmentalist named
Rob (Robert Foxworth) is assigned to determine the destiny of that very forest,
because it is at the center of a dispute between American Indians and a local,
industrial paper mill. Rob visits the
forest with his wife, Maggie (Talia Shire) a cellist who has just learned that
she is pregnant, but is reluctant to reveal the information to her husband.
In Maine, Rob and Maggie meet Mr. Isely
(Richard Dysart), the paper mill owner, who tells them that lumberjacks and
rescuers have disappeared in the woods and that he feels the Indians are
responsible. He thinks they are
attempting to bring to life an ancient legend about a monster with the eyes of
a dragon, called Katadin. Rob soon meets
John Hawkes (Armande Assante), the leader of the local Native Americans, and is
not so certain his motives are impure.
Upon deeper investigation of the forest,
Rob learns that the Indian people are suffering from a host of unusual
maladies. Their babies are being born
deformed, and many locals are losing their mental faculties, as if suffering
from brain damage.
When Rob sees several mutated examples of
the local wildlife (including a giant tadpole…) he becomes convinced that the
paper mill is somehow contaminating the water supply. He finds evidence that mercury is being used
in the mill’s refining process because it is cheap and effective. However,
mercury contamination can also decimate healthy nervous systems. Worse, it can jump the placental barrier and
deform a developing fetus, a fact which terrifies Maggie since she has eaten
contaminated fish.
As Rob, Maggie, and Hawkes investigate
further, Katadin -- a giant, mutated bear
-- strikes again and again, even murdering a family of campers.
After Rob and Maggie take possession of
one of Katadin’s mutated offspring, the Mama Bear turns her murderous eye
towards their party, and a night of terror and death ensues.
“It’s not the hours. It’s the damned futility.”
Bad reputation to the contrary, there are
moments of pure beauty and sleek terror in Prophecy. The film was lensed in gorgeous, mountainous
British Columbia, and Frankenheimer and cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr.
certainly have an eye for capturing the picturesque terrain. The movie features moments of breathtaking
natural beauty, particularly in long, establishing shots. Much of the film’s running time is spent
outdoors, in mysterious terrains of heavy mist, or impenetrable black lakes.
In contrast to those moments, the film
also features moments of pure human ugliness.
The paper mill is first seen in a
long, moving establishing shot (from the vantage point of a helicopter in
flight, approaching), and its dominance over the natural landscape is evident
immediately. The approach to the
environment-destroying paper mill is accompanied by Leonard Rosenman’s
Wagnerian score, and the moment achieves a kind of portentous, ominous feel.
Similarly, I can’t write enough positive
words about a sustained scene, late in the film, during which Rob, Maggie,
Isely, Hawkes and a few others hide from Mama Katadin in a subterranean tunnel
system.
These shots of terrified survivors are
artistically composed, making extraordinary use of foreground and background fields, to capture the terror of those
trapped in the caves. Frankenheimer’s
editor (Tom Rolf) cuts brilliantly from one shot of worried survivors’ faces to
another shot, to another…and the suspense builds and builds until it feels
palpable.
I admire this sequence in
Prophecy in large part because it remembers that horror films must possess
peaks and valleys, cacophony and silences.
This scene represents the (brief) calm between surrounding storms, but
every moment of apparent “peace” is spent worrying about the next attack.
Just look at some of these beautiful
shots, pictured below. The blocking, the
color palette, the focus on faces near and far, big and small, sell the terror
of what remains unseen in the frame.
Note as well the image of the old Indian
man, Ramona’s grandfather M’rai (George Clutesi) as flames are reflected upon
his eye glasses. This is a shot that
visually reveals how his world has been destroyed; how his people’s “protector”
(Katadin) is actually but another destroyer, a monster.
Again, you’ve got to give the devil his due
here. Frankenheimer knows how to stage
and execute powerful visuals, and Prophecy features many such compositions.
Yet for every such moment of eloquent,
sterling visualization, Prophecy also features sequences of
horror that are, in a word, laughable.
The most ridiculous (and yet beloved…) of
these sequences involves the giant bear attack on a family of innocent
campers. The bear approaches the
sleeping campers, and one young camper -- wrapped
up in a yellow sleeping bag and resembling nothing so much as a giant banana (or
perhaps a condom…) -- tries to hop away from danger.
The hopping away from danger is funny
enough on its own, but then Katadin’s tail whacks the unlucky lad, hurtling him
into a rock at warp speed…where the camper literally explodes on-screen.
After
the camper and sleeping bag are pulped, feathers (from the sleeping bag, apparently),
rain down, blanketing the frame.
Generously speaking, the moment plays as high camp.
Or to put it another way, this scene is
hilarious in a way the filmmakers surely did not intend. We were not meant to laugh at the murder of
an innocent child, yet all the creative decisions in the scene are
questionable…and risible.
Why make the unfortunate camper hop about
vainly in the sleeping bag, instead of unzipping the bag, exiting it, and
running from danger?
Why does the strike of Katadin’s tail hurl
the camper through the air at speeds defying the laws of Physics?
And why make the camper and bag literally explode,
and include the ridiculous sight of what appear to be chicken feathers falling
to Earth?
Listen, I love horror movies and also
boast a tremendous love for “bad” movies, or even genre movies that violate
decorum. But the sleeping bag scene is
so ridiculously vetted that it actually damages the credibility of Prophecy.
Similarly, the film’s valedictory moment
-- with a rubbery second mutant rearing
its ugly head -- ends Prophecy on a low note. The monster looks awful in the light of day,
under the full glare of sunlight, and the moment is simply a pitiful “sting in
the tail/tale” hoping against hope for a sequel.
Like the sleeping bag scene, the final punch of Prophecy is humorously
inept.
I wrote in Horror Films of the 1970s
(2002) that Prophecy is “sometimes
obvious, sometimes clever” in its approach to its thematic material, and
over a decade later, I feel I can stand by that assessment.
The film’s best scene is actually one far
away from the “monster movie” material, and set at a place of "real-life: human horror: the
paper mill. As if shooting a
documentary, Frankenheimer’s probing camera tours a real-life factory, a
massive industrial park dedicated to transforming nature’s logs into shredded
pulp.
Filmed in both exterior and interior with
long informative pans across its grotesque girth, the mill is revealed to be an
ugly, dehumanizing place dedicated solely to environmental destruction. Chemicals such as chlorine are deployed here,
and the plant’s interior is bathed in an ugly, sterile, green-white light.
No
preaching is necessary here because one of the prime gifts of film as an art
form is its ability to reveal things to audiences that they have never seen
before, but which nonetheless exist. I’ve never been to a paper mill, but Prophecy
certainly makes a compelling case about one's capacity for destruction.
I also like how the film attempts to portray Isely’s character in
less-than-villainous terms. The paper
mill owner makes a memorable speech about supply and demand, one that reminded me of my
own career as a professional writer and consumer of paper.
I’ve
written how many books? And how many
copies have been sold? How many pieces
of paper is that, exactly?
How
many trees destroyed is that?
I’m also on the fence here regarding
Frankenheimer’s treatment of Maggie.
This is a character that learns she is likely carrying a mutated
fetus in her womb. Maggie becomes so
obsessed with this (horrific) idea that she takes Katadin’s youngling as her own, essentially, during the
film’s last act, carrying it round on her shoulder and protecting it from
harm. At one point, the monster baby
seems to nurse from the blood on Maggie’s neck-wound, furthering the metaphor
of mother-and-child. Yet the film gives
the audience no catharsis regarding Maggie’s ultimate disposition.
Does she deliver the baby or undergo an abortion? Is the baby born
mutated or healthy? If it is mutated,
can Maggie and Rob love it anyway?
Prophecy doesn’t provide any information or
dramatic closure on this key character/plot point, instead focusing on that rubbery final
sting-in-the-tail/tale. In the end, the
dopey monster movie aspects of the film thus win out over the excavation of
character and theme. I sure hope Talia
Shire complained, because it's clear from her performance she gave the film her all.
Prophecy is one of those horror films that I return
to at least once or twice every five or so years, and I suspect that is the case
because there’s so much potential evident in the film.
In certain moments, Prophecy possesses a kind of
undeniable visual poetry. In other
moments, it is pure, unadulterated schlock.
I suppose that as an optimistic film
reviewer I return to Prophecy again and again because I
keep hoping to see something that I’ve missed or overlooked, or to discover that somehow the balance
of poetry to schlock has changed for the better.
As of this 2013 viewing, however, it hasn’t.
I’ll let you know in 2020 if I feel
differently. Meanwhile, below you'll find Prophecy sleeping bag kill in all its bloody glory.
I love this movie, one of my all time faves.
ReplyDeleteThat camper scene is a literal hoot! I agree with your assessment fully, John. So many things right and wrong with this that it's a cult film fave. Frankenheimer and the DP really did put together some powerful visuals in play for the film, only to drop sense in others. If I ever catch this on cable, I do give it watch.
ReplyDeleteFirst encountered this one on local TV in Amarillo, Texas one summer morning in the mid-80s. Remember when local stations used to show movies during the day to compete against the soaps on the networks? Boy, those were the days...
ReplyDeleteAnyway: Been a favorite ever since. It's one of that rare breed of schlock that somehow, against all odds, manages to stay juuuuuust this side of the good/bad divide. As you say, some of it's pretty dumb but the good stuff is really, REALLY good. Even the rubber mutant bear somehow completely works for me. Love the foggy mise en scene during the lake attack. Really specific, loving attention to place and atmosphere will buy a horror flick a lot of slack from me, even when everything else isn't particularly up to snuff.
Having never seen it before, I stuck it on last night. The opening had me hooked. Really does feel like there are two films vying against each other or maybe it would be better to say that it feels like a much trashier movie is trying to escape from inside the better version. The mutant escaping the womb? Heh, apologies :) The sleeping bag scene was the biggest WTF? moment I've seen in a while. If only there had been an explosion of blood to go with it. Ah,I really liked it. Want to go back to Maine now after seeing it so beautifully shot. Must drag out the copy of The Manitou I have. Seem to recall it's in a similar vein?
ReplyDeleteThe sleeping bag scene seems to be lifted from the movie for the pilot of the ill fathed, but extreemely enjoyable, reimagining of the Munsters (Mockingbird lane)which aired right before halloween.
ReplyDeleteIn the opening scene, a group of camping boyscouts are attacked by a werewolf (referred to as a baby bear in the series). The exact sleeping bag scene is shown, with feathers and all. Except that despite the rather violent hit it's played down (for loughs) by adding an "auch" and the kid hopping way to safety. The morning after the attack, when the escaped scouts are hiding in a car, there's a sign on the site that says: CAMP CATAHDIN...as a nod to Frankenheimers cult gem?
Too bad,there weren't any toys produced at the time, as was the case with other horror films of the 70's (like Alien).
that was a swipe from Kataden's paw not tail. Kinda the way John Hawk met his demise. The swipe that sent him flying through the air with the greatest of ease! lol
ReplyDeleteThe death of the camper was not funny to me in the least. I felt for the character and thus found his death tragic. Responsible viewing of films and television is when you feel for the characters are so act accordingly. My only problem with the movie was the amount of blood and gore. The results of those "kills" needed to be less gory and some of it implied. I did not think Maggie's taking the cub was obsessive. I thought Katahdin would want to kill the cub since it was deformed and thought that is why she took it. Instead of drowning it, it should have been tossed away so Katahdin would find it and then the viewer has a rest from the action/violence as she is gentle with her dying cub. It would give the monster further sympathy.
ReplyDeleteThis is My Favourite Horror Film.
ReplyDelete