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Prophecy
(1979) |
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Social working do-gooder Richard Foxworth is not a happy chap. He is totally devoted to his job but finds it an increasingly frustrated grind what with having to deal with poverty stricken people with no rights living in grisly conditions having to rescue babies who are being eaten by swarming rats! He spends his days trying to make a difference but finds that no one is interested in listening to his voice leave alone voices of the disenfranchised that he strives to help. Meanwhile his string plucking wife Talia Shire also has problems of her own as she has just discovered that she is pregnant but is nervous about disclosing the fact to her husband who she reckons is so fed up and disgruntled with life in general that the last thing he wants to do is to bring a child into this ghastly, problem infested world. So she is in a quandary, searching for the right opportunity to tell him about the baby to be. Meanwhile an old associate catches up with Foxworth on his rat patrol and implores him to head out into the country with his wife where there is an environmental situation concerning the local Indian population who are up in arms about their land being degraded for industrial purposes. Foxworth, good as he is with people, is to go out there for two weeks and help bring the embattled Indians to the table to discuss matters in a civilized way with the Industrialists led by a giant paper producing corporation. The Indians are concerned that there is a plot at hand to exterminate them as their people are rapidly beginning to fall prey to a sickness which renders them cabbage like. Meanwhile the industrialists claim that the Indians are taking to terrorizing and kidnapping company workers who have started to go missing with alarming regularity and even more alarmingly many of the search parties being sent out on rescue missions are apparently not returning alive from their searches. Clearly something is terribly wrong in the forested area and soon enough Foxworth is going to discover the ghastly truth. First he goes fishing and is startled to catch sight of a salmon that is more like the size of a dolphin….then hours later him and his wife are attacked by a crazed raccoon. Later they are accosted by the Indians and taken to what is known as “the garden of Eden” where everything seems to grow to miraculously huge sizes and are shown a tadpole the size of a dog! A stunned Foxworth soon begins to realize when he hears about how the Indians are beginning to produce deformed babies at childbirth that there is something seriously contaminating the area and that the industrialists might be behind the trail of death and destruction that the vicinity is besieged by. At the same time Talia Shire realizes that the child she is carrying in her womb has now also been exposed to whatever it is that is contaminating the area and that there is a strong likelihood that her baby could be deformed like those of the Indian populace. But contamination is just one aspect of the problems at hand as it soon transpires that there may be one or more hideously mutated monsters resembling giant lacerated pepperonis marauding through the area killing anything that has the misfortune of appearing in their deadly path of destruction. Then director John Frankenheimer decides on giving his ecologically correct plot a novel twist straight out of Gorgo when he has his Pepperoni Monster turn maternal and go wandering through the forest seeking out its hideously mutated spawn. The spawn has been picked up by Talia Shire who intends on mothering it until she can convince authorities about the horrors that have been unleashed in the area! Sadly for Shire the mutant doesn't take to its surrogate Mama and decides on biting off her neck in gratitude leading to much anguish and mutant gnashing! All this ecological mumbo jumbo builds to a suitably ridiculous climax and Frankenheimer's supposedly intellectual creature feature draws to its humbling conclusion. Though dressed up as a moralizing, sermonizing, ecologically correct, politically relevant horror film, this really isn't much more than a silly Saturday afternoon creature feature which happened quite bafflingly to secure major studio backing and a budget to match. Having said that, there isn't a dull moment and there are plenty of laughs along the way – mostly unintentional. Not quite the serious, morally superior thinking mans horror film that might have been intended…..just a hokey creature feature featuring a rather dubious Pepperoni Monster running AWOL. Prophecy is a rather silly, old fashioned, almost charming creature feature well worth throwing into the DVD player on a dull weekend afternoon. With expectations suitably lowered, you might find yourself being surprisingly amused and entertained.
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