Friday, October 26, 2018

Prophecy 1979 directed by John Fankenheimer


In a Halloween special review, the Celluloid Slammer brings you Prophecy... a late 70s horror film that is basically about a mutant bear attacking people. The mutant part is brought about by about by chemicals that are changing the wildlife into improbably deformed creatures. For example, a fish that eats a duck.

I saw his film in the cinema, the Everett Park Theatre outside of Boston, with much anticipation from all the full page ads, TV spots and trailers I had seen. Some mentions were made about being more of a thinking man's horror film with a message. That message was pretty much the same one as in Godzilla VS the Smog Monster, basically - don't pollute. Sadly thinking is not something the writers of this movie did much of, in my opinion. There are some suspenseful scenes at the start, a mystery about killed loggers and the introduction of a Native American legend possibly responsible but that all gets forgotten when we are face to face with the terrible man in a mutant bear suit. The lead up is for something big and horrifying and that bear isn't those things. It becomes unintentionally campy as it goes on, culminating on the best scene ever filmed in motion picture history.

The sleeping bag attack.



Even in 1979 I was rolling on the floor and to this day I have friends who will bring up as one of the stupidest things they have ever seen in a motion picture. Did that kid sleep with explosives? Seriously, that sleeping bag pops like a balloon!

See this movie? Maybe don't unless you have a banking for bad horror films or monster movies. It's all of clichés, bad acting, worse effects and even ends with the audience being made aware there is another mutant bear about, ready for a sequel. Thank goodness, that never happened!

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