Too bad they couldn't save this incredibly dull movie in the process. While many won't remember this weird little oddity from Paramount's vaults, you will remember the story it's the one about the mutated bear that stalks the Maine forests. Filled with over-the-top environmental speeches, some "being stalked in the woods" shots that eerily resemble moments cribbed just one year later by Paramount's FRIDAY THE 13th and containing more gore than a PG movie of its time should be allowed to have, PROPHECY is nothing more than a bad B-movie dressed up with A-list actors of the time and a script by THE OMEN's David Seltzer.
Robert Foxworth plays a doctor who is asked to check out a territorial war happening in the Maine forests by a lumber company and the local Indians who want to protect their forests. There's a deadlier foe out there though the environmental mutations caused by the chemicals used by the lumberyard in treating the wood. It's created fish and tadpoles larger than mankind has ever seen and of course there's a pretty vicious bear out there hungry and really pissed off at the way it looks.
While director John Frankenheimer builds adequate suspense, he shoots too much of the monster in harsh light showing off how cheesy the rubbery looking creature really is. The baby mutated bears are even worse, but you can see at the time how these might have been perceived as state-of-the-art and hence their shortcomings never fully accepted until much later when we all knew better (God knows what some of these current CGI creatures in more current movies are going to look like in ten years).
Unlike Sayles' ecological message films of the time masked as grade A, the movies PIRANHA and ALLIGATOR, PROPHECY takes itself way too seriously. Foxworth's bushy '70s beard is a joke while Shire gives a strong performance and makes the best of her role particularly when the revelation comes that the baby she's carrying might be mutated as well (she ate some local fish, of course).
Armand Assante is laughable as one of the local Indians who are spearheading the protest against the lumberyard. Those who know Assante as a good looking Italian will be perplexed at him playing a good looking Indian with an Italian accent. Pretty silly and incredibly distracting.
The film's only saving grace is perhaps the film's most horrific and memorable sequence where a young camper is thrown from his sleeping bag against some rocks by the agitated bear. The little boy running around in the yellow sleeping bag, completely encased and with nowhere to run, still sends shivers down your spine all these years later. If only the rest of the movie held up that much.
As for extras this disc is bare bones. There's not even a trailer which would have been nice, but I guess there's no use spending money on a movie like this. At least the anamorphic transfer shows off the lush widescreen cinematography. Someone cared when they were making this movie.
PROPHECY isn't horrible, it's just misguided and obviously an attempt by a big studio to try to cash in on the ecological horror movie trend of the time. It holds a fond place in many genre lovers' hearts for its cheese value, but all others would be better off renting any one of the three Walken THE PROPHECY films. They're far more entertaining and you don't get a message beat down your throat in the process.
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