Doomsday

By F.R.

PROPHECY

Directed by John Frankenheimer Screenplay by David Seltzer

If this tepid horror movie had been made for peanuts by struggling B-movie makers, it would be easy to forgive and forget. But Prophecy is the work of a major director, John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate), working with a major budget ($8 million) for a major studio (Paramount). Prophecy is silly, overproduced and boring: there isn't a single scary moment. When the audience shrieks, it is only because the characters are too stupid to get out of harm's painfully obvious way.

The first hour is merely one long pop corn break. An idealistic doctor (Robert Foxworth) and his pregnant wife (Talia Shire) move to the Maine woods. Once there they learn, in woefully elaborate detail, that a local paper mill is polluting the streams and driving Indians from their land. In the second hour, the couple belatedly discover that the mill's waste materials have contributed to the growth of a mutant monster that stalks the forest. The creature, which looks like Smokey the Bear with an advanced acne condition, then proceeds to rear its ugly head in a few dimly lighted and cloddishly edited murder scenes. Somehow the human race survives this halfhearted apocalyptic mayhem. The reputations of Frankenheimer and company may not.

-- F.R.

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