This is a parody review of the 1979 film Prophecy. It was written by David Seltzer and directed by John Frankenheimer. Make sure you check out Part One. Here is a good representation of everything the movie is.
The group arrives at the murder scene, and Rob and Expression Girl get out to investigate. Maggie stays behind. The Pilot (who will hereafter be known as Pilot because he’s never named) tells Maggie how terrible he is at his job. Maggie can’t stand his incorrigible babbling, so she runs off into the rain. Doc Verne finds gashes in a tree that looks like a bear caused them—but they’re fifteen feet up the trunk. Maggie stumbles on a net across a stream and finds a snared Manbearpig cub. She calls everyone over, and they all talk about how disgusting it is, but Maggie thinks it’s cute.
They retrieve the cub and attempt to leave, but Pilot says that he’ll probably just crash the helicopter, and it’s a miracle he got them there in the first place. Now they’re trapped in a storm, and Rob has to give the cub medical attention because he won’t strangle it unless it is healthy. Luckily, the tipi village is nearby, and they take shelter there.
Rob begins treating the monster cub to use as evidence against the paper mill. Maggie admires the cub, hoping her baby is at least as beautiful. Doctor Verne continues the trend of being a horrible husband, as he plays a tickle fight with monster spawn rather than attending to his wife’s apparent emotional distress. The storm ends so they can leave on the helicopter, but they inexplicably decide to stay until morning.
Doctor Verne is busy lauding how happy he is that a two-story mutant bear is roaming the forest, hoping it will kill more children. Maggie rudely interrupts him to say she is pregnant, killing the vibe. Rob offers to strangle the baby right then and there, but Maggie is reluctant. Luckily, Fat Cat shows up with the sheriff to break the tension. Fat Cat gives Maggie a disgusted look—no, wait, he looks at the bear cub that way.
Doctor Verne tells him that the cub results from the methylmercury spilling from the paper mill. Fat Cat pretends that he didn’t release the chemicals on purpose. Suddenly, manbearpig shows up, killing an Opie, blowing up a car, and starting a forest fire in a matter of seconds. This is the creature that the Opies and Doctor Verne believe is prophesied to save them. The survivors flee into the tunnels beneath the tipis. The tunnels were created to store food, but there is room for the group since they are entirely devoid of food.
The sheriff offers to save the others by feeding himself to Manbearpig and goes up the ladder. Manbearpig samples the sheriff, but it turns out that cannibalism isn’t her thing, so she drops the dead body back into the tunnel. The group exits the tunnel the following day. They all set off on the ten-mile walk back to civilization, carrying Pilot on a stretcher while he tells them how bad he is at walking. Fat Cat treks alone to a nearby radio tower to contact search and rescue.
Fat Cat sees the radio tower and is relieved. But wait! It’s an ambush by Manbearpig! Fat Cat runs to the gates, but Manbearpig has locked them! He tries to go over the gate, but he’s always been a bad climber. Manbearpig gets closer. Fat Cat decides to go under the gate. He eases down onto his ass and begins sliding under. Manbearpig is almost on him! He gets his upper body through. That was the hardest part. But it’s too late. Manbearpig descends on him, devouring his crotch.
Thanks to the noble sacrifice of Fat Cat’s penis, the group makes it to a camp where they commandeer an Opie truck. It’s like the old army trucks that have a steel cab and canvas-covered bed, but it’s missing the canvas. The group will be vulnerable to Manbearpig attacks from above. This is easily solved, though, as they strap Pilot to the bars on the top of the truck. Hopefully, if Manbearpig attacks, Pilot will ward him off with his ceaseless chattering.
This is actually what happens in the movie. They strap the injured guy to the top of the truck with a bear the size of a McDonald’s hunting them. They don’t just tie his stretcher to the bars. They wrap the cords around his body, ensuring he has absolutely no chance of escape. It makes you wonder if they were lugging him through the forest just to throw him down at the first sight of the monster. It’s like that old joke my sweet old mom never fails to laugh at, “You don’t have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun your friends.” This ends about as well as you’d imagine.
Manbearpig appears, knocks over the truck, and eats Pilot’s head for a snack. When the truck crashes, the bear cub in Maggie’s lap begins biting on her throat. She doesn’t throw it down or get rid of it. She follows the others, running into the forest with the bear still chewing on her. They get to the lake shore, where they can see the cabin across the lake, and decide to swim for it. Maggie swims while holding the little monster chomping on her jugular like bubble gum. Robert, never needing an excuse to snuff the life out of an infant, snatches it from her arms and holds it underwater until it drowns.
But wait, The Chief isn’t following them. He’s stopped at the edge of the water, waiting for Manbearpig. He is the wise old medicine man. He has spent all of his life in nature and is fluent in all the languages of Mother Earth. He will communicate with the beast and show it he is an ally. It doesn’t work. Turns out Manbearpig is hungry for Indian, and she has the chief as an appetizer. Expression Girl sees this and expresses.
The group reaches the cabin’s dock. Manbearpig goes into all-terrain mode and walks across the bottom of the lake. Doctor Robert Verne exclaims that it has drowned, and everyone celebrates, but he never was that good of a doctor. Manbearpig bursts out of the water. The “heroes” retreat into the cabin. John Hawkes gets his bow ready. Robert retrieves the obligatory “gun over the fireplace” and loads it. They gather up furniture and use it to barricade the door.
But Manbearpig doesn’t use doors, bro. She blazes her own trail. She bursts through the roof because she is taller than the house. John Hawkes shoots her with a couple of arrows, which pisses Manbearpig off—she’s a crossbow kind of gal. The monster uses her signature right hook and sends John flying. There’s no boulder in his path, so he keeps on going. He’s never seen again. Several arrows fall out of his quiver, and Robert manages to grab one as Manbearpig scoops him up in one giant paw. Manbearpig is making a mistake deviating from her tried and true strategy of throwing haymakers.
Robert stabs Manbearpig with an arrow, which triggers Manbearpig into speechlessness. This misappropriation of the honorable art of crossbow archery is more than she can handle, and she is frozen in her fury. Robert takes advantage of this and goes for Manbearpig’s one good eye with the arrow. The monster spins and falls into the lake. Doctor Verne isn’t done with her. He’s pronounced her dead on arrival, bro. He leaps on top of the giant organic raft and strangles Manbearpig, as he has done to many pesky children. At last, Manbearpig drifts off to heaven.
Maggie wakes up on a plane to Robert strangling her unborn baby, as he hasn’t hit his quota for strangulations since they’ve been on vacation. The camera pans out to show the plane coasting low over the pines of rural Maine, and oh no, what’s this? Another Manbearpig is alive! It pops its head up, exclaiming excitedly about the current state of crossbow technology!
The end. We don’t actually know what happened to Maggie’s baby, but since this is the writer who wrote Damien and remade The Omen twice, it’s safe to say Doctor Rob won that argument. The film is (so obviously) thematically pro abortion. It tells us that there are times when abortion is appropriate. I totally agree. This movie should have been aborted before it reached production.
