Eco horror and animal attack films are among my favorite subgenres in horror, and I’m frequently thrilled when a movie comes along that pairs the two together. Think Frogs, Day of the Animals, Long Weekend – all great fun in their own ways – and 1979’s Prophecy.
John Frankenheimer’s much-maligned creature feature is a serious, B-movie riff on the dangers of pollution with its story of chemicals callously spilled into a Maine river. The monster effects are iffy but entertaining, the cast and performances are all solid, and the themes, while potentially silly in their presentation, are sadly still relevant. It’s a movie with issues, and its intentions outweigh its execution, but forgiving fans of the subgenres will find a lot to enjoy.
Kino Lorber released the film to 4K UHD in 2025 – it looks great and is worth an upgrade – and among its extras is a new commentary track featuring a pair of film journalists.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Prophecy (1979)
Commentator: Bryan Reesman (entertainment journalist), Max Evry (entertainment journalist)
1. The original one-line idea for the film came from the new head of Paramount at the time, Michael Eisner. He suggested it to David Seltzer in his office one day, and the writer took the reins from there. It’s rare for a studio head to kick off a film in this way, but Evry shares another instance of it involving the 2017 film Life, which found life in an idea by then Skydance president (and lifelong prick) David Ellison.
2. This was the first film in a three-picture deal that director John Frankenheimer signed with Paramount after directing Black Sunday for the studio.
3. Frankenheimer kept security tight on the film’s production after seeing his previous movie, Black Sunday, get beaten to the screen by a knock-off called Two Minute Warning. Cast and crew had badges, the script was kept locked in his office, call sheets were written in code, and the movie was referred to only by a fake title, The Windsor Project, which was a reference to one of the entrance gates at the Paramount lot.
4. The film was budgeted at $7 million but hit $9 million before it was finished, and that made it the most expensive film shot in Vancouver, BC at the time. It was part of a trend that led to Vancouver being dubbed Hollywood North.
5. The first scene outside of the woods takes place at an orchestral concert with Talia Shire as a cello player. It was filmed at a Vancouver high school – despite looking like a proper concert hall – and the woman next to Shire is Frankenheimer’s wife, Evans Evans.
6. Robert Foxworth was asked to read for the lead part, but they wanted him to shave his beard. He refused, and Frankenheimer wound up liking both his audition and the beard.
7. The film features Native American characters as central to the storyline, and they point out that it was a trend to add Native mythologies, beliefs, and characters into horror films at the time, with the likes of Nightwing, The Manitou, and Wolfen as examples.
8. The filmmakers attempted to hire Rick Baker for the film’s creature effects, but his request for eight months of pre-production time was a deal breaker. Stan Winston was offered the gig, but he asked for too much money. They eventually went with Tom Burman and his team, effects artists whose credits would go on to include Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Cat People, Teen Wolf, and more.
9. The mutated bear costume was referred to on set as both Barbara and Pizza Bear, “the latter stemming from the sloppy facial appearance.”
10. Frankenheimer was reportedly not much of a fan of gore and violence, and he would sometimes turn his head away while filming those beats. Sadly, some of the grislier sequences were trimmed to maintain a PG rating, meaning we haven’t seen those beats either.
11. Armand Assante turned the role of John Hawks down four times, in part because he wasn’t sure about being an Italian American playing an indigenous character. Frankenheimer told him not to worry about it, as he had already cleared the casting with Paramount. His early career also saw him playing “a Latino man in Mambo Kings, an Arab man in The Pirate, and Belizaire the Cajun.” Assante said he was referred to at the time as “the ethnic everyman.”
12. Two early preview screenings in Austin, TX went over well, but another at Mann’s Chinese Theatre was interrupted by non-union effects artists who worked for Baker. They booed, heckled, and complained during the screening, saying that Baker’s team should have gotten the gig. Burman later confronted Baker, but the legend claimed he had no part in the fiasco.
13. Seltzer also wrote a novelization of the film, but it’s not often referred to as such because he wrote both – the script and the novel – concurrently. He’s not a fan of the film, and Evry recalls another journalist, the great Michael Gingold, asking Seltzer what happened to the film, seeing as the book is so good. “John Frankenheimer happened,” replied Seltzer.
14. The creature in the novel is not a mutated bear. “The initial design was actually more bird-like, the idea being that it was supposed to be an amalgam of all the creatures in the forest, and it was supposed to have noticeable breasts because it’s a female.” The book does mention that the monster lives in a bear cave, so it’s possible that’s where the design choice ultimately came from.
15. Foxworth has a few other horror efforts among his filmography, including Ants!, Damien: Omen II, and Death Moon, but his biggest genre presence is arguably in the first four Transformers movies in which he voices Ratchet. There’s a second, far more interesting connection between Frankenheimer and Michael Bay, though. “For years, Bay was living under the assumption that his actual biological father was Frankenheimer. Adopted as a baby, Bay eventually found his biological mother, who had had a one-night stand with Frankenheimer in 1963 while making Seven Days in May.” She went to him claiming that the child was his, and she was paid off at the time with $7,500. Frankenheimer finally took a DNA test around 2001, which proved that he was not Bay’s real dad.
16. Frankenheimer is on record as not being a fan of Prophecy. He apparently acknowledged that he was the weak element in the production for various reasons, including his growing alcoholism, clashes with the studio over his desire to make this an R-rated film, and his decision to show the creature a bit too much.
17. The bear creature is a mix of animatronics, puppetry, and a large costume. There were two alternating performers who wore the suit – Kevin Peter Hall, who also portrayed the title creatures in Predator and Harry and the Hendersons; and Tom McLoughlin, who had been trained as a mime before going on to direct films like One Dark Night and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.
18. The greatest sleeping bag kill in cinema history occurs at 57:03 as a young boy, zipped up in a sleeping bag, tries hopping away from the beast only to be violently slapped against a rock where he explodes into a flurry of feathers. The commentators don’t mention it – insane to me as I would have talked about nothing else for a full ten minutes – so I’ll just use this opportunity to rank the remaining four best sleeping bag kills in horror. As mentioned, Prophecy takes the top spot, and it’s followed by #2, the uncut version of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (a hugely underrated sequel); #3, 1980’s Bigfoot romp Night of the Demon; #4, Jason X; and #5, 2009’s Friday the 13th reboot.
19. Cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. shot 43 films, including numerous classics such as Little Big Man, Rooster Cogburn, and The Way We Were, and Prophecy is his only horror movie. He went out with something of a whimper, though, as his final film was Caddyshack II.
20. As potentially goofy as some elements are, the third act features some genuinely well-crafted scenes, including the tunnel escape and the slow drive in the Jeep on the hillside road at night. Frankenheimer asked Assante to drive the Jeep for the entirety of the sequence, but the actor – after surveying the dangerous road with a flashlight – politely refused and requested a stunt driver.
21. The finale sees the surviving characters jump into the water for a short swim, and bad weather on location forced the production to head back to Paramount’s studio lot to film it in a pool and on a stage. It’s a noticeable change, but if you’re with the film that far, it’s not enough to knock you back out again.
Quotes Without Context
“Christopher Walken does not do, bears.”
“A mutant bear will beat rabid bats any day of the week.”
“Rex Reed is such a bitch.”
“If Trevor Isley was a real guy, I’m sure he’d look at the mutant bear, blame it on DEI hires, and then sue the EPA and win.”
“They never really reveal what happened to her baby at the end, but I think we all know now that baby became Jason Schwartzman.”
“Prophecy definitely is a good ‘issue’ movie, I mean, obviously, it’s an issue that’s not been resolved, and we’re probably all gonna die.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
