THE MONSTER MOVIE

There is a scene in ‘Prophecy’ where a man and his two children are sleeping outside in the natural splendour of the country surrounding the Androscoggin River in Maine, New England. The man is fast asleep, as is his daughter. His son is restless, and zips himself up into his sleeping bag until only his face is showing. Suddenly, there is a fearsome roar and the camp site is invaded by a hideous looking creature, part bear, part raw meat, all death. The twenty foot tall beast quickly and bloodily dispatches father and daughter but the son has time to jump up and try to escape, except, restricted by his zipped up sleeping bag, he is only able to hop like a terrified kangaroo. His somewhat amusing progress is almost immediately thwarted by the intervention of a massive paw, which flicks him through the air and smashes his body into a large rock, issuing force a spray of blood and feathers from the sleeping bag. The concept is comical, but the execution is shocking, brutal. Whatever this thing is, it is clearly not to be fucked with. 

There is a massive amount of interest in ‘Prophecy’ for even the most casual of viewers: giant tadpoles, for instance, monster babies, disaffected Native Americans, an axe fight. Then there is Robert Foxworth, perhaps the hairiest leading man of his generation. And let’s not forget the vampiric mutant monster baby, and its vengeful mother, the enormous, deadly semi-aquatic meat and bear beast who looks like it lives its life in agony, and very much wants to take it out on somebody, preferably a tourist. 

It’s the fault of big business, of course, and all comes down to a supposedly ethical paper company who are secretly and illegally using mercury as part of their something or other process, and therefore making everything and everyone in the area big and freakish and pissed off psycho nut job mental. Even the raccoons are kill crazy.

The shock ending is inconclusive and somewhat predictable, and is actually the trashiest thing about the whole surprisingly dignified undertaking. You should definitely watch this: it’s great and funny and scary and GREAT and the scenery is stunning. That’s pretty much everything we want from a film, right there - the giant rage filled mince monsters are a bonus.