THE 'THAT GUY' FEATURED FILM OF THE WEEK
July 28, 2001
THE PROPHECY (1995)
Written and directed by Gregory Widen

CAST
Christopher Walken as Gabriel
Elias Koteas as Thomas Daggett
Virginia Madsen as Catherine
Eric Stoltz as Simon
Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer
Amanda Plummer as Rachel
Moriah Shining Dove Snyder as Mary
Adam Goldberg as Jerry
Steve Hytner as Joseph
J.C. Quinn as Burrows

NOTE: Link for Viggo Mortensen not yet active
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

“Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?”

America has a love affair with angels.  We love angel dolls, angel figurines, “angel letters”, angel bears, guardian angels, Touched by an Angel.  If it’s cute and sweet and cuddly, we’ll attach a pair of wings to it and call it an angel.  But think about this—what is the origin of the Devil? He’s a fallen angel.  When we pass into the Great Beyond, who is taking us for the ride? The Angel of Death.  While looking at that cute little big-headed angel statue holding a sign that says ‘I WUV YOU THIS MUCH’ that your mother gave you for your birthday last year, just remember this—during the worst moments in your life, an angel was probably hanging around nearby.

The Prophecy is a much better movie than any movie with a title like The Prophecy should be (even more so when you consider that it's also known as God’s Army).  A truly unique concept of the real purpose angels serve in God’s plan, it boasts startling visuals and strong performances from the perpetually underrated Elias Koteas, Viggo Mortensen, and Eric Stoltz.
Koteas is Thomas Daggett, a seminarian who, shortly before taking his final vows into the priesthood, is stricken with terrifying visions of what can literally be described as a “holy war”, with angels tortured and mutilated in a variety of unsavory fashions.  The visions shake up Daggett so much he leaves the priesthood to become, oddly enough, a homicide detective.  He is assigned to investigate a murder with a seemingly religious angle—the body of an eyeless hermaphrodite is discovered, with a handwritten Bible in his possession.  Further pushing the case into X Files territory, Daggett is told that, internally the victim has never aged—he has the bone structure and organ development of a fetus! Not only that, but the handwritten Bible he was carrying contains a never before seen extra chapter in Revelations, prophesizing the arrival of an evil being that will bring about a war in Heaven.  Not only that, but the body bears a mark that identifies him as Uziel, chief enforcer of the archangel Gabriel (basically Heaven’s answer to Joe Pesci in Goodfellas).  No, the Cigarette Smoking Man doesn’t show up at this point, but he might as well.
Daggett’s job of investigating the murder is made a little more difficult when a mysterious man just walks right into the morgue and sets Uziel’s body on fire, destroying it.  He also suspects that the murderer may be a strange young man named Simon (Eric Stoltz), whom Daggett earlier found perched on top of a chair in his apartment, reading a thesis on angels that Thomas wrote while in the seminary.  Daggett isn't the only one looking for Simon.  The man responsible for torching Uziel's body was his boss, the archangel Gabriel, and he needs to eliminate Simon, another angel, before he gets in the way of his insidious plans.  Gabriel (played with delightfully hammy gusto by Christopher Walken) has spent eons stifling the jealousy and anger he feels for God's love of humans (who he refers to as "monkeys") until now.  He plans to bring the soul of a malicious Korean War general into Heaven, thus creating chaos and the eventual destruction of the human race.  Forget about this angel playing harps and twinkling merrily on top of your Christmas tree, Gabriel really hates humans, and will go to any means necessary to destroy them, even using the assistance of a couple of zombies to do so.  Oh, you didn't know angels could make zombies? Well, Gabriel can--he does it by suddenly reviving someone who has just died, first making one out of suicidal Jerry (Adam Goldberg), and then later Rachel (Amanda Plummer).  Touched by an angel, indeed...

Simon knows full well of Gabriel's plans, and heads down to a small Arizona town just in time to take the Korean War general's soul as he dies.  Mortally wounded from an earlier fight with Uziel, Simon needs to put the soul in a
safe place, so he chooses a young Native American girl named Mary (Moriah Shining Dove Snyder).  Simon's measures to protect the veteran's soul aren't entirely heroic--he is aware that the little girl's body is not strong
enough to withstand such a powerful force as the general's evil soul, and that Gabriel would have no qualms about killing her to retrieve it.  Nevertheless, he passes the soul to her, and dies shortly thereafter. Sensitive viewers take note: the scene where Simon passes the soul to Mary is filmed with a creepy tone of pedophilia to it--whether it was intentional or not, it may be jarring to some folks.  Just another reminder that maybe angels aren't as wonderful and benevolent as we like to think they are.

Little Mary does indeed prove too weak to stand against the general's spirit invading her body--she starts speaking in a gruff voice and talks about cutting the ears off her enemies.  Needless to say, this concerns Mary's devoted teacher Catherine (Virginia Madsen) a bit, and she accompanies Mary to an isolated village, where the spirit will be exorcised by her relatives.  Daggett, who figured out pretty quickly how Mary ties in with Uziel
and Simon's deaths, joins her and Catherine in Arizona, but unfortunately fails to notice that Gabriel is right
behind them.  That's nothing compared to what's waiting for them when they get there.
While Mary is put through the grueling exorcism ritual, Daggett and Catherine do everything in their mortal power to stop Gabriel from reaching her. However, things begin looking up for them, when they learn they have a most unlikely force on their side.  Waiting to learn if Mary will survive the exorcism (or a run-in with Gabriel), Catherine notices a lone figure in the darkness.  He's none other than Lucifer himself (Viggo Mortensen, in one of the greatest supernatural thriller performances of all time), and he's nothing like what'd you expect--no horns, no forked tail, no pillars of flame surrounding him.  No, he's what you really should be afraid of--icy calm, charming, and damn sexy.  The devil doesn't attract followers by looking and acting like a monster, he wants you to come to him of your ownfree will.  That's the greatest victory of all.
"Oh, God.", Catherine gasps, when she realizes who she's dealing with.
"God?", Lucifer repeats blithely, "God loves you.  I don't love you."

Lucifer may not love Catherine but he'll help her defeat Gabriel's plan of creating a war in Heaven.  "He wants to turn Heaven into another Hell, and that's one Hell too many.", he reasons.  But before, he assists Catherine and Daggett, he takes some pleasure in taunting failed priest Daggett.  "Little Tommy Daggett, you would say such beautiful, beautiful prayers.", he says, "And then you would hop into bed, afraid that I was under there--and I was!"

OK, everyone, altogether now--brrrr.

Gabriel, stunned to see Lucifer of all entities in front of him, goes off-guard long enough to allow Daggett to kill him (at least temporarily--Walken appeared in two sequels).  Mary just manages to survive the exorcism, and the general's spirit leaves her body for whatever flame-broiled eternal punishment awaits him.  Before dissolving into a flock of black crows and disappearing into the night, Lucifer has a midnight snack of Gabriel's heart and reminds Daggett and Catherine, with the most chilling line in the whole movie, "I love you more than Jesus!"

As I mentioned before, The Prophecy is a much better movie than it should have been.  A bomb at the box office, it became a video rental favorite thanks to old-fashioned word of mouth.  Sometimes the religious theme goes a
bit over the top--nearly all of the principal characters, even the ones who aren't directly associated with God or the Devil, share names with figures from the Bible, and it does seem a little silly to name a failed priest Thomas (at least he doesn't say "I doubt it" at any point). But, on the other hand, the basis for the script is for the most part religiously accurate--where does it say in the Bible that angels are kind, loving creatures? If you go by the Old Testament, when non-believers were assaulted by plague and locusts, angels were basically God's death squad.  And let'sface it, God was a difficult boss to work for--again, according to the Bible, angels were tossed out of Heaven left and right for various infractions, minor or otherwise.  So why shouldn't angels be pissed at humans, who keep deliberately screwing up and ruining things but are always welcomed back into God's fold with loving arms? No doubt that the concept of angels being these fairy godparent-like entities who are always there to protect us and support us in times of strife was invented by humans to make us feel better about the stupid shit we get ourselves into.
The actors playing humans are all okay, nothing remarkable.  Elias Koteas tries for grim stoicism in his performance, much like Jason Miller in The Exorcist, but most of the time comes off as just a little too blasé about the events unfolding before him. You'd think that after contending with murderous angels, possessed little girls, and even the Devil, Daggett would be compelled to say, "Wow, I can't believe what incredibly fucked up shit I've gotten myself into!", or something to that effect, but he doesn't.  In a movie like The Prophecy, it's all but inevitable that the villains will
steal the show, and they do.  Christopher Walken plays the frustrated evil mastermind to the hilt, delighting in putting people to sleep (or striking them dead, it's kind of hard to tell) with just a wave of his hand and a "shh", and angrily complaining about how hard it is to get a new zombie when the old one dies for good.  Meanwhile, on the other end of the villain spectrum, Viggo Mortensen is all calm reserve and bemusement, biding his time until he can strike when his victim least expects it.  His less than twenty minutes on screen far surpass many other Hollywood renditions of the Devil, such as Robert DeNiro in Angel Heart and Gabriel Byrne in End of Days.

The visuals in The Prophecy are remarkably well done, considering the film was probably made on a relatively modest budget.  Angels fly across the sky as lightning crashes behind them, blood-soaked wings flutter to the ground, snarling demons surround Lucifer as he speaks to Thomas and BLAH.  Some of the most effective shots are done with little technology at all, like  when Gabriel, Simon, and Lucifer perch like gargoyles, looking down at the humans.  But the image that really sticks with you when the film is over is Lucifer smiling benignly and telling Thomas that he really did have something to be afraid of when he was a child, and he still does now.  It
leaves you wondering, if you were a little more vulnerable, if your faith in God was just a little weaker, how easy it would be to go to the other side.
DID YOU KNOW...
--Two sequels were released straight to video.  The Prophecy II features Christopher Walken and Steve Hytner reprising their roles from the first film, Bruce Abbott replacing Elias Koteas as Thomas Daggett, and Eric Roberts and Russell Wong portraying angels Michael and Danyael.  The Prophecy III: The Ascent once again features Christopher Walken and Steve Hytner reprising their roles as Gabriel and Joseph, Moriah Shining Dove Snyder appearing as Mary, and Vincent Spano as the angel Zophael.
--Writer-director Gregory Widen was a firefighter for three years, using the experience as the basis for writing the film Backdraft.
--The Prophecy and its sequels are among the most successful video rentals of all time.
--Including The Prophecy, Christopher Walken appeared in six different movies in 1995, playing a villain in all but one of them.
--Virginia Madsen is the sister of THAT GUY Michael Madsen.  Michael Madsen has claimed he will never watch any movie in which Virginia appears nude (it's safe for him to watch this one).
SOUND BITES

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name
Lucifer: "We must talk."
Catherine: "Oh my God."
Lucifer: "God? God is love.  I don't love you."

Well, when you put it that way...
Lucifer: "I can lay you out and fill your mouth with your mother's feces...or we can talk."

How about St. Swithen's Day? Are you open then?
Lucifer: "Of course, some of them do come to me eventually.  For while Heaven may be closed, I am always open.  Even on Christmas."

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