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Prophecy (film)

1979 film directed by John Frankenheimer

Prophecy is a 1979 American science fiction horror film about an environmental agent and his wife filing a report on a paper mill in the Androscoggin River in Maine, not knowing that the paper mill's waste made a local bear mutate, causing it to turn rampant in the wilderness.

Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written by David Seltzer.
She Lives. Don't Move. Don't Breathe. She Will Find You. taglines

Dr. Robert Verne

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  • Inorganic methylmercury, known as PMT, used as a desliming agent that collects algae and prevents it from forming on preprocessed timber. Its widespread use discontinued in 1956 when evidence of its fatal effects... were seen in the deaths of 100,000 people in Minamata, Japan.
  • [from the tape recorder] Described as the most potent neurotoxin of the post-World War II age. Used from 1948 to 1956 in pulping processes as a cheap and effective caustic agent that prevents algae from forming on waterlogged timber. It is also known for its mutagenic properties, concentrating in the bodies of fish and plankton-eating crustacea, affecting the fetal development of everything that ingests it. The ratio of toxin to blood level is 30% higher in the developing fetus than in the host. It was discovered, after extensive testing, that it is the only mutagen that jumps the placental barrier, concentrating in fetal blood cells, where it adheres to the DNA and corrupts the chromosomes.
  • A developing fetus goes through certain distinct phases. Each phase represents a specific stage of evolution. A human fetus, for instance. At one stage, it's a fish. It looks like a fish; it's got fins and gills. At another, it's amphibian—webbed hands; at another, reptilian; at another, it's feline—developing upward in the distinct shapes and phases of the evolutionary scale. If this chemical, methylmercury, adheres to the DNA—DNA's a chromosomal fixative—it could freeze certain parts at one evolutionary stage, while the other parts continue growing. A pregnant animal ingests the fish, and it corrupts the fetus to a point where it gives birth to a monster.

John Hawks

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  • I'm gonna tell you right now!! You cut my head off before you cut these trees!!
  • The environment is us. And it's being mangled. And I'm gonna make something very clear to you. My people are violently ill. They're beginning to lose their faculties. They stagger and they fall, and this has nothing to do with alcohol, as these villagers claim. My people are fishermen; their lives are clean.

Hector M'Rai

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  • This camp is as the old people did it. I'm teaching these young people so that someone here will remember. There are underground tunnels beneath the frost line to store perishables. The forest provides more food than a man could possibly need. Here, everything grows big—real big.

Dialogue

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Isley: [referring to Dr. Robert Verne and Maggie] These people are from the Environmental Protection Agency. I'd appreciate being let through.
Hawks: No car from the lumber company gets through here.
Isley: This is against the law, John.
Hawks: The law has not brought justice.
Isley: The Supreme Court has issued a restraining order against this blockade.
Hawks: And which Supreme Court is that, Mr. Isley?
Isley: The Supreme Court of the United States.
Hawks: Yes, we've tried that Supreme Court. Now we're going to one that's higher.
Hawks: The environment is us. And it's being mangled. And I'm gonna make something very clear to you. My people are violently ill. They're beginning to lose their faculties. They stagger and they fall, and this has nothing to do with alcohol, as these villagers claim. My people are fishermen; their lives are clean.
Ramona: I'm a midwife, and I've seen children born dead, born deformed.
Hawks: So badly, some have had to be put to death.
Ramona: Three times we have been to the Government, and three times they've turned us away.
Hawks: You see, the end of this forest is the end of my people. Don't talk about the environment as though it had nothing to do with us.
M'Rai: This camp is as the old people did it. I'm teaching these young people so that someone here will remember. There are underground tunnels beneath the frost line to store perishables. The forest provides more food than a man could possibly need. Here, everything grows big—real big.
Robert: Well, I saw a salmon that, uh, took my breath away.
M'Rai: It is the garden of Eden. I've let no one come here. You are the first to see it.
Maggie: It's magical.
Hawks: We were once a magical people.
Ramona: It's true. When I was a child, every rock, every tree had a story. The whole forest was filled with legends.
Maggie: We heard about one of them.
Ramona: Yes?
Maggie: Uh, katydah, something.
Ramona: Katahdin.
M'Rai: Katahdin is no legend.
Ramona: My grandfather is the oldest person in our tribe. It's his duty to foster these beliefs.
M'Rai: I have seen him.
Maggie: And what does he look like?
M'Rai: He is part of all things created. And he bears a mark of each of God's creatures.
Maggie: You say that with great affection.
M'Rai: He has awakened to protect us.
Maggie: [referring to Bethel Isley] I believe him.
Robert: Why?
Maggie: Why would he have offered to let you test the water?
Robert: Maybe it wasn't in the water.
Maggie: Huh?
Robert: Maybe it's heavier than the water. That silvery stuff on your boot... is it dry?
Maggie: Yes.
Robert: They gave us a trick question in medical school. What's the only liquid in the world that isn't wet?
Maggie: What was the answer?
Robert: Mercury.
Maggie: Rob, what is it?
Robert: It's methylmercury poisoning, that's what it is. This whole place has been contaminated.
Maggie: How do you know?
Robert: The Indians eat the fish, and they behave like they're drunk when they haven't had a drop of liquor. That raccoon convulsing and turning vicious, its brain turned to mush. Even that old man, that Indian, you saw the burns on his fingers.
Maggie: Is that from mercury?
Robert: It's from cigarettes; the reason he didn't feel it is from mercury. You see, it acts on the nervous system; it destroys the brain.
Maggie: Jumps the placental barrier. What does that mean?
Robert: [referring to methylmercury] It's a mutagen.
Maggie: A mutagen. What is that?
Robert: Freakism! Freakism! That's what's been going on out there. That's why there's a goddamn salmon five feet long, and a tadpole the size of what a bullfrog should be! And stillbirths.
Maggie: What?
Robert: That's what that Indian woman said. And deformed children. And God knows what else has been going on out there.
Maggie: So if a pregnant animal ate some fish, it could—
Robert: Yes. My God. Is it possible?
Maggie: Yes.
Robert: The size of a dragon.
Maggie: What?
Robert: The size of a dragon. Isn't that what Isley said at the airport? And something about eyes, cat's eyes. And the old man, the Indian. Didn't he describe that creature as being a... part of everything in God's creation? Isn't that what he said?
Maggie: Yes.
Robert: What's going on here?
Isley: There were more killings in the forest last night. We're not waiting for any more.
Robert: Who was killed?
Isley: [referring to the dismembered campers] A family up at Mary's Bend.
Robert: [referring to John Hawks and the people of the Indian village] What makes you think these people had anything to do with it?
Isley: They're guilty as hell, Vern.
Sheriff: [speaking through his megaphone] I want the following people to step forward as their names are read! John Hawks!
Robert: Where's the evidence?
Isley: The evidence is at the hospital! It's in baskets!
Robert: Can these people help us?
Hawks: They can send someone from the village.
Robert: Send them. Tell them to get people here. I want people to see this. Is there a newspaper in town?
Hawks: Yes.
Robert: Get them here with a camera... and people from that paper mill... and that sheriff.
Hawks: Not that sheriff. I can't do that.
Robert: Hawks! He'll see the truth here and you have more here at stake in this truth than I have.

Taglines

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  • She Lives. Don't Move. Don't Breathe. She Will Find You.
  • The Monster Movie.
  • [from trailer] It is not an offspring of witchcraft or Satan. It was created by man. It will grow to be 15 feet tall. It will have huge eyes, webbed hands, hooked claws. It will walk upright. And it will mindlessly, mercilessly, kill every living thing it meets.
  • [from TV spot] She is alive and will grow to be 15 feet tall. With teeth and talons that are razor sharp, with flesh twisted and warped. She will kill. She will find you.

Cast

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