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Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 178 из 359And Prophecy is a throwback to the fifties horror films as surely as the Sex Pistols and the Ramones are throwbacks to the "dirty white boys" of the rockabilly explosion in 1956-1959
For me, settling into Prophecy is as comfortable as settling into an old easy-chair andvisiting with good friends. All the components are there; Robert Foxworth could as easily be Hugh Marlowe from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers or Richard Carlson in It Came from Outer Space or Richard Denning in The Black Scorpion . Talia Shire could as easily be Barbara Rush or Mara Corday or one of half a dozen other monstermovie heroines from that same Big Bug era (although I would be lying if I didn't admit to some disappointment in Ms. Shire, who was brilliant as Rocky Balboa's shy and hesitant amour Adrian; she's not as pretty as I remember Mara Corday being, and she never appears in a white one-piece swimsuit, when everyone knows that this particular type of horror movie demands that at one point the heroine must appear-and be menaced-while wearing a white one-piece swimsuit).
The monster is pretty hokey-looking, too. But I loved that old monster, spiritual sister to Godzilla, Mighty Joe Young, Gorgo, and all the dinosaurs that were ever embedded in ice-floes and managed to get out so they could go thundering slowly down Fifth Avenue, squashing electronics shops and eating policemen; the monster in Prophecy gave me back a splendid part of my misspent youth, a part which included such irascible friends as the Venusian Ymir and the Deadly Mantis (who knocks over a city bus on which, for one splendid moment, the word TONKA can be clearly read). She's a pretty fine monster all the same.
The mercury pollution causing all those monsters is pretty good, too-an updating of the old radiation-caused-these-Big-Bugs plot device. Then there's the fact that the monster gets all the bad guys. At one point she kills a little kid, but the kid, who is on a hiking trip with his parents, really deserves to go. He has brought along his suitcase radio and is Defiling the Wilderness with Rock 'N Roll. All that is missing from Prophecy (and its omission may have only been an oversight) is a sequence where the monster stomps the rotten old paper mill flat.
The Giant Spider Invasion also comes equipped with a plot straight out of the fifties, and there were even a lot of fifties actors and actresses on view in it, including Barbara Hale and Bill Williams . . . halfway through it, I had the feeling that what I had really stumbled on was a crazed episode of the old Perry Mason series.
In spite of the title, there is really only one giant spider, but we don't feel cheated because it's a dilly. It appears to be a Volkswagen covered with half a dozen bearskin rugs. Four spider legs, operated by people crammed inside this VW spider, one assumes, have been attached to each side.
For me, settling into Prophecy is as comfortable as settling into an old easy-chair andvisiting with good friends. All the components are there; Robert Foxworth could as easily be Hugh Marlowe from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers or Richard Carlson in It Came from Outer Space or Richard Denning in The Black Scorpion . Talia Shire could as easily be Barbara Rush or Mara Corday or one of half a dozen other monstermovie heroines from that same Big Bug era (although I would be lying if I didn't admit to some disappointment in Ms. Shire, who was brilliant as Rocky Balboa's shy and hesitant amour Adrian; she's not as pretty as I remember Mara Corday being, and she never appears in a white one-piece swimsuit, when everyone knows that this particular type of horror movie demands that at one point the heroine must appear-and be menaced-while wearing a white one-piece swimsuit).
The monster is pretty hokey-looking, too. But I loved that old monster, spiritual sister to Godzilla, Mighty Joe Young, Gorgo, and all the dinosaurs that were ever embedded in ice-floes and managed to get out so they could go thundering slowly down Fifth Avenue, squashing electronics shops and eating policemen; the monster in Prophecy gave me back a splendid part of my misspent youth, a part which included such irascible friends as the Venusian Ymir and the Deadly Mantis (who knocks over a city bus on which, for one splendid moment, the word TONKA can be clearly read). She's a pretty fine monster all the same.
The mercury pollution causing all those monsters is pretty good, too-an updating of the old radiation-caused-these-Big-Bugs plot device. Then there's the fact that the monster gets all the bad guys. At one point she kills a little kid, but the kid, who is on a hiking trip with his parents, really deserves to go. He has brought along his suitcase radio and is Defiling the Wilderness with Rock 'N Roll. All that is missing from Prophecy (and its omission may have only been an oversight) is a sequence where the monster stomps the rotten old paper mill flat.
The Giant Spider Invasion also comes equipped with a plot straight out of the fifties, and there were even a lot of fifties actors and actresses on view in it, including Barbara Hale and Bill Williams . . . halfway through it, I had the feeling that what I had really stumbled on was a crazed episode of the old Perry Mason series.
In spite of the title, there is really only one giant spider, but we don't feel cheated because it's a dilly. It appears to be a Volkswagen covered with half a dozen bearskin rugs. Four spider legs, operated by people crammed inside this VW spider, one assumes, have been attached to each side.