THE PROPHECY

Lucifer isn't half as spooky as those damn angels.

I'm not that big on horror movies, but I have to say, The Prophecy turned out a lot better than I expected. First, it reunites Elias Koteas and Eric Stoltz from Some Kind of Wonderful, which is so cool. Not long ago, my friend and I had a lengthy discussion about how hunky Elias was back then, with his buff arms and shaved head, and what ever happened to him anyway? Well here's the answer—he's not so hunky with hair. In fact, it looked ever so slightly like a wig, and throughout the film, I fought the urge to pull on it.

The Prophecy gets off to a rather icky and unsettling start with Thomas (Elias Koteas) having freaky visions on the day he's supposed to enter the priesthood. He becomes a cop instead, and is soon entrenched in a murder mystery that includes a hermaphroditic cadaver with no eyes. As it turns out, this horrifying specimen is actually an angel.

So is Eric Stoltz, and I have to warn you that he's pretty scary gallivanting around in his trench coat and kissing dead bodies. He winds up living in the abandoned wing of a school, and an overly compassionate little girl named Mary brings him food and promises to keep his secret. In return he gives her a little token of appreciation—a French kiss. Now if this weren't creepy enough, he actually hides an evil general's soul in her body at the same time. If the movie were to end right here, it would bear a strong moral about not kissing transients, but this is where things really get interesting.

Virginia Madsen plays Mary's teacher, Katherine, and she joins Thomas in an effort to help the little girl. They soon discover that there's a war in heaven because a rebel group of angels are unhappy about God putting humans or "talking monkeys" above them. Virginia does a decent job, but I think she was hiding a real-life pregnancy, because she always looked bunchy. Between Elias's hair and her clothes, they're quite a distracting duo.

Luckily Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen salvage this creepshow with their lively performances. Walken plays the angel Gabriel, and is so affably sinister that you don't know whether to laugh or scream. Clearly he had a great time with the role, and in my humble opinion deserves an honorary Oscar just for getting up in the morning. He employs a half-dead woman (played by Amanda Plummer, who seems only to show up for weird stuff), to help with his scheming. When she asks why she can't just die, Gabriel explains that he can't drive himself. Can't drive! And in real life, Christopher Walken refuses to take his car over 30 mph. It's priceless!

Viggo plays Lucifer, and we find him randomly crouched on some sort of brick mound. His first words to Katherine are, "I could lay you out and fill your mouth with your mother's feces—or we can talk." Really, why go with a simple hello? He then proceeds to eat a rose while snarling with relish, and sings a little song. He slings his arm around Thomas and tells him that he heard his childhood prayers and saw him jumping into bed at night, thinking the devil was under there. "And I was!" he confirms gleefully.

As alarming as all of this sounds, I have to say that Lucifer isn't half as spooky as those damn angels. There is a straightforward quality to the devil, whereas the angels are always sneaking. It is in fact Lucifer who tells Thomas and Katherine how to save Mary, and he helps them to finish the job by pulling out Gabriel's surprisingly small heart and eating it. He invites them to hell before dissolving into a murder of crows, and advises Thomas to leave the light on. Woohahaha.

What can I say? I wouldn't have missed that little display for the world, and when it was all over, I checked under my bed on the off chance that Viggo really is Lucifer. Alas, it was the same old junk: an inappropriate number of shoes and some board games. Darn!