Here is the correct order to watch the “Prophecy” movies (i.e. their release order):
- Gregory Widen’s “The Prophecy” (1995)
- Greg Spence’s “The Prophecy II” (1998)
- Patrick Lussier’s “The Prophecy 3: The Ascent” (2000)
- Joel Soisson’s “The Prophecy: Uprising” (2005)
- Joel Soisson’s “The Prophecy: Forsaken” (2005)
At the end of “The Prophecy II,” Gabriel fails in his attempts to overthrow humanity and is transformed into a human by Archangel Michael (Eric Roberts). Divine locations are re-envisioned as industrial wastelands, a common creative choice throughout the 1990s. The Garden of Eden, for instance, is now an industrial park. In “The Prophecy 3,” Gabriel is humbled and at peace, understanding the pain he caused to humans as an Angel. By the end of that film, Gabriel shows compassion and becomes an Angel again, now ascending to Heaven to be with God. One might think that would be the end of the story, but in 2005, a pair of sequels starring Kari Wuhrer hit video stores.
The fourth and fifth movies were filmed at the same time in Romania. Many, many cheap horror movies are filmed in Romania, and attentive horror fans will likely be able to traverse the Romanian woods without a compass, thanks to the number of times we’ve seen them.
One might see “The Prophecy” movies as an outcropping of many ’90s trends. At the end of the millennium, there was a sense that the world was ending and the magic was gone. Angels were now just angry people. We paved paradise and put up a parking lot. The first film was striking and stylish, but with each progressive sequel, the series became less and less interesting. That first film is an interesting time capsule of 1990s concerns, however, and a corker of a horror flick to boot.
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