The Prophecy IV: Uprising (2005)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This post spoils movie The Prophecy IV: Uprising (2005).

I didn't know that Prophecy series is so popular that you add that name to this movie. Prophecy movies were slightly entertaining because of Christopher Walken and religious imagery. I don't remember first one. Second and third were small budget effect horror movies. This is first one without Christopher Walken. It also throws away the rules of earlier movies. Name and religious imagery are from earlier movie but otherwise this has nothing to do with those movies. Makes you wonder why this is called Prophecy IV. This was straight to dvd-release. I guess someone thought that name would sell. It and Kari Wuhrer made me watch this. I liked her in Red Alert 2 games. This time she has more serious role.

This movie happens in Romania. What is good in this movie is that story has elements from history of Romania. Those parts are best parts of the movie. Characters talk local language at the beginning. It was nice touch. But that won't last long. After short while even Romanians start to talk english to each others.

Movie starts quite confusing. It starts to make more sense at it goes on. Dani Simionescu is bad cop who robs drug dealers and give money to church. He met mysterious stranger who knows things about his history. Soon they got to crime scene where they found one of the drug dealers Dani stole money from. Drug dealer is without heart. Allison works for church. She find the Lexicon, book that writes itself, next to dead priest. For unexplained reason she takes the book. It is not explained what she did with dead priest. Villain of movie is Belial, demon who moves from body to body and takes heart from earlier host after changing body.

We learn that Dani gave information about his parents to secret police during time of communism. Secret police tortured and killed his parents. Now he tries to buy salvation by robbing money from criminals and giving it to church. Allison is her sister who was adopted after secret police killed their parents. This storyline had potential but it was not used well. It was used to build character of Dani. When Dani and Allison meet and find out who they are the main story is more important that brother seeking forgiveness and sister trying work out dramatic death of her parents and betrayal of her brother. Something like one minute was given to this.

Then we got final battle between Belial and mysterious stranger, who we know by now is Satan.It is interesting that Satan is kind of good guy in this movie and villain is demon who wants to go further than Satan. Final battle is anticlimactic. There is no real battle. Just talking. they build interesting relationships between characters but didn't use it at all.

This might sound strange, but I want to see high budget remake of this movie. This movie has so much unused potential. Sean Pertwee, who plays Dani, is only one who does a good job. Satan was worst disappointment. Role needed better actor. Belial was quite uneven. Only last actor did good job. I can't stop thinking what this could have been if it was made darker with better actors, better dialog and bigger budget. If only this script had been used to make own movie and not fourth Prophecy movie.