Franchises: The Prophecy. The Prophecy: Uprising (2005)

Until I found that Blu-Ray set, I had no idea that there were more Prophecy movies after the three starring Christopher Walken. I also have a feeling I'm not the only one, either, given how low-profile this and the next film are, even among this franchise. In fact, I can remember seeing an advertisement for a Prophecy marathon called "Walken on Sunshine" on the El Rey network, which didn't allude to Walken's absence in the latter two, either because they themselves didn't know until they already lined them up or because they knew that most who watched the marathon were unaware. Random thing to mention, I know, but again, I'm just trying to fill up space, as I didn't have any expectations whatsoever about this movie going into it, except that the quality was probably going to go downhill since they now seemingly couldn't afford to keep Walken around. Sure enough, I was right, and in more ways than one. I still stand by what I said in the introduction to my review of the first film that I don't flat-out hate any of the Prophecy movies, but this one is, in my opinion, the weakest of all five. Besides coming off as much cheaper in the way it looks, most of the characters are either uninteresting, unlikable, or unmemorable, the story can be hard to follow and is often not at all exciting, and above all else, this just feels like it shouldn't exist, especially given how the The Prophecy 3's ending seemed quite final. Plus, despite Gabriel's reformation at the end of the previous movie, I think there is a way they could've used him here, although it would've been difficult to replace Walken if he hadn't been interested in returning. There are pros to it, such as a few memorable performances, some good scenes, well-done instances of cinematography, and nice gore, but overall, this one is pretty much a dud.

After beating up a drug dealer and giving his money to a church as an offering, Bucharest police officer Dani Simionescu meets a man who identifies himself as John Riegert, an Interpol agent, and says he needs his assistance on a case. Though not interested, Dani finds he has no choice but to allow him to tag along in his patrol. At the same time, at the church, Father Constantin dies down in the basement while holding a private sermon over the Prophet's Lexicon, a Bible-like book that writes itself. A theology student named Allison finds his body and takes the book with her, compelled by a disembodied voice to keep it safe. Meanwhile, Dani and Riegert are called to a crime scene in a churchyard, where the victim turns out to be the very dealer whom Dani attacked and robbed earlier. Moreover, his heart had been torn out of his chest before he was apparently thrown from an upper window in the chapel. While investigating up there, they find a message for Dani written on the wall in the attic. Dani also begins to get impatient with Riegert's prying into his personal affairs and being completely unfazed when he threatens him over it. Moreover, when he lets Riegert out at the spot where he claims to be staying, there turns out to be no hotel or place where he could be played. Perplexed, Dani has a colleague of his, Laurel, check Interpol's database for any information about Riegert. The next day, another person is found with their heart ripped out, and when Dani tries to learn what it means through an internet chat, he's told it makes the bodies uninhabitable by certain otherworldly beings, namely angels. As the case goes on, Riegert brings up dark secrets about Dani's past, as well as shows him horrific visions tied to it, and tells him that the "case" centers around his sister, whom he hasn't seen since he was a child. And when Laurel tells Dani of his findings, it turns out that, among the cases Riegert has been involved with, one of them is from the files of the Romanian Secret Police, dated back in 1986; in said photo, he looks virtually the same as he does now. Obviously, Riegert is more than what he appears to be, and his need for Dani's assistance is for something far more significant than any simple police case, as another party is after Allison and the Lexicon.

Both this and the final film in the series, The Prophecy: Forsaken, have a lot in common with both Hellraiser: Deader and Hellworld, mainly in that they were shot back-to-back in Bucharest around the same time and, like Deader, actually take place there (I'm going to be making a lot of callbacks to that particular film, so just bear with me). Both also share cast members with Deader, including some pretty major ones, and like both of the Hellraisers, they were released a couple of years after they were actually shot. And finally, they marked the directorial debut of someone who's not only been involved with The Prophecy from the very beginning, but was involved with the Hellraisers and many of Dimension Films' direct-to-video titles at the time: Joel Soisson. I first mentioned him back in my review of Hellworld, which was made from an original story of his, and touched on how, besides being a producer on every one of those movies from Inferno to Revelations, he was involved with the Dracula 2000 movies, some of the Children of the Corns, and Mimic 2, among others. However, he's been active in the film industry since the 80's, having been a second unit director on A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge and Trick or Treat, and was also a producer on Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. His credits, both in the horror genre and outside of it, are numerous, but while he has directed other films since both this and Forsaken, they've hardly been any more popular with critics or fans.

Sean Pertwee, whom I know best from Dog Soldiers and Event Horizon, is an actor I do like, although his fairly thick British accent sometimes makes it hard for me to understand what he's saying. However, I'm not that enamored with his character here of Dani Simionescu, for several reasons. One is that he's such a cliche: a cynical, hot-headed cop who tends to beat on informants and/or drug dealers he has affiliations with, and is a disheveled, hard-smoking loner who isn't interested in working closely with anyone. Second, while it's understandable that he's not thrilled with having to work with this stranger who comes out of nowhere and begins digging too deep into his personal life, Dani mainly just comes off as a shit. Even if the guy is a drug dealer, the way he hunts down, nearly cripples, and then violently forces Serban to give up the money he's made, before making him think he's stabbing him in the neck and spitting on him before walking off, saying there will be a next time, establishes him as quite unpleasant. Granted, he does take the money to a church, but it's still pretty brutal, and John Riegert later mentions that Serban complained to the General Inspector about Dani's harassment, which included rolling him up in a carpet and beating the crap out of him. We do learn why he's like this when Riegert takes him to a country house that was often used by the elite during Romania's Communist regime. The place was also an informal headquarters for the Secret Police, or Securitate, to whom Dani turned in his family as enemies of the state, and where his mother and father were horrifically tortured and killed for their crimes. Though Riegert, after he shows him visions of all this, tells Dani that he was simply doing what he was taught in school, he also suggests that it could explain why he tormented Serban. Moreover, he accuses Dani, who lived in London for some time, of returning to Bucharest after the fall of the Communists because he felt it would all be forgotten. It turns out that he took Serban's money to the church as part of his self-imposed penance, as he's always wanted to be forgiven for what he did.

But, as strong as that backstory is, I don't truly care about it because this film really isn't about Dani. Even though Sean Pertwee is second-billed, he's actually just along for the ride, getting caught up in this scenario simply because his sister, whom he hasn't seen since they were kids, is at the center of it. Though he initially doesn't want to believe it, as he's already emotionally shattered after what he saw at the country house, when Riegert tells him about how his sister has gotten her hands on the Lexicon and that it

could give whoever possesses it the power to reshape the future in any way they please, Dani goes along with him to find and protect her from the demon known as Belial. It culminates in a confrontation at the country house where he finally meets Allison and begs for her forgiveness, but she not only rebuffs him but also denies even knowing him. In the end, though, Dani takes it upon himself to stop Belial by first killing his current human host and then killing himself, as he's the only other person he can possess. Even though he knows this act will send him straight to Hell, he proves willing to do it, but in the end, does get possessed, only for Allison to kill him.

Speaking of Allison, she's played by Kari Wuhrer who, like in Deader, does a pretty good job, even if there's not much to her character. A theology student studying under Father Constantin, she finds him after he suddenly dies of a heart attack while presiding over the Prophet's Lexicon. Seeing how the book's final chapter is literally writing itself, she brings it with her back to her apartment, where Simon the angel speaks to her, telling her to protect it at all costs. Because she has a history of mental illness and has to take medication to quiet voices that she hears in her head, she initially thinks this is just another delusion. But when Simon warns her that Belial is coming for her, Allison listens and flees with the book. She later meets up with a friend of hers, Ion, and when he sees the writing in the book appearing by itself, he tells her of the marginalized belief that the Book of Revelations is still a work in progress, and that whoever is tasked with looking after the Lexicon is also responsible for the fate of mankind. Just as Allison is processing this, Simon, again, warns her that Belial is nearby and she flees. Settling in a hotel, she calls her brother, Derrick, and asks him to find out what he can about Belial. When he calls her back, Simon influences her to draw a picture of the Securitate country house, which she doesn't realize she's doing until it's finished. She gets a cab driver to take her there and, upon arriving, sees visions of how it looked when it was in operation, which then turn horrific when it depicts the Communist regime's downfall. She's about to run, when John Riegert and Dani arrive, as does Belial in his current human host, and she finds herself jerked back and forth, as Belial tries to make her give him the Lexicon, while Riegert, or rather, Lucifer, tells her that Belial can't make a move against her as long as she's in the house, which is part of his domain. As for Dani, when she's told who he is and he begs forgiveness for having turned her and their parents in to the Securitate (she herself wasn't killed because she was injured in a scuffle, was sent away for medical assistance, and eventually put up for adoption), she refuses to even acknowledge him. But when he forces Belial to leave his host, only to then get possessed himself, Allison is the one who kills him, and is now willing to forgive him, which really comes out of nowhere. I guess she saw what he was willing to do to stop Belial, but it still feels hollow. At the end of the movie, Lucifer tells Allison that there will be others who will come for her and the Lexicon, which leads into the next film.

Like the previous films, Uprising doesn't try to hide that John Riegert (John Light) is not who or what he initially appears to be, as you hear his voice over the opening archival footage of Communist Bucharest, talking about how he's searching for one lost soul, and also see him standing among the government officials. When he meets up with Dani Simionescu under the pretense of needing his help with a case, he never tells him what the case is and, in fact, seems more interested in Dani himself, probing into his background and personal history, much to the cop's growing frustration. Riegert also clearly knows more than he's letting on about the spate of murders where the victims are found with their hearts removed, including who's behind them. It starts to come to a head when he takes Dani to the Securitate country house, where he has visions of his turning his family in as enemies of the state and their torture, something Riegert knows all about and coldly lays out in detail to him, before mockingly asking if he thought he could get away from it by fleeing to London and returning to Bucharest after the regime fell. When a thoroughly freaked out Dani demands to know what it was he saw in the house, Riegert calmly answers, "I told you, the past... You probably call them ghosts. Understand this house does not give up its dead, Dani. The atrocities committed here will echo forever inside those walls." The next day, Riegert tells him that they need to find his sister, who is still alive and currently living in Bucharest. Dani then gets fed up with Riegert's penchant for answering questions cryptically, as he simply says that his sister is at the heart of a prophecy, and tries to walk away from everything, but Riegert refuses to let him go, and is not at all intimidated by his foul-mouthed yelling. After Dani learns from Laurel that Riegert appears in the Securitate's files, dating back to 1986, he knows he's not dealing with an Interpol agent and demands that he tell him who he is, to which he asks, "Are you sure that's what you really want?" He proceeds to tell him about the Prophet's Lexicon, its significance, and that Allison has it because Simon saw to it, as, "Broken people make the best pawns." Dani says he's still not sure if he can trust him, as he doesn't know if he's a good or bad angel, but Riegert suggests he simply view him as the, "Lesser of two evils."

Though the movie doesn't hide that Riegert is more than human, you don't learn exactly who he is until very late, after he's first spoken with Belial at the police station. By that point, Dani realizes that Riegert was the one who killed Serban and left the message, which Riegert says was simply a way to get him personally involved in the case. Also, during his and Belial's conversation, Riegert, like Gabriel and Zophael before him, offers him a chance to rejoin him, saying it can all be forgotten, but Belial refuses,

saying it'll be a cold day before he submits to him. Right after Belial escapes by possessing Laurel, we get the scene where Allison learns from Derrick that Belial is a demon who's rebelled against Satan, and when Belial makes it out onto the street, he comments that it is, indeed, a cold day, before it dissolves to a close-up of Riegert's eyes. That erases all doubts as to who he really is, and he also knows that Allison is heading to the country house, which happens to be his domain due to all of the evil that occurred there. Once

he and Dani arrive, he tells Allison that Belial can't touch her as long as she remains in the house. His reason for acting against Belial is because he wishes to create his own Hell and, just like when Gabriel could've done the same to Heaven had he won the war, this is something Lucifer can't allow. He also flat out says that he doesn't want the book because, "It repulses me." In the end, after Belial is forced out of both Laurel and then Dani, Lucifer absorbs his soul into him, saying it's where he belongs. At the end of the movie, he tells Allison, "It's done. For now...

Remember, there are still so many out there that despise you, and your kind... Because of what you are. And more than that, what you might yet become." She asks if he also despises her and, as an answer, he shows her frightening flashes of her future, before disappearing, telling her, "Sleep well, Allison."

John Light's portrayal of Lucifer is one of the best things that Uprising has going for it, and I might say I like his take even more so than Viggo Mortensen in the first Prophecy. While Mortensen's Lucifer was calm but had a simmering rage beneath the surface that would seep out at various points, Light plays him not only as calm but downright affable. At the same time, there's a determination within him that will not be dissuaded, and I just love how unfazed he is by Dani's constant yelling and threats. When he implies

that Dani may have been the one who killed Serban, and Dani pulls over and threatens him to either be straight with him or get out of his car in a tirade where he drops four F-bombs in one breath, Lucifer calmly says, "I believe you're guilty of nothing more than... a certain degree of moral ambivalence." This comes back around when Dani deduces that "Riegert" was the one who killed Serban, with Lucifer adding, "I just finished what you started. As you say, one more scumbag off the street," throwing his own

threats towards Serban back at him. Dani then asks if he killed them all and Lucifer nonchalantly answers, "No. Just the one." That infuriates Dani to where he leans over the desk and tries to attack him, only to be interrupted. Lucifer just smiles smugly at him, as he knows he can't touch him anyway. That applies to when he's forcing Dani to relive his betrayal of his parents, which he's completely calm about, no matter how angry Dani gets. I also like how, when Dani tells him to leave him alone after he brings up his sister,

Lucifer just calmly follows him, ignoring his yelling at him to stay away. Above all else, Lucifer has a very dry sense of humor about him, even when he's talking about something really horrible. During his and Dani's first meeting, when the latter's car stalls out, allowing him to get in with him, he comments, "I don't suppose you engage in a lot of high speed chases." (During the third act, the car does it again and Dani stops him before he can say anything). Late in the film, after Belial exits Ion's body, Lucifer reveals he ripped the heart out, and when several

others enter the room, he calmly asks, "Could somebody please bring me a towel?", showing his bloody hands. Afterward, when they're searching for Belial, Lucifer deduces that he's possessed Laurel because, "He's the only one unaccounted for," then adds, "Please don't make me do your job. I have enough to do already." They come to a crowded street and Lucifer suggests shoving them out of the way, to which Dani insists, "They're human beings, John. Not sheep." Lucifer comments, "If you insist on splitting hairs," and as Dani puts on his siren to make them clear the way, Lucifer randomly comments, "That one looks like a sheep."

Above all else, I like the idea that the devil himself, the symbol of all evil, has shades of gray to him. His motivation for aiding mankind against Belial is, again, similar to what it was in the first Prophecy, but here, he goes as far as to offer Allison protection and when it's done, warns her that others will come for the Lexicon. It's also interesting that he himself doesn't want the Lexicon, despite its power and the enormous advantage it would give its owner over future events. He says he finds it "repulsive," and would seemingly

rather watch things play out without knowing the outcome ahead of time. And while both he and Belial admit that their abilities are limited while on Earth, it is strange that, during the final confrontation at the country house, which he says is his domain, Lucifer can't take direct action against him but, at the same time, can prevent him from killing Allison. Again, it could be that he actually has his own reasons for not doing so, rather than he simply can't, but it's never made clear. However, while he doesn't try to forcibly take Allison back to Hell with him at the end like in

the first movie, there's a moment before the climax where, when Dani asks if he's ever going to see what he really looks like, Lucifer, after thinking, answers, "Yes, eventually." Dani asks if it's a promise and Lucifer eerily answers, "Oh, yes. That's a promise." Clearly, he knows where Dani is going, despite his attempts to redeem himself.

The main villain, the demon Belial, possesses various people throughout the movie but has no concrete, tangible form all his own, appearing as either a bat-like creature or a black apparition a couple of times when he's seen in-between them. However, that doesn't stop him from having a very definable personality: a charismatic, snarky but sadistic and cruel entity who has rebelled against Satan and intends to create his own Hell using the Prophet's Lexicon. Like a lot of the evil beings in this series, he

tends to derisively refer to humans as "monkeys." We first see him in the form of Carmen Macovei (Catalina Alexandru), a secondhand clothes merchant, but he later suggests that he's been on Earth for much longer. However, he quickly dispenses with that host and possesses a waitress named Clara (Georgina Rylance, who was Marla in Hellraiser: Deader), who sees "Carmen" being attacked by vicious dogs and comes over to help (the later discovery that Carmen's teeth were filed to where they were sharp, as well as the patches of missing fur on some of the dogs, suggests Belial may have provoked them to attack for just such a purpose). He heads to the church where Father Constantin presided, only to come across the angel Simon down in the cellar where the Lexicon was kept. The two of them have a bit of banter, with Simon complimenting Belial on Clara's apron, while Belial suggests that he's managed to experience everything one can with a physical body: "You should grab yourself a body... They're to die for, really. You eat, you fuck, you kill, and then you go home and write poems all about it." Simon says he doesn't need the temptation and Belial calls him, "God's little choir boy," then adds, "Singing hymns isn't really my thing, sweetie. I can't even carry a tune." However, his friendly demeanor drops slightly when he finds that the Lexicon is gone, then tells Simon that he will have it, no matter what. Intent on finding Allison, he goes to the funeral home where Constantin's body is kept. There, he meets a woman who works there named Gloria and asks her how she can stand being surrounded by so much death. She says that she feels she helps the dead move on to a better place, and Belial decides to give her a taste of said "better place," killing her instantly. Just as Zophael did with the dead zealot, he licks Constantin's eyeball and gets a vision of Allison when she took the book, before commenting, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned... endlessly."

When Belial comes across an undertaker named Florin (Virgil Platon) down in the morgue, he hops into his body, but doesn't stay in him long, as he comes upon Allison while she's in a restaurant, talking with a friend of hers, Ion (Stephen Billington), who also happens to be a priest. Though initially incredulous over her claims about the Lexicon, he's absolutely shocked when he sees it for himself, causing himself to get a nose bleed, which he says he gets frequently. He also tells her about its significance

and how it's the Book of Revelations in progress, before having to excuse himself to stop his nosebleed in the restroom. There, Belial makes his move and possesses Ion, but by the time he returns to the restaurant, Allison has, again, listened to Simon's warning and fled. He next decides to meet up with Lucifer by being brought to the station under the pretense of confessing to Florin's murder (he got arrested after leaving Florin's heart on a girl's plate). While they're sitting across from each other in the interrogation room, Belial tells Lucifer that he knows where Allison is and is confident he can win her over. He also rebuffs his offer to come back over to him, saying, "It's going to be a cold day when I submit to you, 'John.' A very, very cold day." Ion's nose starts bleeding again and, as he tries to stop it, commenting on his host's condition, he appears to have a seizure and vomits everywhere. After finally calming himself, he tells Lucifer, who's sitting there with a satisfied expression on his face, "Must've been something I ate," before vacating Ion and smashing through the two-way mirror, searching for another host.

As if there weren't already enough ties to Hellraiser, Doug Bradley himself is here, playing one of two policemen who work together as partners. Though he and the other man's names are Valimorana Badila and Miron Lordache (Dan Astileanu) respectively, the latter tells John Riegert that he may as well refer to them as Laurel and Hardy, as everyone else does (he does kind of look like Oliver Hardy, doesn't he?). While Hardy doesn't have much of a role in the story, Laurel looks into Riegert's background on Dani's

orders and later tells him of his strange findings. By the time the Belial-possessed Ion is brought to the station during the third act, Laurel begins to think that what's going on is the work of some sort of cult. And when "Ion" refuses to talk with anyone except for Riegert, Laurel comments, "Which brings us right back to the question du jour: who the fuck is John Riegert?" But he doesn't wonder about it for too long, as Belial possesses him after exiting Ion and promptly exits the building in order to head off Allison before she can reach the country house. He comes close to doing so, but thanks to Dani and Riegert's intervention, she manages to get away using a cab, forcing him to later hail one of his own.

Belial is at his absolute best while possessing Laurel, and it gives Bradley a great opportunity to show he can do more than just Pinhead. He drops the Romanian accent he was putting on as Laurel, instead using his normal voice, and shows off a great flair for dry, sardonic humor. As he's leaving the station after the scene in the interrogation room, he flippantly ignores Hardy, who follows after him, leading to this fun exchange: "I have to go." "Why do you talk like that?" "Sorry, but I have to go." "Is something

wrong?" "No, nothing's wrong." "You're sure?" "Of course, I'm sure." "Then what am I supposed to tell the Captain?" "Tell him anything you'd like." When Hardy continues following him, Belial warns him, "You need to understand that, if you haven't stopped following me by the time I get to the top of these stairs, I'm going to have to put a bullet through your head." Hardy doesn't take the hint and, in the next scene, you hear a gunshot offscreen, followed by his body falling from a top floor in the station. As I

mentioned earlier, when Belial wanders the streets and realizes it's a very cold, snowy night, he thinks back to how he told Lucifer it would be a very cold day before he submitted to him and comments, "Brilliant." He comes close to getting Allison when she's on the corner, trying to convince a cab driver to take her to the country house, but Dani then uses his car as a battering ram, smashing Belial along the hood and against the windshield. But he simply shrugs it off and walks away, later using Laurel's police badge to flag down another cab. When he's picked up, he

gets into the front seat and tells the chattering driver, "Just be a good little monkey, and drive." He arrives at the house after Allison, Dani, and Lucifer have done so, remarking, "Sorry I'm late. We had to stop for petrol and sweets." He then looks at the house itself and comments to Lucifer, "Ah, what a waste. You know, you really could have made more of this place. The evil that bred here? Such an opportunity, and you let it slip away."

Bradley's greatest moment comes when Belial, after going in for a hug, only for Lucifer to rebuff him, lays out his frustrations with him and why he's rebelled: "You remember the first war? The big one. We stood on those ramparts long after we knew our cause was lost. Together, we beat back Michael's hordes right down to the bitter end. When you fell, I fell. When you rose up in that lake of fire, I was right there by your side, still defiant, still proud, opposing God at every turn. I loved you... as my master, just as you

once loved yours. But, along the way, the lines got blurred, didn't they? Well, there were no more rallying cries, no more odes of vindication, no more black, no more white. Just endless, endless shades of gray. What happened to you? Did you get tired? Or just ... bored?" During that speech, Bradley does a really good job of conveying Belial's disillusionment and feeling of betrayal, much in the same way Gabriel felt about God, and also his disappointment at how Lucifer is no longer the person he once knew. Tired of

all this complex morality, he intends to create a new Hell that will, "Restore the balance again, to make it like it was when there were saints... and true demons, and you could actually tell one from the other. I just want it all to make sense again, nothing more." He then tries to persuade Allison that this would be a good thing and to give him the Lexicon, but when Dani tries to convince her not to do so, Belial retaliates by telling her who he is, reminding her of what he did to her and their parents so that there's no chance she'll trust him. And when that doesn't win her

over, either, he resorts to good old fashioned threats, though Lucifer tells her that he can't make a move on her as long as she's in the house. Belial is even more disgusted when Lucifer tells Allison that he's not interested in the Lexicon, commenting, "Oh, brilliant. You're not even going for the win now? How pathetic. Great Satan himself and he's playing for the draw?" He next tries to get Allison to give him the book by noting that, while he may not be able to make a move against her in the house, she will have stay in there for however long it takes with the devil himself.

That's when Dani pulls out his gun and points it at Belial. He laughs at this at first, and when Dani tells him of his plan to kill Laurel's body then himself, trapping him in-between hosts, which he can't survive, Belial notes, "Well, you know what they say about suicide, my friend: go straight to Hell, do not pass go." He's further amused when Dani makes it clear that he would do it, then lunges at him, only to get shot down. Forced out of Laurel, he briefly possesses Dani, only for Allison to kill him, and then heads for Lucifer, who absorbs him into himself.

Despite all the other angels who've been killed off for real throughout this series, Simon manages to return here, albeit in an ethereal form, likely because they knew there was no way they were getting Eric Stoltz back. Instead, he's played by Jason London, mostly in voice, though you can see the vague shape of a face that may or may not actually be his. Just like in the first movie, while the most benevolent non-human entity, Simon is still very morally ambiguous. Most of his appearances involve him warning Allison that Belial is nearby, but she's only in danger because Simon took advantage of the fact that she has a mental illness which makes her hear voices to influence her into taking the Prophet's Lexicon, going as far as to tell her not to ignore the voices this time and that the Lexicon is all that matters to her now. In fact, during his and Belial's interaction down in the church's basement, when Belial comments, "Always good to have a monkey do your heavy lifting," when he thinks he's about to easily get the Lexicon, Simon adds, "It's just a matter of picking the right monkey," suggesting he doesn't have much more regard for humans than the malevolent angels, and sees Allison as a means to an end. Plus, he influences her to go to the Securitate country house, the very place where, as a little girl, she was separated from her parents and could've been tortured to death herself, so she can be under the protection of the devil. Even if it's the only place nearby where Belial couldn't touch her or get the Lexicon, that's still a pretty awful thing to put her through. And am I the only one who's creeped out when Simon says, "That's my girl," to her during their first "interaction?"

This is the role I think they could've easily had Gabriel fill, especially since, if they'd stuck with their plan as it is, they would've only had to pay Christopher Walken to do the voice (unless even that would've been too costly). Even though Gabriel was redeemed at the end of the previous film, given the way angels have been portrayed throughout this series, I don't think it would've gone against the grain too much for him to take advantage of a mentally unstable woman and have her keep the Prophet's Lexicon safe. Plus, I still find it weird that Simon is able to come back, even if it's in an ethereal form, given how all the other angels who had their hearts ripped out seemed to have been erased from existence (save for Gabriel, who was expelled from Hell).

As he often does in films where he provides the makeup effects, Gary J. Tunnicliffe has a cameo here as the cab driver whom Allison convinces to take her to the country house. (He's also said that he was the reason why Doug Bradley was cast as Laurel.) And even though he doesn't appear onscreen, Joseph the coroner does briefly have a presence here when Dani speaks with him in an internet chat, asking the significance behind bodies who've had their hearts ripped out (this moment marks the only connection

between this and the previous movies). We can deduce that it's him because the chatroom is called "CORONER'S ROOM," and the username is JOSEPH_1995, not to mention because of his knowledge on the subject and when he refers to the "entities" in question as angels, saying, "All angels are terrifying." I was initially confused as to how he knows that ripping out the hearts makes the bodies uninhabitable by angels, since all of the bodies Joseph examined in the previous movies were of angels themselves, but he could've likely studied up on it. Much to Dani's frustration, Joseph leaves him hanging when he logs off in the middle of their conversation because, "My African violets are calling."

Sorry if you're getting tired of it, but I can't help but continue making comparisons to Hellraiser: Deader, as so much about this film reminds me of it. Besides what I've already mentioned, I would've bet money that it was shot by the same cinematographer, as it has much of that same dreary, overcast feel, with lots of blue in the picture to give off a feeling of it being cold and miserable. It turns out I was almost right: while cinematographer Gabriel Kosuth didn't shoot Deader, he was the cinematographer on Hellworld, which

does share some of this same visual aesthetic. While I'm not the biggest fan of this look, as, while it does have the effect they were going for, I also think it comes off as generic and cheap-looking, as well as makes it kind of hard to see in certain sequences (like the climax at the country house), I'd be lying if I said there was absolutely nothing of value in Uprising's cinematography. There are moments of lovely daylight, both broad daylight and lovely sunsets and sunrises, sprinkled throughout that break up the

dreariness, and the scenes inside Father Constantin's church are quite lovely, both in the actual chapel and down in the basement. The latter looks especially nice during the scene between Belial and Simon, thanks to the light coming down the stairs and the orange glow being put off by Simon. The church's exteriors also look really nice, accentuated by the whites and grays in the palette, as well as the snow on the ground. And there are some well-done shots within the country house, with shafts of moonlight coming through the windows (again, very reminiscent of images from both Deader and Hellworld), and a good use of shadows and darkness in some scenes. 

As for Joel Soisson's direction, he starts the movie off in a manner very different from the previous ones, with the Dimension Films logo being altered to match the "stock footage" that opens it (I don't know if all or most of it is actual stock footage, or if it was entirely created for the film), complete with a degraded, sepia-like look to the color, as well as film scratches and grain. There's also an eerie quality to the way the camera pushes in during this opening to show Lucifer standing among the officials, tipping you off from the get-go that he isn't what he seems. And when it cuts

to the modern day, it focuses on Dani's mud-covered windshield, with the wipers cleaning it as we see it both from the outside and on the inside, obscuring our first look at him, which we don't get until a few minutes later, when he confronts Serban in the churchyard. Soisson also shoots certain scenes to make them come off as just that little bit more impactful. When Clara sees "Carmen" being attacked by dogs, it's done mostly in close-ups of both Clara as she runs over to help and the dogs' vicious, snarling faces, as well as a bit of slow-motion and wide shots

of the attack and Clara running over. Similarly when Dani and Riegert arrive on the crime scene where Serban's body is found, there's a notable low-angle shot on the latter, much more so than on Dani, and some notable shots from up very high. And when Belial jumps from Clara to Florin, we see a close-up of their hands as, first, Florin's goes limp, followed by hers as she's left lifeless, and then, Florin's hand twitches and returns to life as Belial takes control. But it's during the first scene at the country house where  

things get especially creative. When Dani walks into the room where everyone was tortured, the past begin to appear in very quick, blink and you'll miss them flashes. And then, suddenly, Dani finds himself standing within the vision itself, with everything now looking a bit overexposed, as shots of the torture go back and forth from long, lingering close-ups to very kinetic flashes where you almost can't perceive what you saw. The close-ups of Dani as he sees this has the camera circling around him, getting into how his  

mind is likely whirling from these visions, and he flees the room in slow-motion. When he next remembers the day when he turned his parents in, it's also done in a slightly overexposed manner and slow-mo that,admittedly, comes off as melodramatic, but it leads to a very nice, smooth transition from a close-up of young Dani's eyes back to adult Dani in the present. Allison witnessing these visions during the climax is done even more interestingly, as it swings back and forth between her seemingly being in the

flashback to the present but with the specters still all around her. And when Lucifer tells Dani the specifics of what's going on and how it involves his sister, it's shot with a combination of distant wide and high up shots, to close-ups of them as they talk, interspersed with Allison leaving the funeral home where Father Constantin's body is being kept.

However, there are certain visuals that give away the movie's very low budget nature, with even the opening credits themselves having a cheapn, almost PowerPoint presentation to them. When Serban realizes Dani is stalking him, there are some shots of him running in a very overexposed, slow manner that I think is meant to be Lucifer's POV as he follows him, but it doesn't look good at all, and there are also those time-lapse-like shots of the clouds rolling through the sky and traffic moving through the city, which also comes off as a cheap, easy way of doing a

transition. And like The Prophecy II, I'm sure there's at least one instance where Uprising uses a shot from another movie, only in this case it is, I kid you not, from Deader. When the Belial-possessed Clara kills Gloria, it very quickly transitions to a split-second shot from that movie of Marla seemingly dead in her apartment, with the milky white eyes, pale skin, and the rope around her neck (Rick Bota is given a "special thanks" credit, which can't be a coincidence).

Also like Deader (I'm going to try to make this the last reference, but I make no promises), Uprising does take advantage of its being set and shot entirely in Bucharest. For one, as much as I did enjoy the West Coast and desert settings of the previous movies, it does make for a needed change of scenery since, as I said in my review of The Prophecy 3, things were starting to get a tad stale. For another, it gives this one an almost Gothic flavor, with its really old, elegant churches, snow-covered graveyards, and the spooky, dark Securitate country house, as well as a definite

exotic feel with the look of certain places, like Allison's apartment building, the park where Clara comes across the possessed Carmen, and the cold city streets. Plus, there are nice little touches that you likely wouldn't get anywhere else, like cutaways to angel statues atop various buildings, the decidedly European-style taxi cabs and police cars featured throughout, and, at the first crime scene at the church, a priest who's constantly hitting a wooden plank in a rhythmic manner. You also get a look at the really

harsh side of the place, with the movie opening in what can best be called slums, with makeshift homes and settlements from the ruins of buildings that were seemingly bombed, and another spot where you see homeless people roaming about, with trash and rubble on the ground, and the surrounding buildings looking rundown or even condemned. And, most notably, the film uses Romania's history as part of its story, with the harsh and cruel acts committed by the Communist regime and the Securitate still resonating long after it was abolished, both within the characters and the setting itself.

As I've already mentioned, the interior of the church where Father Constantin presides is truly beautiful and elegant, thanks to a mixture of the great, old architecture and the look created by the blue lighting coming in from outside and the golden glow from the candles inside. The basement, where Constantin goes to look over the Lexicon, is a bit spookier, made completely from stone, with a room that has a podium as its centerpiece, and a hidden passageway in the wall leading to another room where the Lexicon is hidden beneath a sort of stone settee. Another church,

where Serban is found dead, also looks quite nice and elegant on the outside, but when Dani and the others investigate the spot from where he was thrown, it's a much more cluttered, dark attic area. There's also something of an interesting contrast between the city's past and the modern era, with how, while looking fairly old-fashioned on the outside, Allison's apartment has a more contemporary feel, and the same goes for the hotel where she briefly stays before the third act. The police station is an absolutely

enormous building, with the bottom floor full of workstations and spots where civilians speak with police officers, a row of seats that make up the waiting area, and interrogation rooms across from all of that, while a modern spiraling staircase leads up to the other floors. By the same token, though, the police station is where we see how dated the movie is by today's standard in terms of technology, with Dani speaking to Joseph using an old-fashioned chatroom that screams of America Online and the days of dial

up. Like I said, the city streets are put to good use throughout the film, particularly in the third act, when Dani and Lucifer are trying to find Belial, but also when the two of them are patrolling during the day and when Allison is roaming them, trying to stay ahead of whoever is after her.

The most memorable setting in the movie is the Securitate country house, an elegant but old and abandoned mansion miles outside the city, where horrific atrocities were committed under the Communist regime. You see it both in the present, when it's dark, spooky, and haunted in more ways than one, and in flashbacks to the past, when it was in operation. The downstairs area is where the torture and horrific experiments were performed on those accused of being enemies of the state, like Dani's parents, in rooms that look clean, white, and creepily

sterile, at least before the walls and floor are soaked in blood. Upstairs were the more elegant offices and waiting rooms, but no less hideous events took place there, like Dani's family being torn apart while he watched, and chaos erupting when the regime was toppled, ending with the man in charge putting a gun in his mouth. Fittingly, it's also the setting for the final confrontation. Even the vast countryside around the house is memorable in how it gets across just how isolated it is from the main city, a feeling driven home in those big wide shots of Dani and Lucifer speaking.

There's no denying that Uprising is the most horror-centric film in the series up to this point, taking a diversion from the more action-fantasy direction of the previous two, and leaning more into it than even the first one. It's much darker and more somber in comparison, thanks mainly to the dreary look, the setting, our rather nasty protagonist, and there not being much overt humor, apart from Lucifer and Belial's dryer, British type (Gabriel not being here to provide any of his one-liners or quirkiness has quite the effect). It's also gorier than the previous ones, with

the kills and their aftermaths being more explicit, and then, there's the subject matter of Romania's Communist past and how certain individuals were put through horrific means of torture, not unlike what happened in Nazi Germany. The scene where Dani sees what happened at the country house is full of all kinds of grisly and unsettling imagery, from close-ups of tools of torture and the head of the Securitate, Treptow, coldly watching it all, sometimes with a very satisfied expression on his face, to very quick

shots of people's fingers getting ripped off with pliers, hands getting mashed under shoes, pins being forced into faces, and some getting their brains blown out while they're tied up and unable to defend themselves. When you then add in the backstory of Dani having given his family away to the Securitate, which you see play out before his eyes, his finding an old photograph of them on the floor, which Lucifer says must've been ripped from his mother's hand, and being faced with both their and their tormentors' apparitions, you've got the heaviest subject matter we've seen in this franchise since Col. Hawthorne's war crimes in the first one.

This film also keeps the depiction of angels and similar beings in the previous movies pretty much intact, right down to the abilities they've shown before, along with some new ones, like how Belial is able to instantly kill Gloria by supposedly showing her what the next life is like. However, it downplays their physical strength and agility, likely because they didn't have the budget to really show it off (thus, the heart-rippings happen offscreen and you only see the grisly aftermaths), as well as their heightened sense of smell. An interesting new bit of lore is alluded to with

Belial, who rips the hearts out of his former human hosts, something we have seen yet in these films. It's said to make them uninhabitable by other angels and the like but according to Lucifer, if you don't do that, the body will also remain alive even though the soul has been discarded. What exactly this entails is never expanded upon but, according to him, it's not a pretty sight. The possession angle and the heart-ripping suggests that's how angels and the like manifest on Earth in the first place, further expounding upon the notion that what we're not seeing what they actually

look like. It's further reinforced not only when both Lucifer and Belial comment on how limited they are at the moment, and Lucifer promising Dani that he will see what he really looks like at some point, but in a blink and you'll miss it moment in the scene where Belial, while possessing Clara, talks with Gloria and motions with his left hand; if you look at the shadow on the wall behind him, you can see it's that of a wing. That also suggests that fallen angels like him and Lucifer still retain some of their true angelic

form, but now look much more sinister. And while it's never explained, I would assume the reason why Belial has to constantly body-hop when he's on Earth, rather than stay in one permanent form like Lucifer and previous angels, is a result of him rebelling against Lucifer. Either that, or this is just Belial's own personal nature outside of Hell.

Like the previous ones, this isn't an extremely gory movie, but like I said, there is much more of the red stuff than before, thanks to Gary Tunnicliffe and his makeup effects studio, Two Hours in the Dark. This time around, the shots of the bodies with their hearts ripped out are much gnarlier, with bloody holes in the chest cavities and grisly close-ups of some of the removed hearts, as well as a homeless man who cut off two of his fingers, a bit of gross-out when the possessed Ion has something of a seizure and slightly throws up, and, as I've already described, some very 

nasty tortures committed by the Securitate. As for the visual effects, Uprising, unlike the previous film, knows it can't afford to go overboard with them and so, uses them sparingly. Some of the most overt examples are Simon and Belial's ethereal forms and when Lucifer explodes into a flock of crows at the very end, none of which look great but are still far from the absolute worst digital effects I've ever seen. That said, when Belial leaves Ion, he emerges from

his mouth as a slimy, bat-like creature that, thankfully, is only onscreen for a few seconds, as the CGI there does look really bad. But other than that, the digital work is mostly used for some instances of morphing, such as when Belial kills Gloria, to create the otherworldly POV shots, the shots of the words appearing on the Lexicon's pages, and to alter the environment during the visions at the country house.

Despite some good performances, admirable technical aspects, and stand-out scenes, what ultimately sinks The Prophecy: Uprising is that it just doesn't do a good job of keeping your attention. The story is rather hard to follow the first time around, what with the disparate plot threads of Dani and Riegert investigating some grisly murders, Allison wandering throughout Bucharest on the orders of Simon's voice, and a body-hopping entity chasing after her. Even when it all comes together, along with the subplot of Dani and Allison being siblings, and Dani seeking

forgiveness for what he did to his family, there's no real feeling of urgency or drama to it, and it can also be hard to pinpoint what exactly is at stake. The feeling of disconnect from the previous movies, both here and in the fifth movie, also makes it hard to really care, since you no longer have Gabriel and it's unclear how any of this is connected to the war in Heaven from before. You can easily assume the war is what Belial is referring to when he complains about the lines being blurred to the point where Satan himself has taken on a gray morality, but since it was

finally ended in the previous movie, the sudden introduction of the Prophet's Lexicon and its being an unfinished Book of Revelations that's constantly being written, a variation of something we already saw in the first movie which was tied to the war, feels like a contrived way to keep the series going when it should've ended with the third one. And finally, while I appreciate the attempt to make this more of a horror film than the previous ones, it results in this being probably the least exciting of the whole series. As I've

said, due to the low budget, you're not going to get any of the fight and chase scenes you had before, save for some very brief scuffles, and the climax is more psychological than physical, and the pace is much slower overall. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's out-and-out boring, but it's hardly thrilling, either.

Another disconnect from the previous films is how none of the original music themes and cues are used; instead, Joseph LoDuca, who started out scoring the original Evil Dead films and has since done the music for many direct-to-video films and television shows, creates an entirely original score. I would say it does help give the film its own musical identity but, save for a couple of themes here and there, the music isn't that memorable. Aside from the hymn being sung in the church at the beginning, the pieces that stick with me the most are this okay soft rock tune that plays over the first half of the ending credits and this rather eerie piece that combines a woman vocalizing with some piano keys, which you hear during the ending scene and to close out the credits. Other than that, I don't have a lot to say.

While not as bad as the absolute worst of the direct-to-video Hellraiser movies, The Prophecy: Uprising is definitely the franchise's low point. On the plus side, it does benefit from John Light's portrayal of Lucifer and Doug Bradley, some good cinematography and camerawork, a nice change of scenery with the move to Bucharest, a bit more gore than we've seen before, and more of an emphasis on horror than any of the previous ones, but at the same time, it often comes off as very cheap, a lot of the

characters, including the protagonist, leave a lot to be desired, the music is pretty ho-hum, and the story can be hard to follow and has none of the action sequences you've likely come to expect from this series. But above all else, there was no need for this film, as The Prophecy 3, all its many flaws aside, ended the story and brought Gabriel's character arc full-circle. This just comes off as especially soulless and an attempt to squeeze just a bit more money out of a series that wasn't all that high-profile to begin with. In the end, this is the first Prophecy that I can't say I truly recommend, no matter what it has going for it.