Prophecy - Quotes | Moviefone

A Warning of a Coming Threat

Taglines: [from TV spot] She is alive and will grow to be 15 feet tall. With teeth and talons that are razor sharp, with flesh twisted and warped. She will kill. She will find you.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

A Man-Made Creature of Destruction

Taglines: [from trailer] It is not an offspring of witchcraft or Satan. It was created by man. It will grow to be 15 feet tall. It will have huge eyes, webbed hands, hooked claws. It will walk upright. And it will mindlessly, mercilessly, kill every living thing it meets.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Monster Within: A Cinematic Exploration

Taglines: The Monster Movie.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Silent Threat: The Unseen Pursuer

Taglines: She Lives. Don't Move. Don't Breathe. She Will Find You.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Seeking Help from the Village

Robert: Can these people help us?

Hawks: They can send someone from the village.

Robert: Send them. Tell them to get people here. I want people to see this. Is there a newspaper in town?

Hawks: Yes.

Robert: Get them here with a camera... and people from that paper mill... and that sheriff.

Hawks: Not that sheriff. I can't do that.

Robert: Hawks! He'll see the truth here and you have more here at stake in this truth than I have.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Forest Killings Prompt Urgent Action by Authorities

Robert: What's going on here?

Isley: There were more killings in the forest last night. We're not waiting for any more.

Robert: Who was killed?

Isley: [referring to the dismembered campers] A family up at Mary's Bend.

Robert: [referring to John Hawks and the people of the Indian village] What makes you think these people had anything to do with it?

Isley: They're guilty as hell, Vern.

Sheriff: [speaking through his megaphone] I want the following people to step forward as their names are read! John Hawks!

Robert: Where's the evidence?

Isley: The evidence is at the hospital! It's in baskets!

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Mutations and Their Unforeseen Consequences

Maggie: Jumps the placental barrier. What does that mean?

Robert: [referring to methylmercury] It's a mutagen.

Maggie: A mutagen. What is that?

Robert: Freakism! Freakism! That's what's been going on out there. That's why there's a goddamn salmon five feet long, and a tadpole the size of what a bullfrog should be! And stillbirths.

Maggie: What?

Robert: That's what that Indian woman said. And deformed children. And God knows what else has been going on out there.

Maggie: So if a pregnant animal ate some fish, it could—

Robert: Yes. My God. Is it possible?

Maggie: Yes.

Robert: The size of a dragon.

Maggie: What?

Robert: The size of a dragon. Isn't that what Isley said at the airport? And something about eyes, cat's eyes. And the old man, the Indian. Didn't he describe that creature as being a... part of everything in God's creation? Isn't that what he said?

Maggie: Yes.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Contamination and Its Effects on the Community

Maggie: Rob, what is it?

Robert: It's methylmercury poisoning, that's what it is. This whole place has been contaminated.

Maggie: How do you know?

Robert: The Indians eat the fish, and they behave like they're drunk when they haven't had a drop of liquor. That raccoon convulsing and turning vicious, its brain turned to mush. Even that old man, that Indian, you saw the burns on his fingers.

Maggie: Is that from mercury?

Robert: It's from cigarettes; the reason he didn't feel it is from mercury. You see, it acts on the nervous system; it destroys the brain.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Trust and Doubt in Uncertain Situations

Maggie: [referring to Bethel Isley] I believe him.

Robert: Why?

Maggie: Why would he have offered to let you test the water?

Robert: Maybe it wasn't in the water.

Maggie: Huh?

Robert: Maybe it's heavier than the water. That silvery stuff on your boot... is it dry?

Maggie: Yes.

Robert: They gave us a trick question in medical school. What's the only liquid in the world that isn't wet?

Maggie: What was the answer?

Robert: Mercury.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Enchantment of a Hidden Paradise

M'Rai: This camp is as the old people did it. I'm teaching these young people so that someone here will remember. There are underground tunnels beneath the frost line to store perishables. The forest provides more food than a man could possibly need. Here, everything grows big—real big.

Robert: Well, I saw a salmon that, uh, took my breath away.

M'Rai: It is the garden of Eden. I've let no one come here. You are the first to see it.

Maggie: It's magical.

Hawks: We were once a magical people.

Ramona: It's true. When I was a child, every rock, every tree had a story. The whole forest was filled with legends.

Maggie: We heard about one of them.

Ramona: Yes?

Maggie: Uh, katydah, something.

Ramona: Katahdin.

M'Rai: Katahdin is no legend.

Ramona: My grandfather is the oldest person in our tribe. It's his duty to foster these beliefs.

M'Rai: I have seen him.

Maggie: And what does he look like?

M'Rai: He is part of all things created. And he bears a mark of each of God's creatures.

Maggie: You say that with great affection.

M'Rai: He has awakened to protect us.

Struggles Against Environmental and Health Crisis

Hawks: The environment is us. And it's being mangled. And I'm gonna make something very clear to you. My people are violently ill. They're beginning to lose their faculties. They stagger and they fall, and this has nothing to do with alcohol, as these villagers claim. My people are fishermen; their lives are clean.

Ramona: I'm a midwife, and I've seen children born dead, born deformed.

Hawks: So badly, some have had to be put to death.

Ramona: Three times we have been to the Government, and three times they've turned us away.

Hawks: You see, the end of this forest is the end of my people. Don't talk about the environment as though it had nothing to do with us.

Conflict Between Law and Justice

Isley: [referring to Dr. Robert Verne and Maggie] These people are from the Environmental Protection Agency. I'd appreciate being let through.

Hawks: No car from the lumber company gets through here.

Isley: This is against the law, John.

Hawks: The law has not brought justice.

Isley: The Supreme Court has issued a restraining order against this blockade.

Hawks: And which Supreme Court is that, Mr. Isley?

Isley: The Supreme Court of the United States.

Hawks: Yes, we've tried that Supreme Court. Now we're going to one that's higher.

Teaching Tradition and Abundance in Nature

Hector M'Rai: This camp is as the old people did it. I'm teaching these young people so that someone here will remember. There are underground tunnels beneath the frost line to store perishables. The forest provides more food than a man could possibly need. Here, everything grows big—real big.

Environmental Impact on Community Health

John Hawks: The environment is us. And it's being mangled. And I'm gonna make something very clear to you. My people are violently ill. They're beginning to lose their faculties. They stagger and they fall, and this has nothing to do with alcohol, as these villagers claim. My people are fishermen; their lives are clean.

Defending Nature Over Personal Safety

John Hawks: I'm gonna tell you right now!! You cut my head off before you cut these trees!!

Evolutionary Stages and Genetic Corruption in Fetuses

Dr. Robert Verne: A developing fetus goes through certain distinct phases. Each phase represents a specific stage of evolution. A human fetus, for instance. At one stage, it's a fish. It looks like a fish; it's got fins and gills. At another, it's amphibian—webbed hands; at another, reptilian; at another, it's feline—developing upward in the distinct shapes and phases of the evolutionary scale. If this chemical, methylmercury, adheres to the DNA—DNA's a chromosomal fixative—it could freeze certain parts at one evolutionary stage, while the other parts continue growing. A pregnant animal ingests the fish, and it corrupts the fetus to a point where it gives birth to a monster.

The Dangers of a Potent Neurotoxin

Dr. Robert Verne: [from the tape recorder] Described as the most potent neurotoxin of the post-World War II age. Used from 1948 to 1956 in pulping processes as a cheap and effective caustic agent that prevents algae from forming on waterlogged timber. It is also known for its mutagenic properties, concentrating in the bodies of fish and plankton-eating crustacea, affecting the fetal development of everything that ingests it. The ratio of toxin to blood level is 30% higher in the developing fetus than in the host. It was discovered, after extensive testing, that it is the only mutagen that jumps the placental barrier, concentrating in fetal blood cells, where it adheres to the DNA and corrupts the chromosomes.

The Dangers of Inorganic Methylmercury

Dr. Robert Verne: Inorganic methylmercury, known as PMT, used as a desliming agent that collects algae and prevents it from forming on preprocessed timber. Its widespread use discontinued in 1956 when evidence of its fatal effects... were seen in the deaths of 100,000 people in Minamata, Japan.