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Villain Overview

Out there, is a mindless, merciless creature of destruction... She will find you.
~ Narrator from a TV spot of Prophecy.

Katahdin is the main antagonist in the 1979 horror film, Prophecy and the 1979 horror novel of the same name.

She was portrayed by Tom McLoughlin, the late Kevin Peter Hall and Charles Flemmer, and her vocal sound effects were provided by Frank Welker.

Biography[]

Film[]

Katahdin is a horrifically mutated grizzly bear who has grown to abnormal size. It is believed that her parents consumed fish contaminated with Inorganic Methyl mercury, which caused the mutation of this monster when she was still in the womb (which in turn happens to Katahdin's own offspring). She was named by Hector M'Rai, the oldest person in the local American Indian tribes, and mistaken for an ancient spirit angered by the logging activity on the mountain.

The dangerous beast is unusually large for a grizzly bear, and her face and body are hideously deformed. Katahdin is also mentally deranged and hostile, impulsively mauling anyone she comes across. She is drawn to her cubs, which is what causes her to pursue the protagonists throughout the film. After killing the bulk of the main cast, she is finally stabbed with an American Indian arrow and dies drowned in a lake; however, another Katahdin (the cubs' father) appears just before the end credits.

Novel[]

Originally a black bear, Katahdin is a bizarre and horrible creature who is an amalgamation of all the creatures of the forest, being "a part of everything created" as described by Hector M'Rai, who like in the movie, baptized her with that name, confusing her with one of the legends of his tribe. Her origin is the same as in the movie, being created by inorganic methyl mercury ingested by her mother by eating fish contaminated with it, with the difference that the different stages of her fetus state (basing on the recapitulation theory) were mixed into one which gave her her final appearance. She is as large and also mentally deranged as in the movie, impulsively mauling anyone she comes across, but yet she also has an "animal side," hunting and cannibalizing a black bear and eating parts of a family of campers (different to her filmic counterpart, that is only seen killing humans and non-forest animals such as dogs). As in the movie, she persues the protagonists because of her affection to her cubs, and after killing most of them, she finally dies from being repeatedly shot, sinking in a lake; nevertheless, six more monsters, one bigger than the other five, were seen prowling around the forest by a forest ranger.

Appearance[]

In the film, Katahdin has the appearance of a giant bear that walks on two-legs and has half of her body mutated to a high degree. The accidentally ingested methylmercury in her mother's womb during the gestation deformed her until becoming what she ended up being. On her right side, Katahdin has an appearance similar to a common bear, except she is missing fur in some sections such as on her arm, back and legs. She also has a brown-ish gray colored eye, her neck connected to her hump and has a twisted back. Unlike her right side, which was fortunate to maintain most of her original appearance, her left side was drastically altered by the methylmercury. She lost her fur, which is now replaced by skin turned into deformed pink-ish red colored flesh running from her head to her waist, which looks melted and that bears some resemblance to the keloid scars caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs. On this side she also lacks of her eye, has her lips stretched, her ear deformed and her upper mammary glands transferred to her stomach, remaining on top of the lower ones. One of the most remarkable things about Katahdin is her immense size, standing 10.5 feet tall, considerably taller than a normal grizzly bear, which stands 7 feet tall on two-legs.

As stated previously, in the novel, despite being a black bear, Katahdin is physically an amalgamation of all the forest creatures. With no official illustration, she is described as having a bird-like appearance, black fur, pink-ish colored skin, large saucer-like eyes, needle-like sharp teeth, bat-like membranes between arms and legs, webbed hands, hooked claws, and big breasts. She is also estimated to be 15 feet tall, being larger than her filmic counterpart.

Powers, Abilities and Weaknesses[]

Film[]

  • Strong Hind-legs: Unlike normal bears, Katahdin is able to walk upright on two-legs for extensive amounts of time without tiring, and she knows how to use her hind-legs, as besides walking she can run without losing her balance or even trip. This frees up her fore-paws to grasp for prey, though it is unknown if she can travel very fast, I.e quadrupedal (4-legged) galloping, but it is mostly likely that she cannot due to her consistent standing posture.
  • Strength and Resistance: Katahdin possesses enormous strength, which makes her very dangerous. A single swipe of her paw can throw a human to a great distance, knock down a tree, break part of a cabin and knock over a jeep. Katahdin also has great resistance, mainly due to her mutated skin that became an almost impenetrable mass. Her head withstands a rifle shot and being repeatedly stabbed with an arrow, while her body withstands shots from the same weapons, being partially indestructible, though she can still feel pain and bleed.
  • Fangs and Claws: Although she doesn't use them much, Katahdin's fangs and claws are dangerous weapons. With her fangs she is able to rip a human's head off, as with Huntoon, or gut it with them, as with Bethel Isely. She is also capable of killing a human with them by bitting it from the sides of the body, as with Hector M'Rai. Meanwhile, with her claws she is able to knock a human unconscious merely by half-slashing its forehead, as with Huntoon (besides throwing him to the ground), and kill it by mauling its face, as with sheriff Bartholomew Pilgrim and John Hawks, the latter out of a paw swipe. Her claws are also so sharp that the marks she made on trees were too deep for a normal bear to have made them from doctor Robert Verne's perspective.
  • Intellect: Katahdin is not a simple killing machine. She adores her cubs, and woe is all who stand between her and her babies. She will hold a deep hatred for her cub's abductors and anyone invading her turf, relentlessly tracking them and using various tactics like stealth to get close to them. She also knows to stand still and shut up until her prey is within striking distance, unlike typical monsters who roar constantly. This suggests she can indeed think and strategize, even stalking her victims, as with the Nelson family, changing her apparent behavior from nocturnal to diurnal to track them and using distractions like her own dead cub to get them, as with Bethel Isely.
  • Eye: Katahdin has very good eye vision, being able to see in total darkness at night, and/or see her victims from long distances. However, her eye can be briefly weakened by flashing lights during the night, and perhaps doesn't recognize humans if there's no movement, as with Hector M'Rai during the camp attack, who she probably didn't attack by staying still and not moving from his place while she pursued the rest of the people in the camp. However, her eye's biggest weakness was being very sensitive, which caused it to shoot out of its socket when it was minced by the arrow used by Robert Verne.
  • Breath Hold/Underwater Breathing: During her pursuit of the protagonists, Katahdin walked into a lake, sinking in the process. However, bubbles appeared on the surface, which came from Katahdin herself, just before she surfaced. This suggests that Katahdin somehow held her breath underwater, or even breathed underwater.
  • Sharp Senses: Katahdin has shown that her senses are extremely keen, as she can detect her cub despite being unable to see it. She either hears its cries and/or can smell it from miles away, something she can also do with her victims, and don't think she cannot find you if you hide deep underground. Despite her missing eye, Katahdin preserves her depth perception, knowing the range of distance between her and her prey to grab or hit it.
  • Fire: Katahdin seemingly feels pain from fire or even hates it, since during two gas explosions that ignited fire during her attack on the camp, Katahdin roared both in pain and annoyance at being reached by it.
  • Drowning: During Katahdin's battle with Robert Verne, the constant stabbing with the arrow into her throat while being was unconscious in the lake impeded her from breathing, causing her to drown sinking into the lake.

Novel[]

Seemingly the same of the filmic Katahdin. Despite this, there are some variations.

  • Strength and Resistance: By being larger than her filmic counterpart, Katahdin is stronger, being able with a single paw swipe to smash a human, as with Hector M'Rai, knock humans out of a vehicle and make a jeep stand up on two wheels momentarily. Despite her larger size and increased strength, she has decreased resistance on her skin, being severely damaged by the rifle shots and arrows, even having her mouth broken by one rifle shot. It's also worth mentioning that shortly after her eye was penetrated by Robert's arrow she walked up to the lake to fall dead, apparently due to the arrow internally damaging her head.
  • Sharp Claws: Katahdin's claws are as sharp as swords, capable of severing a human's head, as with one of the search party members and Isely, splitting a human in half, as with Kelso, and disembowel a human with a single claw swipe, as with Huntoon.
  • Feet Step: Katahdin's enormous size and great weight makes her able to crush a human head with one step, as with the sheriff Bartholomew Pilgrim.

She also never stalks or has contact with fire.

Victims[]

Film[]

  • 1-4: Search party (killed off screen)
  • 5: Paul Nelson (killed)
  • 6-7: Travis and Kathleen Nelson (killed off screen)
  • 8: Kelso (hit, later killed off screen)
  • 9: An Indian (thrown into fire, later killed off screen)
  • 10: Another Indian (killed off screen)
  • 11: Sheriff Bartholomew Pilgrim (killed)
  • 12: Bethel Isely (disemboweled)
  • 13: Huntoon (decapitated)
  • 14: Hector M'Rai (killed)
  • 15: John Hawks (killed)

Novel[]

Note: There are some other non-confirmed victims and deaths, but these are the ones that have been added and changed from the movie.

  • 1: Black bear (eaten)
  • 2-5: Search party (killed, one decapitated)
  • 6-9: Kathleen, Paul, Travis and Jeanine Nelson (killed and eaten)
  • 10: Deputy (killed)
  • 11: Kelso (slashed in half)
  • 12: Sheriff Bartholomew Pilgrim (head smashed)
  • 13: Bethel Isely (decapitated)
  • 14: Huntoon (disemboweled)
  • 15: Hector M'Rai (smashed)
  • 16: John Hawks (impaled)

Trivia[]

  • For the film, Katahdin was originally planned to be an amalgamation of all forest creatures (though being a mercury-poisoned bear), even having a design ready, planned to be 15 feet tall. However, there was no special effects artist who was convinced with the design. Rick Baker was called in and he said the design sucked and that he wasn't interested in doing it. Later Stan Winston was called and he said he would do it, but if he redesigned it, and he also asked for a lot of money, so the studio did not budge. Finally, Tom Burman was called in, and he said that the design was not going to work, nor would it work as a 15 feet tall suit, so he proposed a redesign, saying he could turn it into "a horrendous looking bear, slightly normal-looking on one side and all messed up on the other." After making a mock-up, the studio liked it and approved the redesign, being the final design used in the movie.
    • According to David Seltzer, the script writer of the movie, the change of Katahdin's design was the thing that made him part ways from the movie. As is evident, the idea of the original design, which was described as being made by Picasso by Tom Burman and as an evolutionary throwback by music composer Leonard Rosenman, was reused by David for the film's novel adaptation. While they apparently are the same design, according to Leonard the original concept had wings, while the novel's description has bat-like membranes. These two designs could also be the description from the movie's trailer, as they share some details like the 15 feet tall size and the huge eyes, which are inconsistent with the final movie's design.
  • Katahdin's name comes from Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain on the state of Maine. The name "Katahdin" means "Great Mountain," and was possibly used in relation to her size and the story being set in Maine. Also, curiously, parts of the novel describe Katahdin as a mountainous shadow, perhaps as a little reference to Mount Katahdin.
  • In the film, despite Bethel Isely and Hector M'Rai giving descriptions of the appearance of the Katahdin spirit from the Indians' legends, Katahdin's true appearance has no resemblance with them. This is a plot hole, as besides describing it Hector said to have seen Katahdin, but refers to the mutant bear as Katahdin.
    • This was probably because the film's script was not changed after Katahdin's redesign and David's departure.
  • In both the film and the novel, Hector M'Rai calls Katahdin a "he" and not a "she," when she is actually female, though this could be because of the confusion with the spirit of his tribe's legends.
  • Katahdin was portrayed in the film by three suits; a main one of 7 feet for Tom and Charles, another one used in water scenes, and a big one of 10.5 feet for Kevin, puppets of the head and arms and another head puppet used in a water scene. The 7-foot suit was used in most scenes, sometimes in solo shots, sometimes in close-ups. This suit was also used in a lot of shots that depended on camera angles for scale, besides that in distant shots where Katahdin is attacking the characters, dummies smaller than a normal human were used. A suit similar to this one and of the same size was only used in the lake scene when Katahdin gets in and emerges from the water, and also used when Katahdin falls to the water breaking the dock. The 10.5 foot suit was used for the scenes where the monster was interacting with the actors, this suit representing the actual size of the monster. The head and arm puppets were used in close-ups or shots where only the monster's arms are visible. Finally, the other head puppet was only used in the scene where Rob stabs Katahdin until she drowns in the water. Even though the suits and the puppet parts tried to maintain the monster's appearance consistent, several differences between them can be seen.
    • This was mainly noticed by Tom Burman between the main and big suits, as the 10.5 foot suit was done by Jack Shafton's company and not by him. Ironically, people that watched the film didn't noticed that there are actually three suits and puppet parts being used, always reffering to Katahdin only as a single suit.
    • There's no information about the water suit and puppet parts, despite being seen in the movie and some production pictures.
  • Katahdin has been product of some misconceptions throughout the years, mainly by being part of a not-so known movie. Some sources state that Katahdin's original concept was close to the design of the film's poster art, but that director John Frankenheimer changed it to be more bear-like. This is false as, as mentioned before, the original concept had an amalgamation appearance and Tom Burman proposed the bear-like redesign. Other sources state several details related to her mutated appearance, such as the deformed skin being a source of pain or discomfort, having freezed parts due to the gestation period and her organs being deformed and out of their original positions. These details are never implied in the film, so they're very likely to be false. Some of these sources also state that Katahdin is 15 feet tall in the film, which is inaccurate as, even though her size isn't mentioned, she never seems to reach that height despite her size being somewhat inconsistent from scene to scene. Only the trailer and a poster of the film describe her as being 15-feet tall, and as mentioned before, that description is inconsistent to her appearance in the film. Some other sources also identify Katahdin and the male Katahdin from the ending of the film as the same creature, which is incorrect as the male Katahdin has physical differences with Katahdin herself, having wet fur, a skull-like face, smaller ears, a different eye and also emits slightly different roars from Katahdin's.
  • In three shots of the movie Katahdin's mutated side (left) can be seen as her right side. This is due to these shots actually being horizontally flipped.
  • Katahdin was dearly nicknamed "Barbara" and "Pizza Bear" by the staff of the film.
  • Katahdin is mentioned by director John Frankenheimer in a comment he did of the film and its not very good reputation, where he added "I don't think our monster was very frightening," probably referring to how people made fun of Katahdin's appearance.

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