David Roddis | Through the Shattered Lens

The world which started to end in the 1998 film Apocalypse continues to end in its first sequel, 1999’s Revelation!

Revelation beings three months after the end of Apocalypse. The people of the world worship the president of the European Union, Franco Macalousso (Nick Mancuso, replacing Sam Bornstein from the first film). The world is ruled over by O.N.E., which stands for One Nation Earth. Those who oppose Macalousso’s claim to the messiah are known as “The Haters.” At the start of the film, a school bus has been bombed and all of the children aboard have been killed. O.N.E. claims that the Haters bombed the bus but counterterrorist agent Thorold Stone (Jeff Fahey) comes across evidence that it was actually an inside job. When Macalousso’s second-in-command, Len Parker (David Roddis), attempts to murder Thorold, he’s forced to go on the run.

The Day of Wonders is approaching. On this day, everyone on Earth is to put on a VR headset. Macalousso hasn’t made clear what the headset will do but everyone’s planning on doing it because Macalousso has told them to do it and everyone on the planet does what Macalousso says. Thorold tracks down Willy Spino (Tony Nappa), a wheelchair-bound programmer (in the 90s sense of the term, of course) who is somehow involved with setting up The Day of Wonders. Willy says that O.N.E. is not the benevolent organization that everyone thinks it is. You would have thought that Thorald would have figured that out after Parker attempted to kill him but Thorald remains convinced that Maclousso is the messiah and that his wife and daughter previously vanished not because they were Christians but because they were abducted by aliens.

Anyway, long story short, it turns out that Willy’s stepsister is Helen Hannah (Leigh Lewis), the news anchor from the first film. Helen is now a leader in the Hater underground. While she tries to convince Thorold that Macalousso is actually the Devil, Willy spends his time flirting with a cynical blind woman named Cindy (Carol Alt). Both Willy and Cindy find themselves tempted to put on the VR headset, just to see what the Day of Wonders will hold for them….

Revelation is a marked improvement on Apocalypse though, considering how shoddy the production of that first film was, that’s really not saying much. As opposed to the first film’s stiff performances and reliance on stock footage, Revelation features actual actors, actual sets, and an actual script. There’s even a few action sequences and some attempts at intentional humor. That said, if you’re a nonbeliever, Revelation isn’t going to convert you and, about halfway through the film, all of the action stops so that Thorold and Hannah can have a very long discussion about faith and whether or not God should prove his existence by turning over a glass of water.

Like the first film, Revelation actually works better as a political allegory than a religious tract. Today, it’s kind of easy to laugh at the bulky computers that fill O.N.E.’s headquarters and the scenes where Willy carefully explains what virtual reality and computer viruses are serve as a reminder that, apparently, there was a time when all of this stuff was still viewed as being somehow exotic. I mean, it’s easy to be snarky about this movie. But let’s be honest — it’s probably easier today than it was when this film was first released to imagine a world where everyone blindly does whatever the government tells them to do. And the idea of a group running a false flag operation — like blowing up a school bus and blaming it on unseen enemies — no longer seems quite as outlandish as it perhaps did it 1999.

Revelation was apparently enough of a success that it was followed by yet another sequel. This one was called Tribulation and I’ll be posting a review of it in about 15 minutes. Hope to see you then!

In the 1998 Biblical prophecy film, Apocalypse, the world ends not with a bang but with stock footage. Lots and lots of stock footage.

Admittedly, I’m being a bit snarky about Apocalypse‘s reliance on stock footage but it’s actually kind of understandable. When you’re trying to convincingly end the world on a budget, it just makes sense to borrow someone else’s footage of a plane exploding than going through the trouble (and expense) of buying a plane and blowing it up yourself. The two main characters in Apocalypse are both anchorpeople for a 24-hours new channel called WNN. Because they’re constantly reporting on the end of the world, the stock footage is portrayed as being a part of their report. That’s kind of clever but it’s also really icky. For instance, there’s a clip of a woman sobbing in front of an angry crowd. We’re told that the woman is sobbing because her relatives have mysteriously vanished but, because the footage is in focus and the camera is held steady, we know that we’re actually watching stock footage. Which means that this woman truly was crying about something but we don’t know what. It’s hard not to feel that the filmmakers essentially took her pain and used it for their own advantage. By that same token, when we’re shown people rioting in the streets and getting attacked by police, we’re told that it’s because the world is about to end but we know that there was another real reason why those people were rioting and it’s doubtful that any of those rioting people ever thought to themselves, “Hmmm….I wonder if this footage of me getting chased by the police will ever somehow appear in a propaganda film that has nothing to do with what I’m risking injury to protest about?”

The main characters of Apocalypse are Bronson Pearl (Richard Nester) and Helen Hannah (Leigh Lewis). Bronson Pearl is the most trusted man in the world. We know this because there’s a shot of a Time Magazine cover declaring that Bronson is the “Man of the Year.” (It must have been a slow year.) When the president of the European Union, Franco Macalusso (Sam Bornstein), announces that 1) he has magically vaporized every nuclear missile on the planet mere moments before Earth went up in a nuclear fireball and 2) he’s the true messiah, Bronson is enthusiastic but Helen has her doubts. Those doubts are caused by the mysterious disappearance of millions of people across the globe. One minute, they’re there. The next minute, they’ve vanished and left behind a pile of neatly folded clothes. Before Helen’s aunt disappeared, she organized a box of VHS tapes for Helen to watch. The tapes feature footage of televangelists interpreting prophecy, which of course means that it’s time for more stock footage!

Anyway, you can guess where all of this is leading. Over the course of six days, the world goes from being on the brink of nuclear war to being ruled over by Franco Macalusso. Everyone sacrifices their individual freedom so that Maclusso can keep them “safe” and Macalusso even takes over WNN and turns the news channel into his own personal propaganda outlet. In some ways, this film does feel a bit prophetic. In the years since this film was first released, news channels have become propaganda outlets and people have started to look to their political leaders as being messianic figures. In fact, I’d argue that Apocalypse works better as a warning against authoritarianism than it does as a biblical tract.

Which isn’t to say that Apocalypse actually works. This is a low-budget and stiffly acted film and, as I said before, the use of stock footage of real disasters to stand-in for fictional disasters is undeniably icky. It’s one of those films that was made for an evangelical audience and which seems to be more concerned with taunting nonbelievers than with actually trying to be dramatically convincing. Still, if your natural instinct is to distrust authority, you’ll probably find a lot to relate to in Apocalypse‘s not-quite paranoid vision of people being brainwashed into accepting dictatorship.

Or you might just view the film as being a tribute to the power and convenience of stock footage. I guess it all depends on how you look at it.