Image of the Beast (1981)

Wonderful Movie

Absolutely Brilliant!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is the third film in a four-part series. The previous movie, "A Distant Thunder", followed a young woman by the name of "Patty Myers" (Patty Dunning) up to the point where she had to make a choice between accepting "the mark" or being executed. This film essentially takes up where the last one left off with Patty making her decision and then shifting the focus to three other people: "David Michaels" (William Wellman Jr.), "Kathy" (Susan Plumb) and "Leslie" (Wenda Shereos). Not only do each of them have tough choices to make but the situations get much more difficult as "the tribulation" continues. Now, while a couple of the interpretations concerning this period may seem a bit out-dated, the main prophecies are still quite possible. For example, the emergence of a "world church" which replaces Christian gospel with ecumenical humanism is already taking root. Same thing with the advent of a "mark" in the form of a bar-code or microchip to replace paper currency and to provide easily retrieved personal data whenever necessary. The technology is already present and it could easily be used for all kinds of reasons. For example, it could practically eliminate counterfeiting and identity theft. So who could possibly be against something like that? Christians, of course! And if they refuse to get it then the case could be made that they are "trouble-makers" who need to be dealt with. And for anyone with complete control of all media outlets that shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Be that as it may, I thought this film was pretty good. Yes, there were some scenes which could have benefited from better equipment or special effects. But the acting was surprisingly good and for a low-budget movie of this type I thought everything turned out rather well. All things considered. Overall then, I'd rate it as slightly above average.

I saw this movie many years ago when i was a teenager attend church. there have been many comments about this movie being to scary. But, if someone who watches this movie things this is scary, God help them if there are here on earth when the real Rapture happens. Because there is no movie that could ever Describe the horrors that await the ones still here. Yes the acting is bad but, your not watching a movie that was pro ducted in Hollywood with professional actors and directors and multi-million dollar budgets. There are people that have posted comments about this movie and comparing it the the left Behind books, i personally owe all of those books and have read them, i believe they are a great group of books. these books and movies with this content have lead many people to the true that Jeuse Chirst is our one and only savior.

Back in 2005 we watched in church youth group. It was pretty tense at first and all, but was really draggy throughout the rest of the movie. And that made people go in and out of the room during the movie. I think that there should have been a little more action, just like the first two. I guess it really got draggy because Patty was not in it. Image Of The Beast is the most boring Christian movie, I hate to say. They are pretty accurate with all the Biblical stuff, but it was missing the "it" factor. The only thing that was interesting and understandable was faking the mark. I would have done that too if I were them.

MORE SPOILERS!!! I dunno if this is the best in the series, because, see, all our main characters die! Except the best characters, those being Jerry and Diane--the people who went from being peace-'n'-love non-religious hippies in the first film to full-on world government agents hell-bent on frying Christians in this one. Jerry's moustache has evolved with the times--from the dirty-scruff of 1972 to the faux dirty scruff of 1978 to the nasty "ear-lock-round-the-mouth" look in this film in 1980. I love it. This film also introduces some more new characters, who all suck. The main one, a guy named David who apparently knows everything baout the Bible even though he just picked it up last year when the rapture came and memorized it or something. Oh, and he's also a hacker. Now, this is hacking from 1980, so he does it all with a calculator. When the calculator runs outta batteries--yeah, this was back before solar cells were so common--he and his woman have to try to buy some. But they need the mark of the beast to do so! Luckily for them, David figured out how to forge the mark, and make it so genuine that it taps into some soldier's account (he killed the guy--outta self defense of course--to get it). The problem is that they both have the same account in their marks, so if they go through two checkout lanes at the same time, the computer figures it out and they're in trouble. Now, why they don't just go into the store one at a time and wait for the other to come out, I have no clue. That's right--they have to try to get through within a tight window of opportunity, which is utter and complete rubbish. I love it! So, yeah, if you wanna see the third movie in a series which is focusing on zealots trying to overthrow the new world government after all the Christians disappear by hacking into their communications networks using pocket calculators in the early '80s, I recommend this one highly. Also, if you wanna learn more about the prophecy laid out in Revelation, this one's fun--Russell Doughten returns as Pastor Turner (and honestly, this guy isn't bad at all--he brings some presence and intelligence to the films)--they even got horse people with lion-teeth and crowns and scorpion tails! (all ya get to see is the tail, though, in situations that practically reproduce the landmark Land Shark skits on Saturday Night Live). Image of the Beast gets my rarely-given rating of Golden Nugget of Gold!