The signs of the End of Days are appearing around the world (boiling seas, ice falling from the sky), always with the same unknown wanderer (Jürgen Prochnow) nearby. In California, Abby Quinn (Demi Moore) is pregnant and emotionally unstable after an earlier miscarriage. Her husband (Michael Biehn) is working to stop the execution of a man who says he kills for God. They rent a room to that mysterious wanderer, but Abby soon feels that he is a threat to her unborn child, and maybe to much more.
It had been twenty years since Rosemary’s Baby, so Hollywood decided it was time for another look at Biblical prophecy as a metaphor for pregnancy. Since The Omen had been a hit, it opened up the Book of Revelations as a source for pilfering. So, the illegitimate child known as The Seventh Sign clawed its way into existence. If only it could be pushed back.
The Seventh Sign makes God a little nastier than other Christian Mythos horror. Here he is a fan of someone burning his parents to death because they were siblings. A strict God. Unlike most of the films on this list, Jesus is present, weeping both over the actions of man and the cruel necessity of his father. He’s also about to end the world. I would assume that should be a good thing (a happy heaven-world or so the Bible implies), but the film makes it quite clear that it is a horrible thing. And God, who apparently uses the Western calendar so Armageddon can come on leap day, first is going to play with a suicidal woman by tossing another miscarriage at her. Well, a severe God is better for horror.
Prochnow is an impressive Jesus, as long as he isn’t speaking. With his sad eyes and worn expressions, he does appear to have the sins of the world on his shoulders. Unfortunately, every line he has is unnecessary, normally repeating things we already know. If the film had focused more on him, it might have been good, but it focuses on an irritating woman.
Abby is unreasonable, scene after scene, line after line. I realize pregnant women can be unreasonable, but that doesn’t make it entertaining to watch. If I want to watch the unpleasant effects of wildly shifting hormones… Skip that, I’m never going to want to watch the unpleasant effects of wildly shifting hormones. Abby’s paranoia (my, what a coincidence that Rosemary became paranoid in Rosemary’s Baby; yes, a coincidence) shifts between insane, and some kind of second sight as she repeatedly starts raving at things that will help the plot along. For instance, she suddenly decides that she must run down rain soaked streets after her boarder, shouting his name. Why? She’s seven months pregnant and he’s just a boarder. Why not let him be and go home? But then she also snoops around in his room, finds parchment with ancient writings (which is pretty reasonable as he claims to be a professor of ancient languages), and then yells that it means he’s after her baby. Ah, but that raving leads to important story points and the writers couldn’t come up with any reasonable way to move the story.
Oh, other people do bizarre things. A priest, who really wants the world to end, kills another priest and visits Abby. Besides giving information to Abby that he shouldn’t want her to have, these actions do nothing. They certainly don’t aid his cause. So why does he do them? Ah, plot points and filler, that’s right.
The Seventh Sign could have been interesting. The apocalyptic scenes have style. But that’s all crushed by the dull, annoying main characters (Abby’s husband is no more engaging than she is). Apparently the message of the film is supposed to be “hope will make everything wonderful.” The real message is “don’t rent a room from, visit, or even talk to a pregnant woman.”