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Prince of Darkness (1987) - Directed by John Carpenter
"Well, every particle has an anti-particle, its mirror image, its negative side."
I'm a little bit of a John Carpenter fan. My dad was a fan of Kurt Russell's Big Trouble in Little China, and I ended up being a fan as well. The properly cheesy kung fu, the self-mockery, the Kurt Russell quotes, etc. etc. It's the kind of thing dad and I would watch together. He was also a fan of Escape from New York, but we never ended up watching that together. Having said that, he wasn't a horror guy. No way in hell would he have ever watched Halloween, Vampires, or especially a movie about Satan like Prince of Darkness. I've seen more Carpenter movies than my dad, but Carpenter or not, do I really think most people "need" to see Prince of Darkness? I checked it out just yesterday, and I gotta say, it's one of the most underexplored stories I've ever experienced.
In John Carpenter's second venture into Lovecraftian horror (following The Thing), this odd horror tale shows us a priest (played by Halloween fan-favorite Donald Pleasance) calling an old scientist friend to help him discover the secret between an ancient book, a hidden room and a large canister of green liquid. As a team of college students is called together to help discover it, they find a disturbing reality: the liquid is a manifestation of Satan, and the canister is his prison. As they discover the book's take on the origins of the universe, the liquid is slowly breaking free and possessing people, all for the purpose of releasing from another dimension a being more dangerous than the devil himself.
Did you understand any of that? I think I got more than half of it, but I'm not entirely sure I understood the full plot. Maybe that's a result of the fact that clever Lovecraftian ideas defined the movie... but didn't get the full exploration that they needed. I mean, Lovecraftian horror, also known as cosmic horror, is all about debating our role in the universe, and while there was some of it that was really clever, it was underdeveloped. The horror scares, while occasionally good and well-built with decent tension, didn't really do much to help the Lovecraftian aura, especially since the score felt a little too 80's to be scary. I expected better from Carpenter. And for whatever reason, there was a time-travel element that was a little cool to look at in a cinematographical perspective, but not really necessary in the long run.
On another note, I do not forgive leaving absolutely no dialogue for Alice Cooper. Yes, he's in the movie credited as "street schizo," and he does almost nothing in the movie. I understand that the movie needed more character development, but if you're gonna pay for Alice Cooper, make it worth while.
There were some definitely well-filmed scenes in the movie, though. When it came to the sets mingling with the atmosphere, it did it's job well. Having just rewatched Alien, I'm more focused on the atmosphere that movies build (of course, comparing Prince of Darkness to the scariest movie ever made is gonna fail miserably). But I loved the scenes that took place in another dimension, especially at the end when you had that bittersweet ending and a very dark and smoky atmosphere. I wished more scenes like that were in the movie.
Well, Prince of Darkness should satisfy Carpenter fans, not just completionists, as well as fans of cosmic horror and cult classic buyers. But its cool ideas don't build up any real horror, just a fairly complex and clunky story. But it's worth checking out at least once, and thanks to its weird atmosphere, if you say it's one of your favorite movies, I wouldn't blame you.
"Well, every particle has an anti-particle, its mirror image, its negative side."
I'm a little bit of a John Carpenter fan. My dad was a fan of Kurt Russell's Big Trouble in Little China, and I ended up being a fan as well. The properly cheesy kung fu, the self-mockery, the Kurt Russell quotes, etc. etc. It's the kind of thing dad and I would watch together. He was also a fan of Escape from New York, but we never ended up watching that together. Having said that, he wasn't a horror guy. No way in hell would he have ever watched Halloween, Vampires, or especially a movie about Satan like Prince of Darkness. I've seen more Carpenter movies than my dad, but Carpenter or not, do I really think most people "need" to see Prince of Darkness? I checked it out just yesterday, and I gotta say, it's one of the most underexplored stories I've ever experienced.
In John Carpenter's second venture into Lovecraftian horror (following The Thing), this odd horror tale shows us a priest (played by Halloween fan-favorite Donald Pleasance) calling an old scientist friend to help him discover the secret between an ancient book, a hidden room and a large canister of green liquid. As a team of college students is called together to help discover it, they find a disturbing reality: the liquid is a manifestation of Satan, and the canister is his prison. As they discover the book's take on the origins of the universe, the liquid is slowly breaking free and possessing people, all for the purpose of releasing from another dimension a being more dangerous than the devil himself.
Did you understand any of that? I think I got more than half of it, but I'm not entirely sure I understood the full plot. Maybe that's a result of the fact that clever Lovecraftian ideas defined the movie... but didn't get the full exploration that they needed. I mean, Lovecraftian horror, also known as cosmic horror, is all about debating our role in the universe, and while there was some of it that was really clever, it was underdeveloped. The horror scares, while occasionally good and well-built with decent tension, didn't really do much to help the Lovecraftian aura, especially since the score felt a little too 80's to be scary. I expected better from Carpenter. And for whatever reason, there was a time-travel element that was a little cool to look at in a cinematographical perspective, but not really necessary in the long run.
On another note, I do not forgive leaving absolutely no dialogue for Alice Cooper. Yes, he's in the movie credited as "street schizo," and he does almost nothing in the movie. I understand that the movie needed more character development, but if you're gonna pay for Alice Cooper, make it worth while.
There were some definitely well-filmed scenes in the movie, though. When it came to the sets mingling with the atmosphere, it did it's job well. Having just rewatched Alien, I'm more focused on the atmosphere that movies build (of course, comparing Prince of Darkness to the scariest movie ever made is gonna fail miserably). But I loved the scenes that took place in another dimension, especially at the end when you had that bittersweet ending and a very dark and smoky atmosphere. I wished more scenes like that were in the movie.
Well, Prince of Darkness should satisfy Carpenter fans, not just completionists, as well as fans of cosmic horror and cult classic buyers. But its cool ideas don't build up any real horror, just a fairly complex and clunky story. But it's worth checking out at least once, and thanks to its weird atmosphere, if you say it's one of your favorite movies, I wouldn't blame you.