Prince of DarknessGod is within us all, but so is the devil...maybe at a sub-atomic level. Prince of Darkness is a sci-fi horror movie about an incursion of evil into our world by way of a barely contained viscous "Anti-God", kept a secret from the world for ages by an off-the-books subset of the Catholic Church called "The Brotherhood of Sleep". When it's last guardian passes away, a priest (Donald Pleasence) takes up the charge to safeguard the world and partners with a quantum physicist named Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) and his students to keep this ultimate force of evil from destroying the world.
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Written and directed by John Carpenter, Prince of Darkness is a part of his "Apocalypse" trilogy, preceded by The Thing and followed by In the Mouth of Madness. It is full of his signature style, from the look and characterizations, to the plot and (of course) the music. The movie has an achingly similar structure to a pulp horror novel, featuring a variety of characters, most of which are introduced along with their interests in the opening credits. During this introduction, Professor Birack delivers a provocative lecture about how what we believe to be true about physics is false, foreshadowing the supernatural events yet to come. A pair of his students--Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine "Cathy" Danforth (Lisa Blount)--study theoretical and applied physics, respectively, and form a romantic relationship. Brian approaches the apprehensive Cathy and she gradually accepts his affections. Both them and many other students are asked by Birack to take on a mission of great importance and sacrifice their weekends and some sleep to that end. But he is ambiguous about just what lurks beneath the dilapidated monastery in Los Angeles; but it won't be long before they discover the dark secret for themselves. Enter a variety of young adults from varied walks of life on a scientific and religious mission that feels doomed from the start. The secret that The Brotherhood of Sleep has guarded appears as a large glass tube with a swirling green ooze inside it. Everyone who approaches this ancient relic feels a sense of apprehension at least or outright fear, and the only clue that they have as to its secret history is a manuscript which has been written in multiple ancient languages. And the longer that the investigators stay in the monastery, more and more creepy and mysterious happenings crawl their way out of the woodwork. The end is nigh.
Prince of Darkness is a movie that is heavy on the creepiness, even if it becomes increasingly incoherent. It's a film that relies on mood, and it could be said that the constant inclusion of random weirdness is meant to signify the known world falling down all around the characters. The general conceit at first is that some malevolence was being kept under lock and key in the bowels of the cathedral, but Prince of Darkness isn't content to sit still with this alone. Suddenly, numerous homeless people--including none other than one played by rock star Alice Cooper--stare at the church with malicious intent, growing ever larger in number, their skin crawling with bugs. Okay. Then, as one of the researchers--a linguist named Lisa (Ann Yen)--translates the crumbling tome, she discovers that not only is Satan contained within the jar in liquid form, but that he is trying to free his "father" from a void of negative space, which for some reason is accessible through mirrors. And apparently, the lock for the devil juice is on the "inside", meaning...the devil trapped himself? And when he wants to possess someone, he drips green goo up to the ceiling where it coalesces, then a jet of green liquid is shot into their mouth of the victim making them into servants of evil. Oh, and Jesus Christ was an alien, and killed because no one wanted to believe that evil was a physical presence instead of merely a spiritual one. And, everyone sleeping at the church has the same dream from the year "1999", transmitted by tachyons, warning of...something. Yes, Prince of Darkness hurls myriad oddities at us, overwhelming us with confusion, just as it is for the characters. Each scene seems to be in a state of pervading tension or dread. This is at the strongest during the more metaphysical and academic conversations between the priest and Professor Birack, where both discuss the collapse of their respective philosophies and understandings of the universe. Prince of Darkness loves to tease at things that "might" have triggered this demonic paradigm shift in reality, like a brief news report talking about a far off supernova. Or like how one of the students named Kelly (Susan Blanchard) bumps her arm, and the bruise begins to show a "mark" resembling a cross with a hook at the bottom. (I guess John Carpenter is a Blue Oyster Cult fan.) But these little details get swept away by all of the other assorted happenings, so that by the end of Prince of Darkness, audiences may be left wondering about the significance of these details...if there was any significance to them in the first place. That isn't to say that the movie isn't worth watching; it's just that it lacks the clean and tidy story of Carpenter's earlier endeavors and feels like there wasn't sufficient (or any) effort put into continuity. Don't believe me? Just go back and try to figure out exactly how old that tub of emerald evil is supposed to be and you'll see what I mean.
Recommended for: Fans of a stylish and modd-driven horror film that places a premium on creepiness over coherence. Prince of Darkness is something of a "puzzle box", with new clues forcing the audience to constantly reinterpret the story; it's just a bit of a pity that the pieces don't fit together neatly.
Prince of Darkness is a movie that is heavy on the creepiness, even if it becomes increasingly incoherent. It's a film that relies on mood, and it could be said that the constant inclusion of random weirdness is meant to signify the known world falling down all around the characters. The general conceit at first is that some malevolence was being kept under lock and key in the bowels of the cathedral, but Prince of Darkness isn't content to sit still with this alone. Suddenly, numerous homeless people--including none other than one played by rock star Alice Cooper--stare at the church with malicious intent, growing ever larger in number, their skin crawling with bugs. Okay. Then, as one of the researchers--a linguist named Lisa (Ann Yen)--translates the crumbling tome, she discovers that not only is Satan contained within the jar in liquid form, but that he is trying to free his "father" from a void of negative space, which for some reason is accessible through mirrors. And apparently, the lock for the devil juice is on the "inside", meaning...the devil trapped himself? And when he wants to possess someone, he drips green goo up to the ceiling where it coalesces, then a jet of green liquid is shot into their mouth of the victim making them into servants of evil. Oh, and Jesus Christ was an alien, and killed because no one wanted to believe that evil was a physical presence instead of merely a spiritual one. And, everyone sleeping at the church has the same dream from the year "1999", transmitted by tachyons, warning of...something. Yes, Prince of Darkness hurls myriad oddities at us, overwhelming us with confusion, just as it is for the characters. Each scene seems to be in a state of pervading tension or dread. This is at the strongest during the more metaphysical and academic conversations between the priest and Professor Birack, where both discuss the collapse of their respective philosophies and understandings of the universe. Prince of Darkness loves to tease at things that "might" have triggered this demonic paradigm shift in reality, like a brief news report talking about a far off supernova. Or like how one of the students named Kelly (Susan Blanchard) bumps her arm, and the bruise begins to show a "mark" resembling a cross with a hook at the bottom. (I guess John Carpenter is a Blue Oyster Cult fan.) But these little details get swept away by all of the other assorted happenings, so that by the end of Prince of Darkness, audiences may be left wondering about the significance of these details...if there was any significance to them in the first place. That isn't to say that the movie isn't worth watching; it's just that it lacks the clean and tidy story of Carpenter's earlier endeavors and feels like there wasn't sufficient (or any) effort put into continuity. Don't believe me? Just go back and try to figure out exactly how old that tub of emerald evil is supposed to be and you'll see what I mean.
Recommended for: Fans of a stylish and modd-driven horror film that places a premium on creepiness over coherence. Prince of Darkness is something of a "puzzle box", with new clues forcing the audience to constantly reinterpret the story; it's just a bit of a pity that the pieces don't fit together neatly.