Prince Of Darkness (1987)

Great Horror for it's time

John Carpenter was always good. In Prince of Darkness, he out did himself for the time period this was made. Great story & special effects. Highly recommended. November 24, 2008

Under-rated for good reason...

With 101 reviews to-date, there's not much to add, so I'll briefly explain the one-star rating: 1) Cliches abound - naturally, people pair off or stray from the others, the easier to be killed; 2) Boring - because zombies move slowly, so does the action, the biggest sin in a horror film; 3) Inconsistent - how do you kill a zombie? This film fails to answer the question; in one scene, a zombie is decapitated (the usual way to dispatch a zombie) but he promptly puts his own head back on and continues his rampage, while another zombie is tossed from a second-story window and dies immediately...huh? 3) Ridiculous - a church in an urban setting along a main road is the scene of a two-day siege by a zombie army, surrounded by street zombies (led by Alice Cooper) who ring the building and stand transfixed, preventing no one from leaving...and nobody calls the authorities? I give it one star for Alice Cooper. November 15, 2008

Some secrets aren't meant to be tampered with

Fans of science and religious horrors will find this to be an interesting combo, one that has been fighting the other for as long as we know. This however is not the source of friction in the movie, here the science takes a huge lead and infuses the movie with eerie sense of reality that some might not feel otherwise, for those who aren't afraid of the devil, this movie will chill them as there is some gross, dark stuff going on that walks a fine line between bizarre and disgusting, seeping into the real world, threatening everyone's sanity.

When professor Birack, a theoretical physicist, takes his students for a weekend of exploring in an abandoned church, he doesn't want to tell them what is going on, instead they slowly discover that their faith in science and existence is going for a ride and some are not coming back. This happens because a priest guarding a heavy secret dies leaving behind a tiny box with a key. It's eventually found by Father Loomis who confides in Birack and asks for his help and discretion. When the whole gang finally gathers in the basement of the church they discover a room filled with candles and crosses, with a dark, dirty looking vial housing a shimmering mucky green fluid, spinning inside like a mini tornado. They know that something wicked and sinister is going on, they can feel how cold and unfriendly the room is and soon they start to find out what exactly is in the tank. Outside the church night falls and quietly the homeless people gather around all the entrances and exits, worms and bugs spill out of their clothes and they stand guard outside the church, a silent vigil that no one notices for a while. Slowly people start to disappear and that's when the fun starts and the contents of the tank are slowly revealed.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie, even though half way through I was thinking how weird some of it was, perhaps switching back from science talk to religion was little much to take, this is a movie that one has to watch on high alert because there is a lot that can be missed, not that it matters in the end but it was confusing and after I read some of the reviews here I had more of a sense of what was really going on. There is some gore and grossness, zombie like behavior and a feeling of unease until the ending appears on the horizon, the end was definitely the best part, I think it saved the movie from being totally bad. It's a watchable flick but not something I would watch twice, I think I laughed at a scene of two and it's always nice to find a joke in a horror movie.

- Kasia S.
October 6, 2008

What if God was really the Devil? VERY underrated Carpenter film!

Prince of Darkness is not John Carpenter's best movie (that would be--no, not Halloween--Assault on Precinct 13), but it certainly ranks right up there with the best, and it is certainly his most underrated film. Unfortunately it is relatively overlooked compared to his more famous films.

Carpenter wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Martin Quatermass," a nod to the old Hammer Quatermass sci fi films, which he clearly loves. His script is an impressively intelligent one, and that is saying a lot. The characters in a movie cannot sound any more intelligent than the screenwriter is. (Too bad so many movies are written by ignoramuses.) Here Carpenter gives us a group of characters consisting almost solely of scientists and graduate students, and he nails it completely. As a graduate student myself I must say that this movie really does an excellent job capturing that world with its dialogue. Very convincing. The interaction between the multiple characters is also very real, much more real than in any of his other movies.

As a horror film Prince of Darkness does not disappoint. It flows well, has some very impressive cinematography, yet another awesome Carpenter synthesizer score, and is also very creepy. The plot is way out there, and contains some surprises that many viewers might miss. The first couple times I watched this film I completely missed the bomb that Carpenter delivers.

It is not just that the Devil has been unleashed. The real revelation that the characters experience in this film is that the Church has been lying to us. "God" is the mind behind the universe. The lie is not that God exists, but that God is good. The mind behind the universe is only concerned with the negative side of matter. Thus, God is actually the Devil. Or, put another way, the only supreme being that actually exists is Lucifer (which means "morning star"). Jesus, Carpenter tells us, was simply an extraterrestrial who came here and attempted to warn mankind of this fact. He was deemed insane and executed without anyone really listening to him.

This plot was, incidentally, recycled in John Carpenter's embarrassingly bad Masters of Horror episode entitled Pro Life. At the end of the episode a character points out that if you hear a voice that tells you what to do to be a "good person," how do you know that it's really God talking to you? How do you know it's not the Devil? (For that matter, how do you know you're not crazy, or that it's not an alien beaming a signal to you?) Carpenter clearly likes toying with this idea. It is reminiscent of a quote by Bertrand Russell. He said that when he looks at the world around him it seems much more plausible that the world was created by the Devil when God was not looking.

SPOILER: By the way, isn't it kind of funny how Carpenter tends to set his sci fi elements in the very near future? Didn't Escape from New York take place in 1997? Anyway, here scientists from the future beam a signal back in time so that anyone sleeping in St. Goddard's Church will see and hear a transmission warning them of Satan's return. The signal is being broadcast from the year 1999. At the very end of the movie our protagonist finishes the "dream" and sees that Satan is his love interest who fell into the mirror (or rather, the Devil is using her as a host). The film ends with him reaching toward a mirror. What does this ending mean? Is he still in St. Goddard's? He must be, or how would he be having the dream, but it looks like his apartment. Is he reaching toward the mirror because he misses the girl? Is he going to pull the Devil out? September 7, 2008

Scary with Possibilities

There are many great reviews on the content of this film, so I won't repeat them here. However, the one aspect of this film that made it one of the most frightening and one of the most memorable films for me was the science - in respect to people from the future trying to communicate with those in the present to warn them about the imminent arrival of Satan so they could change the future outcome. The technology in this future was limited, and could only come through as fractured messages and images during the dream state. I can imagine the frustration and desperation on the other end, as these technicians in the future try with the limited resources they have to make those in the present take action.

The image of Satan's silhouette in the church archway is one I will never get out of my head and it sends a chill down my spine everytime I see it.

Satan is ultimately stopped from coming into the world, at least in the first possible future, but the future technicians will have to start again at square one, as their past has been changed, but not in the way they were hoping for.

Which leads to all kinds of philosophical and scientific questions and possiblities. I can think of no other horror film, let alone a "B" film such as this, that ever inspired that kind of deep discussion.

This is a great, scary, eat-popcorn-watch-it-with-the-lights-off gruesome horror movie...but it also makes you think. March 6, 2008

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