Prince Of Darkness | Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker

Prince Of Darkness | Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker | Scary with Possibilities

DVDs:

Prince Of Darkness

	Prince Of Darkness Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker Universal Studios, 2003 average customer review:based on 101 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The B picture lives on in the films of John Carpenter. Prince of Darkness weds supernatural horror with quantum weirdness, when a group of theoretical-physics students, led by their professor, Birack (Victor Wong), joins forces with a priest (Donald Pleasence) to forestall the coming of the Dark Lord. His Darkness has been imprisoned in a cylindrical container as a swirling green plasma since time immemorial, and is now beginning to find his way out. All of this is bolstered by a lot of fancy science talk (all of which is real, I can assure you--someone did his homework), which allows us to settle down, say okey dokey, and enjoy the thrills that this presages. As the title character spreads his contagion through the group of students, holed up in a church to study the sequestered Satan, the film shapes up as an homage to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, much like Carpenter's earlier film, Assault on Precinct 13. But this adds the twist of quantum physics dovetailing with religious orthodoxy, and in the bargain spawning numerous zombie minions. There are plenty of squishy splatter opportunities, the kind that make some affected people say, "This is a bad movie!" while they grin from ear to ear. Look for Alice Cooper as a street schizo. I think you'll recognize him. --Jim Gay

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This 'water' is deadly....

In the 1980's, John Carpenter was a horror icon with such productions as the Halloween series and the remake of Howard Hawks' "The Thing". A little-acknowledged masterpiece called 'Prince of Darkness' was made in 1987 and has been one of his finest creations.

The storyline revolves around a sinister secret that has been kept in the basment of an abandoned Los Angeles church. On the death of the last memeber of a mysterious sect, another priest opens the door to the basement & discovers a vat containing a green liquid in a perpetual state of flux. While reading the dead man's diary, the priest discovers some disturbing details & contacts Professor Howard Birack of a local university, who brings with him a group of graduate students to investigate it. Initially disturbing are the mobs of homeless people surrounding the church, but things get much worse as the students investigate. One student discovers the vat is locked from the inside; another finds that the liqid is producing differential mathematic equations (which did not exist when the contents of the vat were dated from); another reveals some strange facts from a translated book about Satan, Jesus Christ and something more chilling - the Father of Satan, an all-powerful anti-God. Soon after, the liquid begins escaping from the container & turns the students into zombies, who then murder their colleagues. Anyone who tries to escape meets a frightening fate; one meets a bloody end at the hands of a homeless man and a second dissolves into a mass of beetles after being attacked. The remaining students, the priest, and professor must find a way to stop the devil from releasing his father or face an unthinkable result.

Jameson Parker - best known as A.J. on the TV series 'Simon & Simon' - turns in a respectable performance as one of the graduate students; also giving stellar performances are Lisa Blount, Donald Pleasance & Victor Wong. One can almost see a touch of Dr. Sam Loomis from 'Halloween' in the priest played by Donald Pleasance.

The lack of extras on the DVD is a little disappointing; it's the only reason this DVD gets 4 stars instead of 5.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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One of my faves!

This movie puts me in mind of Pet Sematary... One of those movies that's creepy and hoakie at the same time.... Good Movie!

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