John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness

Pretty fun "kitchen sink" horror, where it seems like the writer couldn't quite settle on whether to make a zombie movie, a ghost story, or an apocalyptic thriller, so they just kind of do all of it at once (see also King's IT, Straub's Ghost Story, Simmon's Summer of Night). While it does free them up to just do whatever is scariest in any given scene, it requires a degree of contrivance when it comes to creating your demonic force.

Victor Wong is easily the best part of this.

Cool, I just rented this puppy, hopefully I can sneak a joint and watch this.

Good solid Carpenter flick. I also love the "message from the future" sequences, in fact I think they make the film, espeically the way they change. Carpenter was into quantum physics when he made this film and I think this was his attempt to translate religion into a "scientific" world. I think it is very very hard to make an intellectual horror film (after all, a horror film is suppossed to evoke a strong emotional reaction, not deep thought), but he pulls it off.

SPOILER!!!! Agreed, the message from the future thing is brilliant. That is a major plot point though and you probably shouldn't have given it away like that...

There is some other-than-good-acting that drags this film down a notch for me.

I definitely need to rewatch this movie and you guys have reminded me how I should actually put it on my list of DVDs to buy. Is it relatively cheap and easy to get?

And I'd like to add that the "Message from the future" is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. I just love the voyeuristic, trespassing nature of it, as it gives you a strong sense you're looking at something you shouldn't. The fact that it appears to be on home video raises the question of who's videotaping it, and further adds to the tension and uncertain horror.

EDIT: Didn't mention I thought the movie was pretty silly overall, but still liked it enough based on what worked that I want to own it. Hell, I'd even own it based on the "Message from the future" alone.

I remember being freaked out by the flick when I first saw it in 2001, when my friend loaned me his vhs copy that he had rented. I picked up the dvd for $4.99 2 years back at Wal-Mart during the pre-Halloween sale on horror movies that they have every year.

It's a really damn good movie. Atmospheric, and still really scary. The melting makeup on the blonde haired girl is still pretty damn disturbing.

LOVE IT. Still freaks the hell outta me. For some reason the messages from the future are some of the creepiest things I have ever seen on film. And I love how the message changes throughout the film.

Damn, Jameson Parker should have been the 90s Clooney.

Parker's moustache was the polar opposite of Josh Brolin's moustache - it weakened him. He looked like one of those guys who show up on TO CATCH A PREDATOR. Still, it was good enough for Lisa Blount, so maybe I'm wrong.

And talk about that message from the future being disturbing - I was baked and listening to DJ Shadow's ENDTRODUCING one night, and it nearly did my head in when the album sampled some bits of that dialogue.

Yeah, the garbled message, coupled with the grainy VHS quality of the video makes the messages really disturbing.

This and They Live were both flicks that Carpenter ghost-wrote under a pseudonym. Damn if he didn't make a great flick on such a low budget. This and In The Mouth Of Madness are his last 2 truly creepy flicks.

ITMOM went beyond creepy to just batshit crazy. That lost it for me. I still think Carpenter's great horror films are The Thing and Prince of Darkness.

The Thing is his horror masterpiece. It's just perfect.

Vampires was pretty good, and Cigarette Burns is the closest that we'll get to old school Carpenter. It was probably the best episode of the first season of Masters Of Horror.

This came up in the "Endings" thread. I don't think the film would be as fondly remembered as it is if the ending didn't kill as it does. But it really is one of my favorite movie endings. Just creepy as hell.

"This is not a dream. We are using your brain as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9..."

Oh Jesus, it was prophetic.

What a coincidence, or not, I watched this just last night. The Parker moustache, was that a character choice or did he just get tired of being the hairless one on the set of Simon & Simon? Also, his character, how did he ever get laid? Did you listen to his pillow talk? He turns all Wallace Shawn at one point, looking down at Lisa Blount who is still under the covers, "How'd you know I was going to say what you think I was going to say?" He speaks in riddles.

Anyway, creepier than I remembered. If any of you haven't seen QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, a flick that is still inspiring Carpenter for better or worse, (re: Ghosts of Mars), you should do that. Love how this movie ties up all kinds of things into its story, including math and theoretical physics. Honestly, being such a Carpenter fan, I don't think I've seen this since the theater back in '87, so I forgot so much stuff, like the little things, how everybody keeps looking up at the sky, and the fucked up position of the moon.

Peter Jason.

I really need to watch this again. I'm a huge Carpenter fan, but I hated it the one time I watched it. You guys have me interested again.

Forgot to mention how much I loved the soundtrack. Vintage Carpenter, but there are stretches where it really pulsates and grooves. Lovely.

Agreed, just wanted to add how forgotten this flick seems to be. Of course not on Chud, but even among supposedly ardent Carpenter supporters, I've noticed a tendency to marginalize it. Sure, it's not The Thing or They Live, but it's not so bad.

There are tons of creepy bits in the movie. From the "return" of the guy who gets stabbed to death, then falls apart from the bugs inside him, to the singing of Amazing Grace by Jessie Lawrence Ferguson after he gets possessed, all the while dragging that chair around. To the point where the last few humans are surrounded by their possessed friends who begin laughing that bizarre demonic laugh.

Also, gotta love Victor Wong using a can of Sprite and chopsticks on Dirk Blocker in order to take him out.

I'll second this. I don't remember hating it exactly, but my ex girlfriend in HS had me watch this, claiming it was the scariest movie she's ever seen (my rebuff was THE SHINING). We rented it and I laughed most of the way through. She wasn't pleased.

I'll give it another chance, as I adore much of Carpenter's resume.

Carpenter's last somewhat scary movie.

Soundtrack is, of course, fantastic. Don't listen to it in the house alone.

Count me in as a fan of this one. It may not be Carpenter's best flick (that would be the aforementioned The Thing), but it is definitely one of his creepiest. The message from the future is really unsettling, even after all these years (and Tommy, I had a similar experience, though I wasn't baked at the time...good thing, too, because I probably would have freaked out), and the ending is just excellent. One of my favorite shots in the film is that long shot of Alice Cooper clutching a pair of scissors as he runs at that guy outside the church, and then it cuts to a close up that follows the arc of the scissors as they are plunged into his neck (something like that, anyway). Just a solid horror flick.

I think it some of it might have to do with when you first saw it. A number of years ago, a friend and I, who both saw it as kids and remembered it being pretty scary, tried to introduce it to two other guys. They thought it was pretty laughable, too. I thought parts of it were still very effective, though.

I saw this in the theater when it first came out and haven't seen it since. I remember it having some interesting ideas and a pretty cool ending, but that's about it. I wasn't too impressed with it at the time, but I think that it deserves another viewing. Thanks for reminding me of it.

Carpenter's apocalypse trilogy sets a really high bar. He's fallen so, so far since then, but The Thing is still the best horror film ever made, even with Wilford Brimley's much maligned exposition-spouting Apple IIc.

BRIMLEY> Please tell me what are the aliens,..

COMPUTER> ALIENS ARE EVIL LIFE FORMS THAT CAN MIMIC ANY LIFE FORM THEY TOUCH. PROBABILITY THAT ALIENS WILL ATTACK SOON: BIG

BRIMLEY> Holy Shit!

COMPUTER> I KNOW

I agree (and assuming "much-maligned" is prompted by my comments in the "grating things in otherwise classic films" thread, well, it's all in the title). But the scares in Prince of Darkness were really hit-or-miss with me. A lot of it comes from the kitchen sink approach I mentioned earlier, which left me unable to shake the feeling that this was a mash-up of sequences from other movie ideas. It's like depending on the scene, the zombies have wildly different levels of intelligence, and the difficulty of "turning" someone is directly proportional to their importance to the story (Crowds of homeless? Just be near the church. large speaking role? You have to get the goo on you).

I also liked the quantum mechanical angle in concept, but felt like it didn't really go anywhere in the end. Maybe I missed something though, there was a lot of traffic in my living room during the last half hour or so of this.

Most of what I remember about this film was the ending freaking me the hell out. Barely even remember any details, it's been well over ten years since I've seen it - but when it was over I was looking for places to hide.

Donald Pleasance brings all the Donald Pleasanceness he can to this movie, doesn't he?

"He WAS OUR PRISONER, not yours!"

to bad they don't make Apple's like that any more

After all this talk in the thread, I've decided to pop the dvd in. Good ol' Peter Jason doing his trumpet routine with the apples. And I agree, Carpenter's score is eerie greatness. Especially the main theme.

Love the joke between Dennis Dun and Jameson Parker.

"I had a date tonight with this beautiful trial attorney from Century City."

"Where were you taking him?"

"Please this isn't funny!"

Brimley's computer was much more polite than the one in P.O.D.

Also, love what Dun says to the Asian girl and then she makes that face. Man, Carpenter tried hard to give him a break. Then he got that sweet Midnight Calller gig, but after that...?

Warriors Of Fucking Virtue

I love Dun in this movie. All wiry energy. Love the way he comes running at the sound of that dude singing Amazing Grace. He's fucking horrified at the fact the guy's singing, before he even cuts himself. He has a great moment when he's locked in the closet as well, going bananas trying to get the fuck out of there.

I don't even remember that there were zombies in it, so I need to check it out with the hype all deflated. Maybe I'll appreciate it now. Really the only memories I have from seeing it 15 years ago are a canister in the basement and the concept that the devil is an alien or something...

He was in Year Of The Dragon, was the real hero of Big Trouble In Little China, and was in this flick. He really should have gotten more film roles. Tarantino could have put him and James Hong in cameos in Kill Bill.

So, the ending. I think its pretty clear that the final image with the heroine under the cowl is a different one from the original messages. So what does that mean? Is it saying that the "devil" came back and is using her body since it was in mirror-water land with her?

Yeah, pretty much. In the message they talk about a causality.


What I really want to know is who volunteered to film that shit? Seriously, crazy alien demon Anti-God rising from another dimension to devour all of our souls and somebody goes to film it?

I would have loved to have seen that conversation.

"Hey Bill, you still got that camcorder? Could you do us a favor and go down and film the coming of the Anti-God?"

I wouldn't consider The Thing a true flop. It didn't do the numbers they wanted it to in the theaters but it's gone on to be one of the most popular films in Carpenter's filmography and continues to have a loyal fan base to this day, 25+ years after its release. It's generally always mentioned among the top horror films of all-time and the property is still valuable to Universal. It found its audience on video and cable. If they are talking about doing remakes and they've done a video game, chances are it's become profitable at this point.

I don't think it's fair to make the Carpenter-Hooper comparison as Carpenter has a far more established career. I'd say he has endured something of a slump. The last ten or so years have been him either overseeing remakes of his old stuff or working on projects that seem like retreads of it such as Escape From L.A. and Ghosts Of Mars. Sure, Hooper has been hit a lot harder but he also didn't have the kind of career as Carpenter. He did Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which we could say was his Halloween but outside of the sequel which didn't go over as well as people had hoped and Poltergeist which many view as a Steven Spielberg project, he really hasn't been staying as consistent.

Didn't The Thing come out the week after E.T. was released? I know E.T. had something to do with the movie not making as much dough as it should rightly have made.

The Thing came out two weeks after Eat Me.

I like to think that it was just too much awesome for audiences to handle.

Speaking from another thread, this is the kind of stuff I begged my Dad too take me too when I was a kid. Prince of Darkness, that is, didn't catch the Thing until cable. He would always pretend he was into it, but I know he wassn't. Bless his heart.

I caught The Thing on USA with my Dad as well when I was a kid, and it was frightening and awesome. One of the flicks that I hold special because of seeing it with him.

People wanted to see nice alien, while Carpenter was offering morphing alien that duplicates people, and makes stomachs into mouths and eats arms. Yeah, they should have gone to see The Thing, but they were all penis breaths!

Watched this again late last night, and really, the only thing that really bugged me was the lazy way they dispatched the two possessed girls, the one that could pass for Asian, and the radiologist. It's like they had an assembly line to toss them out the window. Not a big thing, I guess.

I was digging around, trying to find an old Ebert review of this thing, and found this:

http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/bue...ce+of+darkness

They were not amused.

Here's Ebert's print review:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...710230302/1023

"Call me an optimist, but I believe Absolute Evil should somehow be worse than that."

I think time has been kind to this movie, like most of Carpenter's work, but it's nice to see how he was recieved back in the day.

I agree with pretty much everything Ebert says about PoD. His take on The Thing, however, makes me think less of the man.

Here's the Thing review for shits and giggles. It's like he wanted to like it, but the massive stick up his ass prevented it:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...201010349/1023

The Thing also came out the same day as Blade Runner. How much awesome-ness is that?

While it's partly true that E.T. killed all comers that summer, that's not the whole truth of why they failed. The sad truth is, a lot of people (both audience and critic) didn't like those movies at the time. Blade Runner was seen by many as nothing more than a genre-mashing gimmick that set a detective noir in the future. And The Thing just made people uncomfortable, which is never a formula for box office success. It wasn't so different from today, really. Some movies just need time to make their mark, especially if they have ambitions beyond putting asses in seats during summer vacation.