Prince des ténèbres

John Carpenter's made some great horror films, and Prince of Darkness is my hands-down favorite Carpenter flick. First and foremost, the music does it for me every time. Sometimes Carpenter's score do miss their mark, but this time, the music is dead on perfect. Beyond this, the movie overall is wonderful. The opening title sequence (which does extend quite a bit into the film itself) does a great job of setting up the characters and the beginning of the drama at hand. Once the film picks up, it really doesn't let you go until the end, and even then, to the very last shot, the film reminds you that, for the briefest of moments, it had you. Oh, it had you. Alice Cooper makes his first theatrical film appearance with this film, but he appears briefly. Instead, the film centers mostly around Brian Marsh, a grad student brought in as part of a group of collegiate-types to investigate something dark and sinister in the basement of an old church. A lot of people I know pan his performance, but I felt Jameson (TV's "Simon & Simon") Parker's performance was solid and that look of confusion he wears throughout a bulk of the picture seems appropriate to the events unfolding around his character. Donald Pleasance's presence as a Catholic priest who begrudgingly recruits the team of college students and professors, scientists and theorists, adds a sense of credibility to the threat involved, as well as the film itself. And Victor Wong - he's just fun to watch. I love this movie.

An old priest who belonged to a cryptic sect passes away. A new priest is assigned to the church and he discovers a bizarre basement with an even more bizarre object in its center - a big vat of green moving liquid. He summons the help of some investigators and the ensuing field study reveals some very frightening revelations about the liquid - it is the essence of Satan. Then the liquid leaks out of the canister...

After a few films in the studio system, most notably "Big Trouble in Little China," which undeservedly flopped, Carpenter returned to his roots in small budgeted horror/thriller films. The result was this and it could have hardly been better. The infamous eerie music makes an especially profound effect in this film, which admittedly starts slow, but when it takes of it takes all of your nerves with it.

Unlike many horror popular films this film focuses very heavily on conversation. Atmosphere is of course put first, but the dialog is very interesting and makes for a film that is frightening on a thinking level. There are a well timed moments of violence, but it is on a intellectual level where this film scares the crap out of you. Carpenter must have done a good amount of research as the characters try to use various scientific concepts and terms to describe what they are slowly falling victim to. The dialog very heavily resembles H.P. Lovecraft's writing, who was unrelenting in providing the rational and thought-out narration of his protagonist. One can bet that it is this element that made it necessary for this film to be made independently. The shock isn't visceral, but no less effective.

The only downside are a few really goofy moments ("I said a rich doctor!"), but they are ultimately forgivable and are not as sorely out of place as you might think. 8/10

Rated R: horror violence

John Carpenter was going to a dark place. It's not really the subject matter, though. While Prince of Darkness is a bit more apocalyptic than some of his other offerings, it's obvious that it was the commercial failure of Big Trouble in Little China that did something to Carpenter's view of the world. This and his next film, They Live, are dark, angry films that take some of his earlier ideas and motifs about the nature of evil and turn them up to eleven. He had done good, making successful and well regarded films in Christine and Starman after the failure of The Thing, and Big Trouble in Little China was his effort to reassert his own voice in a fun adventure movie made with his pals. With another major failure in his career, he turns around and makes a movie about how neither religion nor science can explain true evil. I don't want to armchair psychologist the guy, but I suspect there may be a connection.

A priest (Donald Pleasence) finds a mysterious box that contains a key in the hands of a recently deceased priest. The key goes to a secret chamber in the basement of a church that has stood there for hundreds of years. He brings in an old friend, Professor Birack (Victor Wong), a quantum physicist, to investigate what's been hiding under the church. Birack organizes a large investigation with his own graduate students as well as those of some other departments. Chief among these students are Brian (Jameson Parker), Catherine (Lisa Blount), and Walter (Dennis Dun), all physicists who are friends while Brian and Catherine are nascent lovers. The largest issue with the film overall is the characters. Carpenter was far more interested in the philosophical questions around the nature of evil. His characters here aren't even vehicles for these questions. Really there's an uneasy combination of Carpenter's earlier efforts to ape Howard Hawks' later style and this question at the heart of the film.

Where the movie really shines is in its sense of impending horror. From the beginning, there's this foreboding that permeates the film and it get highlighted early by the roving homeless that remain outside the church as the students and professors arrive for their night of study. Led by Alice Cooper in his white face makeup, their presence starts as just a simple uneasy reality that they all try to ignore.

The church itself is hiding a chamber underneath with a cylindrical container that contains an ever-swirling green liquid. Initial review shows that the container can only be opened from the inside. There's also a book alongside it in different ancient languages that needs translation. The group begins their research and more weird things begin to go down. All while this is going on, the priest and Birack have the central conversation about how evil could be omnipresent from a quantum mechanics point of view, and it's easy to get the impression that Carpenter built up the entire script around that one conversation.

What I like best about the film is the building sense of unease around the evil leaking out. The evil is formless and without explanation (a rather common concept of evil from Carpenter). I read Roger Ebert's review of the film, and he actually bemoaned the physical embodiment of evil here, and I think he misread it. The green swirling liquid isn't meant to be threatening itself. It's supposed to be a placeholder for the ideas that the priest and Birack are talking about. The real terror is how the evil takes over everyone, and that could be stronger with a stronger base of characters to terrorize. This movie could use another rewrite pass to beef up the characters, for sure, but I think the craft that goes into the eerie sense of ever-increasing terror works remarkably well.

The movie, though, does descend into pure horror movie convention by the end, and I don't think it really fulfills the promise of the ideas at the center of that conversation between the priest and Birack. I don't think Carpenter really figured out how to integrate it all, and he probably rushed himself into production to take advantage of his carte-blanche offer from Alive Films.

That being said, though, the final conventional horror elements are effective enough to work on their own. There are some great visual ideas involving a mirror (that I would be surprised if the special effects team of Stargate hadn't been influenced by) that are executed really well and often very prettily in an almost horrifying way.

It's not one of Carpenter's best films, but Prince of Darkness is a testament to Carpenter the director over Carpenter the writer. He took a script that honestly needed more work, and he made the absolute most of it in terms of production. While the characters tend to be thin, he manages the right kind of unease and panic and even terror from his acting troupe. The movie often simply looks great, and his wallpaper musical score helps establish the mood very effectively. I have a real soft spot for Prince of Darkness.

John Carpenter's masterpiece about a priest enlisting the help of a physics professor and his students in preventing the coming of the Anti-God. Yep, I said masterpiece. I consider this to be Carpenter's crowning achievement. Said priest (played by the impeccable Donald Pleasance) discovers a large vat of green fluid in the basement of an old church near downtown Los Angeles. He comes to realize that the liquid in the container is the very essence of Satan himself, and that a sect known as "The Brotherhood of Sleep" has kept it a secret all these years. The secret can no longer be kept, however, as the apocalypse is brewing and the vat of liquid Satan is the over-sized coffee pot.

Carpenter really struck gold with the script for Prince of Darkness. I find it to be Carpenter's most intelligent and thought-provoking. I love all of the theoretical, scientific and religious discussion in this film. He takes all of these wonderful ideas and forms them into one of the most intriguing story lines the genre has ever seen. It all makes for a very engaging viewing experience, especially if this sort of material fascinates you as much as it does me.

The film is slow-burning, yet intensely unnerving. The overall mood, the creepy street people, the church itself and the eerie occurrences caused by the Anti-God's growing power all make for an unsettling watch. Perhaps the most effective scene in the film for me is Wyndham saying hello in that garbled voice followed by "Pray for death." I also must make mention of the recurring dream projections via tachyons. A brilliant idea that adds an even deeper level to the film's frightening nature. The imagery in these dreams is truly the stuff nightmares are made of!

As far as the cast goes, this is my favorite ensemble in a Carpenter film, even more so than the one we get in The Thing. They all do fine jobs, especially Pleasance and Victor Wong. I love the interaction between these two. I also really enjoy Jameson Parker in the lead, and Dennis Dun is the rare case of comedy relief that actually works. He is amusing, likable, and his antics don't overshadow or ruin the mood that the film has built up.

The atmosphere? Perfect. So is the dread-inducing score, which is an uncanny fit for the material. In the same way that I see Prince of Darkness as Carpenter's best film, the haunting music throughout makes for his best work as a composer. I love the score as much as I love the film itself. The sense of hopeless isolation Carpenter is able to convey despite the church being in L.A. is yet another impressive accomplishment in a film that never fails to impress.

Definitely an underrated classic. Carpenter's wonderful ideas are realized to fascinating effect in the film, and for me, the execution is flawless. It's a rare case when I have nothing bad to say about a movie, but this is one of those instances. The music, the atmosphere, the apocalyptic tone, the marvelous ending... it all works beautifully. It's a gem that Carpenter has never bettered. I'm in the minority regarding that statement, but I'm sticking to it.

A priest (Donald Pleasence) finds a large cylinder of glowing green liquid in the basement of a church in Los Angeles. He contacts a physics professor (Victor Wong), who brings a research team to the church to investigate. The research team includes a risibly-mustachioed Jameson Parker, the always-amusing Dennis Dun, Dirk Blocker (son of Bonanza's Hoss), and a few relatively forgettable actresses. I should also point out this entire team of graduate students seems to be in the 30-45 age range. The investigation turns up shocking results as the team discovers the liquid inside the container is the Devil or Anti-God or son of the Devil....it's something bad, for sure.

This is one of the most divisive John Carpenter films, even among his fans. Most people either seem to love it or hate it. I know when I first saw it back in the early '90s I hated it. I thought it didn't make a lick of sense and the male lead was one of the all-time great movie goobers. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I refused to even try it again until about five years ago. But when I did, my opinion of it changed quite a bit. I'm not saying I'm now part of the "love it" crowd. I still believe it's flawed and has some elements than can only be enjoyed on a tongue-in-cheek basis. But I do like it a lot. I have watched it several times in the last few years and have grown to appreciate it more each time.

Some genuinely creepy moments, nice gross-out effects, and a very tense last 30 minutes that ranks among Carpenter's best work. Also, another terrific Carpenter score. I don't even mind the cheesy relationship between Lisa Blount and Jameson Parker or the terrible lines they both have to say to one another. Little bits of corn are kind of expected with Carpenter. It's part of his style. It's definitely a unique movie. I can't think of anything else quite like it.