Most of John Carpenter’s films, at least those made in first two decades of his career, are called cult films. While some clearly deserved such lofty status, some did not. Prince of Darkness, 1987 film that represented unusual combination of supernatural horror and science fiction, belongs to the latter category.
The plot begins when unnamed Catholic priest (played by Donald Pleasance) is faced with strange and disturbing mystery in Los Angeles monastery belonging to “Brotherhood of Sleep”, small and secretive order whose last monk has just died. The order guarded container of green liquid, which is apparently 2000 years old and described in ancient book. In order to decipher it and find about true nature of the liquid, priest seeks help from Professor Howard Birack (played by Victor Wong), a nuclear physicist. Birack agrees and brings team of his students, various experts, computers and high equipment to the monastery. They gradually discover that the book described green liquid as corporeal manifestation of Satan, which is actually being from different universe made of anti-matter. In the meantime, strange things begin to happen in and around the monastery – team members begin to dream the same dream which is revealed to be warning from the future; small army of homeless and schizophrenic street people gather around the building and prevent anyone from leaving. Finally, the liquid manages to escape from the container and infects Susan Cabot (played by Anne Marie Howard). She gets possessed by evil entity and begins infecting others, turning them into murderous zombies.
Prince of Darkness is well-directed film. Carpenter made it with low budget and, like early in his career, this played to his advantage, making him very careful and very thoughtful about each shot. Film benefits from cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe, as well as special effects that are simple but quite effective. Unfortunately, Carpenter’s skill as a director isn’t matched by his skill as screenwriter. Script (signed under pseudonym “Martin Quatermass”, in honour of Professor Qautermass, protagonist of British 1950s science fiction films and television shows) begins with some interesting ideas, with Carpenter trying to find common ground between traditional Christian faith (which is the basis of most supernatural horror films) and modern science. The attempt doesn’t exactly work, mostly because he doesn’t dwell too much on the possible conflict between irrationality and rationality. Instead we are subjected to rather un-original Bible revisionism (the idea that Jesus was actually alien astronaut), which isn’t properly explored. In the second part of the film all those interesting idea are discarded for the sake of cheap horror, with protagonists being endangered by small armies of zombies from outside and their possessed colleagues from the inside. Prince of Darkness quickly descends into uninspired mix of The Exorcist and Night of the Living Dead.
The biggest problem for the film is the lack of the characters audience would care for and miscasting. While veterans like Pleasance and Wong do good job in their respective roles, everyone else seems to be forgettable. Dennis Dunn, whose character of Walter is obviously designed as some sort of comic relief, is burdened with rather uninspired dialogue. Even worse situation is with characters of Brian Marsh (played by Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (played by Lisa Blount), students who are a couple and whose fate should concern the audience. Unfortunately, Blount and Parker lack chemistry and Parker is very weak in his role. Another problem for this film is John Carpenter’s score, which unlike some of his earlier works, isn’t particularly memorable and often sounds too repetitive and annoying. Despite those flaws, Prince of Darkness is an interesting film that could be recommended, but mainly to the audience with expectations lower than those associated with John Carpenter’s classic work.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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