Review of Prince of Darkness (1987) by Glenn S — 26 Jun 2008

That's it. I think I'm officially losing faith in the human race. There are actually a large abundance of people out there that believe that "Prince of Darkness" is one of Carpenter's worst. What the hell? Where is this coming from? I could hardly find anything wrong with this movie. At least nothin that warrants giving it a scathing review. Pompous jackass critics strike again!

I admit though, when I first saw this I wasn't entirely sure if it was good or terrible. Thankfully however after repeated viewings and a lot of thought I've decided that what critics need for Christmas is a muzzle. This movie rocks!

The movie follows several scientists and college students who are sent to study a strange cannister full of green ooze in an old church which is said to contain the essence of Satan. Hell if that doesn't make a good freaking horror movie I don't know what does.

Come on! The direction of John Carpenter combined with the inpiration of a Nigel Kneale style plot (Carpenter even wrote the script as Martin Quatermass, from Kneale's "Quatermass and the Pit" and "The Quatermass Xperiment"), zombies whose leader is Alice Cooper (Cooper's manager Shep Gordon produced the film) and of course Satan himself! Show me to the f**king movie theatre!

There's some really cool ideas in this movie involving Quantum Physics, Zombification, religion. Donald Pleasance works with John again as a priest who knows too well that there's something very wrong about to happen (Reminds me of Dr Loomis really. Whatever), and Alice Cooper gives us that eerie quiet performance needed to generate unease. Also some of the deaths are really cool (A man gets impaled by half a bicycle lying in an alley way! Who else could have thought of that?).

There are problems though. Problems that I feel don't bring the film down much but they hold it back a little. Firstly there are some great special effects in this movie (like the pool of green ooze on the ceiling, or Satan getting pulled throught the mirror) but some really aren't that great. This is understandable however as when "Big Trouble in Little China" (Another underrated classic) bombed at the box office Carpenter fell out of favour with the studios and as such this movie didn't have as big a budget as say "The Thing". But Carpenter's career is based mostly off of doing a lot with very little so for what he had for this movie what we get in the effects department is pretty good. Also the zombies could have done with a little more make up but it's possible that they were supposed to look really human. Either way it's still pretty good.

The other problem is that the film seemed a little too short. This normally wouldn't be a problem as the film is almost a hundred minutes long, but the problem lies with an idea in the film.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!: People from the future are sending messages to people in the past through their dreams to warn them about Satan. Whilst this idea is sufficiently awesome, it seems to me that the characters figure this out a little too quickly and as such the idea isn't shrouded in as much mystery as I think it should of been, therefore it could have done with a longer running time. Still I don't think this brought the film down a lot.

Classic, fun, B-Movie stuff that deserves to be watched over and over again. Stuck up critics should be sent to a foreign country. Like Mars. Stop picking on good movies and start picking on movies that are actually bad.

Although for those of us who are fans of the movie, I'm about to drop a bit of blasphemy. I would be interested to see a remake of this....

BOOOOOOOOO, YOU SUCK DRLECTER! - Fans.

Yeah I know but as long as they provide a balance of old and new material and keep it with an R rating I think we might have something to develop on. Get some people who actually respect John's work, like Rob Zombie. But he's already done one. You probably think it won't happen because it's not well known enough. Well, they're remaking "Hell Night", and hardly anyone's heard of that movie (PG13 again. Sorry), so why not "Prince of Darkness". That one might actually turn out to be good, but in the meantime I'm happy with this and will always be happy with this. It needs the praise it deserves, and not a bunch of loudmouthed, pretentious, smug, idiots. Sorry, but I really like this movie.

Tagline: Before man walked the earth... It slept for centuries. It is evil. It is real. It is awakening.

Quote: "Hello? I'm opening the door, if you want to stop what you're doing and put your clothes on! - Kelly (Susan Blanchard).

4/5 Evil Homeless People.