Review of Prince of Darkness (1987) by Russ V — 11 Oct 2013

Prince of Darkness, like so many John Carpenter films is criminally underrated. It is not up there with Carpenter's greatest like The Thing, The Fog, In the Mouth of Madness, Halloween, etc., but it is still a fantastic horror film. The story is very imaginative; it has a great cast, a great premise, decent effects, and a great atmosphere. I will say that this is probably one of the most imaginative horror films I've seen. The story is reminiscent of many horror films involving the Devil like The Omen. However, out of all the films I have seen like that this film is the best and definitely the most imaginative. In my opinion, this film is better than films like The Omen or The Exorcist, but those films get all the praise in the universe while this film gets ignored.

The plot is fairly complicated and confusing if you do not pay attention. A priest named Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance) finds a mysterious canister filled with ooze in the basement of a n old church. We find out that this ooze is actually the essence of Satan himself. Loomis brings in a team of scientists to study the canister. The ooze eventually gets loose and turns everyone into zombies one by one. While that is happening it seems like people are being possessed and tuned into zombies on the outside world as well. Soon a whole mob of zombies surrounds the church and prevents them from escaping. Satan intends to possess a body in order to free his father who is deemed Anti-God. The survivors must defeat Satan before the apocalypse happens.

The film is very imaginative and has very unique ideas especially compared to today. Today's horror films consist of remakes, sequels, torcher-porns, sequels, basic slashers, and lame found-footage films. One of the things I really like about John Carpenter is that he has many unique ideas and is not afraid to see them through. He tells the stories he wants to tell instead of making movies that focus groups want to see.

The film has a great cast. You have the late Donald Pleasance (R.I.P.), Victor Wong, Jameson Parker, and Dennis Dun. They all do great work. The film has a terrific atmosphere which is helped by a fantastic score. John Carpenter can not only write good stories, but he can also compose great scores like nobody's business. The effects are pretty good for 1987 and some scenes were pretty creepy.

Overall, Prince of Darkness is a highly underrated horror flick. It has great performances, great atmosphere, amazing score, intriguing premise, great effects, and much suspense and fun. If you have not seen it yet then go give it a look.