Review of Prince of Darkness (1987) by Joseph S — 20 Jan 2009

Way, better than I thought going in. It's certainly a B-Movie first and foremost, but it's overambitious in the best ways possible, a group of theoretical physicists and assorted scientiests investigate an abandoned church in Los Angeles, a strange containeer filled of mysterious green liquid, for the Vatican. Guess whose inside.

What could have been a completely run of the mill anti-christ movie, is injected with quantum physics, a mysterious Gnostic bible, projectile spitting zombies, Alice Cooper as the schizophrenic leader of a pack of leering homeless, dreams transmitted from the future, random Argento like death seuqences with beetles, ants, etc, and John Carpenter regulars from Hallowen, Big Trouble In Little China, and The Thing.

What was creepy about this, just a little, was how accurate the discussions of the physics (Shrodingers Cat, anti-matter, faster than light travel) and theology (though Gnosticism is never mentioned, the mysteious book they translate is on the money), that is completely uncessary for a movie with zombies and demonic possesions. But there it is.

John Carpenter is and was one of the most imaginative directors in horror, where other see Fog he sees the ghosts of dead sailers, halloween masks become the face of unfathomable evil, a trip through modern china town holds anicent demons, New York becomes a post apacolyptic prison, sunglasses can reveal the hidden face of the world, aliens can be both freinds and shapeshifting devourers...I grew up these movies, and the more ghost movies that get re-made the more I appreciate his gusto, he scored almost every movie he made himself.

Don't know why I avoided this for so long. There are plenty of laugh out loud moments too, thanks to Dennis Dunn, especially his trapped in the closet sequence.