Prince Of Darkness (1987)

PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987)

Dir: John Carpenter

12/31 #31daysofhorror

When I was eleven and attempting to make my way through as many John Carpenter films as I could. I had one of those Leonard Maltin review books, and I looked up Carpenter’s filmography. I saw the title Prince Of Darkness and had to seek it out. Our town had six video stores for its total of 8,000 people and not one of them was a Blockbuster, Family Video, or Hollywood Video. They were all locally owned. This made it difficult to carry a lot of titles, Prince of Darkness couldn’t be found anywhere. But each owner was a huckster in their own right, and it was their questionable business savvy that greatly affected my cinematic education.

My hometown was an hour drive from St. Louis, MO. At the time, St. Louis was being overrun by the large chain video stores. This made it ripe for blowout sales. I was excited back then when another one of these city stores went out of business, because it meant we’d get all their inventory. I had no idea that the domino effect would cause all rental shops to eventually close their doors. One day, I was helping an owner open a few new boxes from another fire sale, when I ran across the holy grail of Carpenter films. The one I couldn’t locate anywhere, Prince of Darkness. I wasn’t paid by these stores; I just knew the owners and spent all my free time hanging out in the aisles. I was always respectful and never annoying, so they would let me help prep and organize the tapes. This meant I could rent what I wanted.

When I saw Halloween (1978) my life was forever altered. The same can be said for The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Escape From New York (1981), and They Live (1988). Though I was young, I was able to follow the story in each of these films, and I enjoyed the effects work. When I finally saw Prince Of Darkness it made me feel uncomfortable, a little bored, and then offered the most intense jump scare I’d ever experienced. I still think about literally jumping to my feet. All these re-watches later, my cells still react from the memories embedded within. Out of all of Carpenter’s work, his Satan film evolves each time you see it.

A caretaker of an old and defunct monastery dies. The Catholic church sends a priest to evaluate their new acquisition. He finds a large canister underneath the building. The cylinder houses a swirling liquid. The priest invites his friend, a quantum physicist, to come and investigate the strange device. A group of graduate students, handpicked by the physicist, stay the weekend to assist in researching the contents in the basement. As we know from Return of the Living Dead (1985), if there’s a canister with something sinister inside, movie law dictates that it must be released. The liquid in the cylinder slowly trickles upward to the ceiling. When the students come close, they’re infected. Slowly, each character becomes possessed by the liquid and seeks to destroy anyone in their path.

I understood this part of the plot at eleven. I didn’t understand their theories of some entity higher than Satan made of anti-matter. The cylinder is filled with liquefied evil. As a kid, I should have drawn the parallel between the Ghostbusters II (1989) ooze. Watery evil infecting all in its path. The Satan slime selects a student to summon the Anti-God while schizophrenic somnambulist stand guard outside. Simple, right?

This is the beauty of Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy. This trilogy consists of The Thing, Prince Of Darkness, and In The Mouth Of Madness. These three films are Carpenter telling H. P. Lovecraft stories about the cosmic other infecting our reality. There is a dread embedded in these films that isn’t present in his other work, and therefore they stand out. I’ve always loved The Thing and In The Mouth Of Madness. I was instantly attracted to the horrors they revealed. With Prince Of Darkness, my thinking has evolved over the years. From an eleven-year-old who was scared sh*tless by a camera trick, to a college student falling in love with the special effects make-up, and now viewing the nihilism the film captures in my late thirties, each stage has deepened my appreciation.