My Review of Prince Of Darkness (1987)

 

Written And Directed by John Carpenter 

Professor Edward Birack: "The outside world doesn't want to hear this kind of bullshit. Just keep it locked away. You've already managed that for two thousand years."

Father Loomis: "No prison can hold him now."

We're entering spooky season and it's time for me to dust off some other horror movies from certain directors. This movie wasn't a first see for me but it's also been a while since I've watched this one.

What's this movie about? Well, it started with a secret order of the Catholic Church. They're called the Brotherhood of Sleep and they were tasked with looking after a large cylinder of green swirling liquid. The liquid's Satan's spirit by the way.

Cut to present day (at the time of release) and the cylinder's in the possession of a priest (Donald Pleasence) who invited a quantum physicist named Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) to analyze the cylinder. Birack also brought in his own experts for this task.

Well, when I say experts, I actually mean students and doctors. The students in question being Walter Fong (Dennis Dun), Kelly (Susan Blanchard), Susan Cabot (Anne Howard), Mullins (Dirk Blocker), couple Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danfort (Lisa Blount) along with scientists Calder (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson), Lisa (Ann Yen), Etchinson (Thom Bray), Lomax (Ken Wright), Frank Wyndham (Robert Grasmere), and Dr. Paul Leahy (Peter Jason).

It's a lot of characters to keep up with and it's also a lot of characters that also have to work together in order to realise the severity of the green liquid. Throughout the movie, these characters are possessed and killed by the liquid and each other. There's also talk of an anti God, before the movie ended on an unsettling note.

Now in terms of performances, there's a few standouts. Donald Pleasence in particular while not doing anything different to his most famous role was a highlight for me. Another was Dennis Dun as the possibly gay Walter Fong. Those two actors stood out the most in a very crowded movie.

- I did find the reveal of Jesus Christ being an extraterrestrial rather interesting.

- Alice Cooper also had a role in the movie as well as providing the title song for the soundtrack.

- Standout music: John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's score in general.

- Chronology: 1980s Los Angeles along with centuries ago scene in the Middle East.

Prince Of Darkness opted for the horror sci-fi approach to dealing with Satan and while it suffered from too many characters, it's a pretty solid movie nonetheless. Not Carpenter's best but certainly worth watching.

Rating: 7 out of 10