“You will not be saved by the holy ghost. You will not be saved by the god Plutonium. In fact, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!”
These words typed across the computer screen by a possessed grad student cut right to the heart of what makes John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness an outlier in possession horror still to this day. Satan launches a siege to summon his father, the Anti-God, within a crumbling church after his corporeal embodiment gets loose from its prison in the dank basement. The ultimate, apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil gets upended with cosmic dread thanks to Carpenter’s injection of quantum mechanics, rendering science and religion allies against an insurmountable foe.
Penned by Carpenter under the pseudonym Martin Quatermass (an homage to Quatermass and the Pit creator Nigel Kneale), Prince of Darkness begins with the passing of an elderly priest. On his person is a small box containing a key, which leads another Priest (Donald Pleasence) to investigate. He discovers it unlocks the basement of an older church, St. Godard’s. In it is a large ancient canister full of swirling green liquid, a tangible force of evil. The discovery prompts him to enlist quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) and his students to join his search for answers.
Eerie clues that nature’s been disrupted appear throughout the setup that introduces the ill-fated group and their preparations to investigate the mysterious canister beneath St. Godard. The more overt deliver nightmares that play like strange, otherworldly tachyon transmissions. The central characters don’t notice the subtle signs, from disturbed insects to astronomical events. The surrounding homeless population seems affected, possessed to tighten ranks around the church as sentinels. All of it signals a seismic shift in the universe.
Within the church, the thirteen academics discover the green liquid is sentient, broadcasting complex data that they analyze. The collected data reveals that God and Satan were extra-terrestrials, and Anti-God exists in the realm of anti-matter. Through quantum mechanics, John Carpenter presents a cosmic scale for this apocalyptic evil; how do you fight back against a powerful force on a subatomic level?
As the group uncovers answers, the liquid escapes its canister and begins to infect the academics, possessing them to aid in the quest to summon the Anti-God. It becomes an eerie siege horror movie for the remaining characters.
Carpenter sidelines religion to an extent, an anomaly for a subgenre so defined by it. Donald Pleasence’s Priest spends much of the film hiding in fear. His first instinct isn’t to reach out to the Vatican for aid but to Professor Birack. In true cosmic horror fashion, it quickly becomes apparent that neither science nor religion are prepared to confront the onslaught.
Humanity is but a blip in the grand universe and its fathomless reach.
Prince of Darkness is the second film in Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy, sandwiched between The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness. As with many of Carpenter’s films in the ’80s, Prince of Darkness was maligned by critics upon release on October 23, 1987, and wasn’t a tremendous box office performer. It remains a shame, too. The effects work impresses, especially in the climactic scene that sees the Anti-God make its entrance into our world through the mirror. John Carpenter and Alan Howarth‘s score instills apprehension. The characters make an impact, and the siege aspect of this single-location horror movie is compelling. But what stands out the most is how Carpenter created a world where logic is reversed, and reality loses all meaning. It’s not academia and spirituality that saves the world, at least this time, but instinct and perhaps even love. There’s hefty weight and cosmic dread behind the deceptive simplicity.
It’s a ballsy move to liquefy Satan and use scientists as the last line of defense in an apocalyptic battle. It’s even bolder to posit that God is an extra-terrestrial in a subgenre of horror dominated by religion. Prince of Darkness‘s theoretical questions and unconventional approach may not have made it a massive hit upon release 35 years ago. Still, it continues to reward with subsequent watches, and that foreboding atmosphere lingers long after the credits.
The post This Is Not a Dream: John Carpenter’s ‘Prince of Darkness’ at 35 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.