Summary:
A research team studies a strange cylinder left in a deserted church and mysterious occurrences begin happening in the surrounding area.
My Thoughts:
The more I see of John Carpenter’s films the more convince I am that he is absolutely amazing at coming up with great concepts for horror movies, and he is mostly successful in transferring those ideas from his brain to the screen. “Prince of Darkness” is a prime example of this quality. The idea of a mysterious cylinder that contains a bizarre and so potentially dangerous unknown substance that the Vatican itself knows of its existence and wants to keep it quiet feels like something out of a Lovecraft short story.
Within the first twenty minutes of this movie, I was wondering why I’d never heard this film touted as one of Carpenter’s best; the set up was great, the pacing (in act one) moves at a pretty quick clip, and it even had some pretty decent actors to make up for the others who didn’t give great performances. I thought I was in for a real treat… and then act two came and the film started dragging… and then some rather sexist characters started to show up… and then by the end of act two, when the pacing was still a bit slow and the less-talented actors started to eat up most of the screen time I knew why I hadn’t really heard much about this movie before: it’s not that great, but it does have some really redemptive scenes, which is why I chose to give this movie a 3/5 and nothing lower.
“This is not a dream… not a dream.”
After an elder priest dies, a nun contacts another Priest (Donald Pleasence, “The Great Escape”) about the instructions the elder priest left behind. The Priest quickly contacts a physics professor named Howard Birack (Victor Wong, “The Last Emperor”), and the two decide to bring in a team of grad students to investigate a mysterious cylinder filled with a swirling green liquid. Among the grad students are new lovers Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount, “An Officer and a Gentleman”). As the research begins, strange and supernatural things begin to occur.
I think Carpenter is at his scariest when I’m not 100% certain what’s going on, but nonetheless I feel afraid. In “The Thing” some of the best parts are when you just don’t know who the thing is hiding inside; in “Halloween” it’s not knowing the reason why Michael is killing these people or where he is; in “In the Mouth of Madness” it’s when John and Linda are approaching Hobbs End and stuff starts to get all wonky. Carpenter seems to know that the idea of fear is more terrifying than anything he can actually show us on screen; the idea of the unknown, of something beyond our comprehension, is more terrifying than something we can see in front of us. Just hinting at an idea gives our brains room to play and go wild, but showing us the scary thing completely takes away any mystery, and mystery always adds further intrigue. (What’s behind the door, scratching softly, wanting to come in? Is it a severed hand crawling across the ground? Is it a zombie trying to push his way through? Open up the door and- oh, never mind, it’s only my cat...) In not revealing details, he adds to the horror with every scene.
I think this approach to horror- slowly revealing things but never quite explaining completely- works really well in a lot of his movies. In this film, however, Carpenter has a very solid beginning and a pretty great ending; it’s the middle portion where he seems to have trouble filling. As characters wait for information or discuss information amongst themselves I was, at first, intrigued, but then as many of the characters just wandered aimlessly through hallways waiting for the climax to commence for the next forty minutes, I grew bored. True, there are scientific revelations, and some of those revelations are pretty interesting, but honestly, this is a horror film, and I felt as if I should’ve been feeling a touch more horror throughout. I found myself eagerly awaiting the climax so that I could turn off the film, but then when the climax did finally come, I was very pleasantly surprised. This movie comes painfully close to getting a 2.5/5 star rating just for being boring, but it saves itself in the last ten to fifteen minutes by giving us a rather subtle twist that changes everything the students thought they were right in doing.
Verdict:
This definitely isn’t one of Carpenter’s best films, but there are three or four moments that stand out, and the overall concept was pretty neat. I have no idea why Alice Cooper (“Wayne’s World”) had a cameo as a homeless guy with schizophrenia, but whatever; you do you Carpenter. I honestly can’t say I’d recommend this film too much unless you’re a huge Carpenter fan or a big 80s horror fanatic. This movie is the definition of okay, and that’s what makes it rather frustrating.
Review Written By: