Fuji reviews John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness

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Fuji Vice

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John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness



A sinister secret has been kept in the basement of an abandoned Los Angeles church for many years. With the death of a priest belonging to a mysterious sect, another priest opens the door to the basement and discovers a vat containing a green liquid. The priest contacts a group of physics graduate students to investigate it. Unfortunately, they discover that the liquid contains the essence of Satan himself, and they also discover that he will release his father, an all-powerful Anti-God. The liquid later comes to life, turning some of the students into zombies. As the Devil comes forward to release his father, will the remaining students be able to stop him in time?



Reading the above, does that not sound like one of the most awesome movies ever? It sure does, which is why it’s such a surprise that I’ve never been a big fan of John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. Released in 1987 at the end of the 1980’s horror boom, I’ve always found it to be a bit nonsensical, particularly when compared to his other horror works. That’s not to say it’s not good, but there’s just something about it that’s always made me view it as Carpenter’s first real bust in the film world. From cookie-cutter characters (including some that are horribly cast) to a script that almost revels in its absurdity, there seem to be small but noticeable problems with nearly every element of the film. It doesn't help that this was Carpenter's follow-up to the surreal comedic masterpiece that was Big Trouble in Little China. By default, this film was never going to live up to that one, and at the end of the day I feel Prince of Darkness is a sad reminder that even the greatest directors can shit the bed every once in a blue moon.



"A rare excerpt from a video of John Carpenter working on the script to Prince of Darkness."

Written and directed by Carpenter, Prince of Darkness is the second in his self-proclaimed “Apocalypse Trilogy†which began with The Thing and ended with In the Mouth of Madness. However, unlike The Thing, this film fails to do one of the most important things in any horror film; establish likeable and important characters for the viewer to care about. Instead, Carpenter peppers this film with bland and often caricature-like individuals who serve no useful purpose but to either die or survive, though it’s impossible to give a crap about many of them either way. Maybe he was missing a writing partner like Debra Hill or Nick Castle, or perhaps the screenplay should have been written entirely by someone else. Either way, while he is definitely a great horror director, he seems to be lacking in the writing department when working solo, which is painfully evident here in both the characterization and dialogue. Speaking of the direction side of things, even here Carpenter seems to be a little lax with his work, choosing some very standard camera angles and blocking, while also pacing the film in a totally awkward manner. It’s almost as if he had been working too hard on Big Trouble in Little China and was looking ahead to They Live, which would make Prince of Darkness the classic “trap†scenario popularized in sports betting. Suffice to say, the film is definitely a trap, and the victims are the viewers who expected a lot more out of Carpenter.



"Donald Pleasance reflects on the screenplay while contemplating suicide."

If Carpenter’s writing and direction are a major problem here, they’re still only second and third to the awful casting on this film, easily the worst assembled for any film bearing his name. For starters, I have nothing but praise for Jameson Parker’s looks and feel his work on the television show Simon & Simon was excellent. Of course that work also didn’t require much acting so when he’s asked to do it in Prince of Darkness it’s noticeable how quickly he falls on his pretty face. I wouldn’t buy this guy as a graduate student if he had a fucking degree tattooed to his body and I highly doubt anyone else would either. However, Parker isn’t even nearly the worst actor to ply their craft in this film as it appears everyone was trying their best to do their worst. Among these sad sacks are notable actors who appeared in Big Trouble in Little China (Dennis Dun and Victor Wong, who seems totally lost here), Halloween (Donald Pleasance in perhaps his worst performance ever), They Live (Peter Jason) and the incomparable Lisa Blount, who I feel would have been better cast as a table lamp than as an actual person. However, I simply cannot finish up the casting section without mentioning the sole bright light to the film, none other than Alice Cooper! That’s right folks, someone saw fit to cast Alice Cooper as a zombie-like homeless dude and he totally nails the role because, well because he looks like a zombie at the best of times! Cooper is seriously the lone bright spot here and that’s seriously not saying much since he doesn’t even get a chance to sing “School’s Out†before the film is over; damn you Carpenter!



"Searching for a way out of this movie."

There’s some major problems right out of the gate with Prince of Darkness, as the title sequence extends into the film itself! Not that I’d have a problem with that if it made any sort of sense, but it doesn’t and I sort of just sat there scratching my head while waiting for something interesting to happen. Nothing really did mind you, just some babbling about ancient evil which eventually turns out to be a green liquid substance that doesn’t look particularly ancient or evil. It does manage to squirt itself into a stupid woman’s mouth shortly after its introduced, which turns her into a lesbian demon bitch, so that’s actually a pretty positive point for the movie. After that a whole bunch of other bizarre stuff happens but all I was really interested in was whether or not Alice Cooper was going to sing. As I’ve mentioned earlier, he didn’t, so I was not only a sad Fuji, but a mad one as well. Honestly, I just don’t get what happened here at all. Carpenter was as close to a sure thing as possible at this point in his career, as even his non-commercially successful films like The Thing were top notch. Instead of racking my brain trying to think of all the reasons why I hated Prince of Darkness or just why it stunk, I’ll give Carpenter a mulligan instead. After all, when you’re busy preparing for Roddy Piper chewing bubblegum and kicking ass AND coming off Jack Burton’s reflexes, how the hell can you focus on green liquid that’s plotting to take over the world? 5/10.



"Tomorrow...the night he comes home.....again."