Prince of Darkness (1987)

How many times have I said this: if you can do something really well, why would you spend the biggest part of your life playing it safe and just giving people what they want instead of what you know you can give them?

Okay...maybe I just said that once, but it still fits in perfectly for my review this time around, because this concerns a man whom I know for a FACT has done and can do great things. Incredible things. And all with a movie camera.

There's no denying that John Carpenter is a good director. I've said this on more than one occasion and in more than one review. Any man who has not only cited Sergio Leone, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock as influences and tries to emulate their work in horror as well as action films is not without props.

I love the movie Halloween. It is scary, it is intense, it is atmospheric and not only contains one of the best music scores of all time but two of the best performances in modern horror films - one by Jamie Lee Curtis as a resilient babysitter and Donald Pleasance as a doggedly determined psychiatrist.

And since that huge hit, he has done his best to try and repeat his past triumph - with varying degrees of success.

As a matter of fact, in the mid-'80s, there were so many "based on characters created by"s and "from the mind of"s with John Carpenter's name on them many wondered if he had another good movie in him. Not just in box office revenue, mind you; good in terms of look, feel and action. A film worthy of having his name before the title.

When Prince of Darkness came out, there was skepticism. His familiar cadre of talent was in place (Pleasance, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun), his influences were apparent (Quartermass, Lovecraft) and the camera angles, darkness and space contrast was there, just like in Halloween -- but was this a full-bodied John Carpenter film, or just another empty exercise?

The plot was simple enough; When the guardian priest of an abandoned church in Los Angeles dies, the remaining father (Pleasance) finds a diary and a key, opens the door of the basement and finds a cylinder with a gruesome green fluid. The priest contacts Professor Howard Birack (Wong) in the local university and he invites a team of students to research the findings and translate manuscripts. The group soon discovers the liquid is the essence of evil, actually Satan's remains, and has been kept locked in the church for centuries.

Their research awakes the son of the Devil and when student Susan Cabot (Anne Marie Howard) gets close to the container, she drinks a jet of the green liquid, transforming into a zombified shell of herself. Susan spreads the liquid among her friends, increasing the army of evil zombies. While the group is attacked inside the church by the zombies, derelicts surround the church trapping them inside, and Satan tries to bring his father into our world. Will evil succeed?

You can see where Carpenter's favorite author, H.P. Lovecraft is quoted in both character and style, where innocent people face overwhelming evil with only the slightest chance of survival, if any. And there are also echoes of writer Nigel Kneale's own famous creation Professor Quartermsss and stories such as Quartermass and the Pit and The Quartermass Conclusion.

There is an intensity and an amazing amount of shadows employed here, all to the credit of director and writer Carpenter, who certainly knows how to paint a beautiful, horrifying picture. Carpenter's strength has always been in his visuals; not only are there your typical sights you're so used to seeing as far back as 1978's Halloween with the sharp frontal composition used to mask the ominous background movements. Some scenes I remember quite vividly are the slow-motion descent of a broken scissor blade, the sudden appearance of breath from a corpse, the flickering visuals of doom from a security camera, the ghostly visage of a homeless man (Alice Cooper) as his hollow eyes gaze skyward. Even such an otherwise innocent shot as an ant hill takes on the most eerie visage; Evelyn Waugh was famous for writing about showing us fear in a handful of dust. Carpenter manages to show us terror in a vat of green goo.

To me, the beauty of this film was the craft which brought it together. Not only Carpenter's sure work behind the camera, but also the realistic effects by Kevin Quibell which demonstrate how subtle nuances of makeup, unexpected changes in appearance, a well-placed ash-faced ghoul all couple with the relation between good vs. evil and how there are no rules by which the universe can be governed.

The actors' winning touches aid immensely. I've already mentioned the always-dependable Pleasance, whose mannered observations help heighten the dread of what's to come - just as his beginning soliloquy on the innate evil of a certain small child in his care back in 1978 helped us understand what we should expect from what would become the embodiment of evil.

Lisa Blount and Jameson Parker, as a couple caught in the horrific surroundings, provide some excellent counter as they try to survive the overpowering evil all about them. It helps that there are no jokey performances here; this is more in the realm of those old Hammer horror films, where everyday conversations hold unbearable fright and dire consequences hide behind every otherwise benign corner.

Prince of Darkness has baffled me for ages as to why it was never more successful. It was critically panned by every living reviewer in the day and, despite its earning $14 million on a $3 million budget, generated little to no good word of mouth. It's a shame, too; this is a John Carpenter movie that even people who don't usually watch a John Carpenter movie will find themselves enjoying immensely. For frights, atmosphere, style and downright creepiness off the scale, Prince of Darkness simply cannot be beat.

I enjoyed this much more than The Fog and The Thing, if only because this time Carpenter (as writer, credited as Martin Quartermass- imagine that!) invested this story with everything he could think of in the name of a good old scary story then Carpenter (as director) imbued that same story with some visuals that are the evil icing on the sinister cake.

Carpenter may not break new ground with Prince of Darkness, but he doesn't take any missteps, either.

Watch it yourself if you haven't already; this is a good, scary movie done by a writer/director in his prime.

But you might want to read some Quartermass first; just to put it all in perspective.