I consider this to be an underrated low budget gem by John Carpenter that deserves to be up there with his best films. Here is a good article about the film (WARNING : Contains spoilers)

http://thequietus.com/articles/10814...er-25-years-on

25 Years On: Prince Of Darkness Revisited

Released in 1987, Prince of Darkness is the second part of what director John Carpenter has dubbed his 'Apocalypse Trilogy', which begins with The Thing (1982) and ends with In the Mouth of Madness (1995). Though the three films are different stories and not directly connected, they all deal with a threat that could destroy humanity if allowed to go unchecked.

Prince of Darkness involves a covert Roman Catholic order called the Brotherhood of Sleep. This sect have been watching over a cylinder containing an ancient secret that's been hidden in a church crypt for centuries. When the last guardian dies, Father Loomis (Donald Pleasence, whose character in 1978's Halloween was of course also named Loomis) calls Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) to investigate the mysterious entity.

Birack is seen delivering a lecture that undermines what we believe to real: "Say goodbye to classical reality because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows... While order does exist in the universe, it is not at all what we had in mind." Among his diverse group of students are Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blout), who have fallen in love. This is a seemingly trivial event in the face of the earth-shaking revelations to come, yet in typical Carpenter fashion it will prove to be the most important.

There is a palimpsest in the crypt, its parchments having had their text erased to make room for other writing, with the original entry remaining faintly visible. One of the academics, Lisa (Ann Yen), is an expert on ancient languages and begins to translate the book. She discovers that the liquid in the cylinder is in fact the Son of Satan: 'And the Prince of Darkness was Himself sealed, that old life, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.' The tome also says that Jesus was of extraterrestrial origin and came to Earth to warn humanity. After his death the Church kept this quiet, preferring to portray evil as a metaphor rather than a corporeal presence.

The Prince of Darkness's essence invades those in the vicinity, so that they can work as his minions. One student is murdered by a 'Street Schizo' (played by Alice Cooper). Another member of the group, Kelly (Susan Blanchard), is bruised. Her bruise forms into the shape of the astrologer's staff, an occult symbol (rock fan Carpenter got the idea for using it from the sleeve of Blue Öyster Cult's classic 1976 LP Agents of Fortune). Kelly has been chosen to be the vessel for the Anti-Christ.

Another message comes from the now-possessed Lisa. She ceases maniacally typing 'I LIVE' on her computer screen, and instead informs those who survive using the same medium: '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!' This scene is clearly inspired by The Shining, and serves to underscore Carpenter's occult/technology theme: the Prince of Darkness is telling the survivors through Lisa that neither science nor religion can save them. The uninfected all share the same dream, beamed directly to their subconscious from the year 1999. It shows a shadowy creature appearing in the doorway of the church. A voice accompanying the vision warns them they are witnessing an event they must prevent from happening: "This is not a dream..."

Carpenter was inspired to write Prince of Darkness by his interest in quantum mechanics. He told biographer Gilles Boulenger: "I'd been doing a lot of reading on theoretical physics and atomic theory, and I found it to be amazing. Not only amazing, but also it was transforming the truth of it all. The point of quantum mechanics is something called 'observer-created reality', which in one bold and terrifying stroke slams at the heart of human perception and its understanding of the objective Newtonian reality. So I thought it would be interesting to create some sort of ultimate evil and combine it with the notion of matter and anti-matter. Since there is a mirror of anti-matter for every particle of matter, I thought it would be great to have an anti-God, namely a mirror opposite of God that would be totally evil. I started from that premise and worked in various ideas."

He was also heavily influenced by English screenwriter Nigel Kneale, who merged the occult and science to great effect, most famously in the venerable Quatermass and the Pit. This is reflected in Carpenter adopting the pseudonym Martin Quatermass as his writing credit. Kneale didn't take this as a compliment and was greatly vexed. (That said, looking at interviews which Kneale gave over the years, he was pretty irritated by everything.) The pair had previously fallen out over the screenplay of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). Nevertheless, the influence of Kneale looms large in Carpenter's filmography. In tribute, the promotional material for Prince of Darkness went as far as inventing the following biographical information: 'Martin Quatermass, born in London, England, is a former physicist and brother of Bernard Quatermass, the rocket scientist who headed the British Rocket Group during the 1950s. Quatermass graduated from Kneale University with a degree in theoretical physics. Prince of Darkness is his first screenplay, and he assures that all the physical principles used in the story, including the ability of subatomic particles to travel backward in time, are true. Author of two novels, Schrödinger's Revenge and Schwarzschild Radius, he currently lives in Frazier Park, California, with his wife, Janet.'

Among the many parallels between Quatermass and the Pit and Prince of Darkness is the opening of an ancient object of extraterrestrial origin that unleashes badness into the world. And the influence the object in the pit has on the susceptible humans is echoed by the creature in the canister's influence on the Street Schizos. Further shared ideas are that of a warning being sent through time (a device also used in Chris Marker's La Jetée, later to be the basis for Terry Gilliam's fine Twelve Monkeys) and the merging of the ancient with the modern: a technological explanation for the theological

Alice Cooper actually recorded a theme song for Prince of Darkness, though it is only heard briefly in the movie. The soundtrack, as is often the case with Carpenter's pictures, was composed and performed by the man himself in association with Alan Howarth. It's one of their finest, low bass notes providing tension, the antithesis of a typical Hollywood score. The music is there to enhance the visuals, not to spoon-feed our emotions.

Prince of Darkness received poor notices but was a solid commercial success. Contemporary reviews totally missed the point of a smartly constructed and well-acted piece, its deceptively complex script overflowing with subtext. Carpenter uses many motifs from his own body of work. Once again we have a team of professionals fighting a malignant force. There's the resurgence of an ancient evil, as seen in The Thing (a monster previously frozen in ice for thousands of years), 1980's The Fog (undead lepers risen to wreak vengeance), and Lo-Pan's quest in Big Trouble in Little China (1986). An old book provides the key to the mystery, similar to The Fog. The characters are under siege, just like they are in Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), The Fog and The Thing. Their foe cannot be destroyed, only contained (The Thing again). There's the use of the human image to deceive, which was employed to benign effect in Starman (1984) but would later cause trouble in They Live (1988), Village of the Damned (1995) and Ghosts of Mars (2001).

Many other horror themes are present, such as demonic possession; dreams as a gateway to other realities; the genie in a bottle; the return of the repressed; the reanimated dead; evil as an infection; the repulsion of insects; stigmata (Kelly's bruise); the mirror as a gateway to another world, or as a mirror image; and of course the Anti-Christ. Plus the film's depiction of evil as a measurable scientific factor remains daring - perhaps too daring for some, as John Carpenter himself noted: "Critics hated Prince of Darkness at least as much as The Thing. People still deride the movie today. I remain unrepentant."

I like this movie quite a bit but always wished it had a stronger lead than Jameson Parker. I can't stand him in this...It probably would have had a better boxoffice with one also.

LOVE Prince of Darkness and that Scream Factory Blu-ray is stellar!

I was at the "Apocalypse" trilogy screening a couple of years ago at the Aero Theater, where JC introduced the films and was lucky enough to have seen The Thing, In the Mouth of Madness, and Prince of Darkness all in 35 mm.

It was great.

PoD is one of the few "horror" films to actually give me the creeps. I think it is particularity freaky if you come from a Christian background. I loved the scientific aspect of this Religious matter.

I liked this one too. I actually only recently first saw it when I blind bought the Scream Factory Blu-ray. Liked the church setting and the soundtrack is good. It has that good old school slow burn horror vibe and is a pretty creepy film.

You lucky bastard! The only one of those I got to see on the big screen was The Thing when it came out 32 years ago.

I was going to say that this was the best thread bump ever.

Great movie. I remember seeing it when it first came out and liked it and my love has grown ever since. That Shout Factory release (like most of their releases) is exceptional. Great to see these gems get the treatment they deserve.

When I was 10 and 11, Prince of Darkness would be on the late night movie ALL the time. I remember countless sleepovers watching it with friends and being completely creeped out. To this day, I'm still unnerved by the big guy with the neck bandage looking in the mirror and making sounds like a mentally handicapped person.

I love Carpenter's score for this. I have a couple tracks on my mp3 and loved listening to it when I'm walking home in the dark, makes me feel like I'm in an adventure.

To me, this movie is the peak of Carpenter's talent, I don't think he ever made anything the matched the quality of his best movies after Prince of Darkness.

I watched the movie just before Halloween, on Oct 27th and took a look at its wikipedia page. On it, I was bummed to see that Lisa Blount died in 2010, then was a little creeped out to see the day she happened to die was that day, Oct 27th.

I agree, even though he did 2 films afterward that I think are good (They Live in 1988 and In the Mouth of Madness in 1995) IMO Prince of Darkness is his last great film.

Wow I did not know she passed away.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0089408/b..._=nm_ov_bio_sm

Lisa's mother, Louise, who found her daughter dead, claims that at the time of her daughter's death, she (Lisa) was suffering from idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), in which low levels of platelets keep blood from clotting and lead to bleeding and bruising.

"Amaaaaaaazing graaaaaaace!!!!!!"

Love this movie. Very creepy. The broadcast dream is super creepy. And the final shot of Christine in the mirror reaching back is so haunting. Great movie that I always recommend to people.

Prince of Darkness always felt like the movie that JC would have made had he collaborated with David Cronenberg. The use of video, creature effects, it doesn't feel like your typical Carpenter film. I second the love for the Shout Factory BD.

The shot of Christine, doomed to that darkness forever, makes my blood run cold to this day.

Definitely a superior horror flick, and one of Carpenter's best.

Carpenter's best film as far as I'm concerned, and my personal favorite horror film other than the original Black Christmas. Such an intelligently frightening film that has lost none of it's effectiveness over the years.

The church makes a brief cameo appearance in the cheesy Lundgren/Lee actioner, Showdown in Little Tokyo.

I always felt this flick was over rated. It feels more like a prologue to the main story. And, I agree about Jameson Parker. Sort of a poor man's Kurt Russell.

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Agreed. Probably one of my top 3 most haunting images from a movie ever.

And I hate the priest character, who seems completely oblivious to her sacrifice as he celebrate at the end, "We did it."

And we had to have 4 or 5 scenes of himself laughing at his neck wound in the mirror. WTF?

Also, I think They Live is Carpenter's last great film.

Entertaining, but don't come close to The Thing. The whole moon situation bothered me the first time I saw it.

*shivers*

I made a side trip over to this church last time I was in LA, it's not too far from The Bradbury Building.

Very odd to stand in front of it and just generally walk around after seeing the film so many times growing up.

It's one of my favorite Carpenter flicks for sure.

Here is a nice recent review :


http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/rev...ce-of-darkness

Prince of Darkness

Deciding to return to his independent roots after spending the first half of the '80s mounting bigger and bigger productions, John Carpenter released Prince of Darkness in 1987 and showed just how little of his craft owed to budget. The film takes place in the confines of a run-down Los Angeles church, a setting that would normally indicate a tempering of scale were so many of Carpenter's best films not themselves set in cramped quarters. Further, Carpenter's starkly composed style makes even his biggest work feel sparse and restrained, so that the carefully ordered but uncluttered frames of Prince of Darkness fit as well with similar shots in Escape from New York and The Thing as early no-budget gems like Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween.

The true display of the film's minuscule budget, then, can be seen in the risks the director takes with its minimal story. The opening sequence alone shows Carpenter at his most free-form, even as his taut control is etched into every image. The extended opening stops and starts for a full 10 minutes, its top credits interspersed among mysterious imagery that stresses mood over clarity. An old priest dies as a moonbeam illuminates his dank room. Ants bustle by the thousands on some grass. Clouds obscure the sun, warping its spherical properties and spilling its shape as if a broken yolk. Even the narrative is established in this oblique, tonal fashion, the constant skips between the aforementioned church and USC classrooms populated by doctoral candidates in physics obfuscating even as characters are introduced.

The film's juxtaposition of clergy, surrounded by the ruins of their decayed relevance and doctoral students mulling over the philosophy of theoretical science as much as its empirical facts, sets up an easy dichotomy between the end of religious relevance and the rise of science. Nevertheless, the same grim tone that infects the shots of anxious priests and nuns equally shapes the undercurrent of the college scenes, anticipating a narrative that fuses God and physics, only to find no answers in either. The union of the two ostensibly opposed elements is matched by the force that opposes the characters, a vaguely scientific, inter-dimensional manifestation of the Antichrist that takes the form of green liquid that can possess those who come into contact with it.

That the film's plot proves incomprehensible even to the filmmakers (if the included commentary track is any indication) doesn't preclude it from being an effective means of generating suspense. Homeless people around the church are lured by subliminal forces into creating a blockade that murders anyone who tries to escape, while some clever lo-fi effects—a possessed man dissolving into bugs, mercury used to simulate a mirror warping to the touch to allow passage between dimensions—lend a surreal, cosmic horror to the hemmed-in production. And while the first half may be dominated by pseudoscientific rationalization for a subatomic Antichrist, the film ultimately relies on its nonsensical meaning to conjure its apocalyptic terror. Even a room full of geniuses find themselves at a loss in the face of pure evil, leaving the rest of us to simply wait to be consumed.

Above all, Prince of Darkness is the quintessential John Carpenter film. Donald Pleasance caps off a series of impotent, terrified authority figures for the director as a priest who must admit a secret the Church buried for millennia, his shame and terror so great that he exists beyond the skittish terror of his president and Dr. Loomis. Carpenter's score with Alan Howarth is his finest, stripped of identifiable themes right down to a collection of sustained pulses and sampled choirs that chill better than anything the director-composer made before or since. Above all, however, it's Carpenter's direction that dazzles and propels, clarifying through blocking and movement what the script leaves bewildering. Carpenter's formal mastery has long elevated the material he chooses, but Prince of Darkness is the purest distillation of that formalism, a film that exists only as.