Physics professor, Howard Birack (Victor Wong), brings a group of graduate students, including Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker), Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount), and Walter (Dennis Dun), along with another colleague (Peter Jason), to an old church to aid a priest. Father Loomis (Donald Pleasence) has discovered a secret sect within the Catholic Church that has been guarding a sealed cylinder of green liquid for several thousand years, a cylinder that may contain an ancient evil. The texts found with the cylinder imply that religion may not be able to deal with the dark force, but that science is needed, and they don’t have much time.
Prince of Darkness takes Christian mythos and stands it on its ear. Yes, it says, God and Satan exist, Jesus did come to Earth to save us, and the Church holds the truth, but none of it means what we’ve always assumed. Jesus was really a…well, that would be telling.
Christian-based horror has the problem that it only works, as horror, for people with a specific set of beliefs. You have to believe enough to be scared by the concepts, but not too much or you’ll think that you’re safe due to Christ. That’s why the The Exorcist is so frightening to some people, but others just laugh. Prince of Darkness is Christian horror for a different group of people; it’s horror for scientists.
Director John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned), wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym “Martin Quatermass,” claiming to be the brother of the fictitious British scientist hero, Bernard Quatermass, from the 1960s films. He tossed in enough scientific language to make the background believable (though Schroedinger’s cat is more likely to be discussed by excited freshmen than PhD candidates). For those of us who studied physics, it’s refreshing to hear this in a movie, though if you haven’t, don’t let it drive you away as it’s just techno-babble and is there for mood more than meaning.
Carpenter presents a credible explanation for all of religion, and then lets science and religion join forces to fight evil. The ideas pulled me in and left plenty to be discussed by anyone who wants to dwell on the philosophical implications.
While the beginning of the film is intelligent and thoughtful, about halfway things settle into a standard mismatched-group-stranded-together horror film, as people disappear and zombies and evil spirits pop up. It’s still above average, but it lacks the originality shown early on. I’d like to have seen all that science being pertinent in the final battle, but a heavy piece of wood and an axe turn out to be the way to combat evil.
Carpenter makes good use of his favorite players in the supporting roles, with Victor Wong and Dennis Dun (both from Big Trouble in Little China) being the standouts. Dun is particularly good, inserting a sense of fun into an otherwise serious film. Donald Pleasence (Halloween, Escape from New York) puts his usual loony persona into the gilt-ridden priest, cursing the universe and the church for lying to him.
However, the leads don’t do so well. Lisa Blount is drab as the girl we’re supposed to care for, but barely stands out from the characters with ten or fifteen lines. Jameson Parker is embarrassing, appearing to read his dialog off teleprompters and coming up with random, half-hearted emotions slightly out-of-sync with the lines. He was recovering from an injury while shooting, so perhaps constant pain explains his performance. Both Blount and Parker are handicapped with an underwritten romance that even at this late date should be edited out. Neither look like they are minutely interested in the other and their chatting has nothing to do with people in love. That sub-plot is irrelevant to the rest of the story and just takes up time.
The kicker is the chilling ending. Carpenter creates an image you are unlikely to forget and that pulls the film together to make it one of the best Christian Mythos movies.