Prince of Darkness (film)
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Prince of Darkness | |
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Larry J. Franco | |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Gary B. Kibbe |
Edited by | Steve Mirkovich |
Music by | John Carpenter Alan Howarth |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 101 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Languages |
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Budget | $3 million |
Box office | $14.2 million |
Prince of Darkness is a 1987 American
Plot
A Catholic priest invites quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack and his students to join him in the basement of the Los Angeles monastery Saint Goddard’s, belonging to "The Brotherhood of Sleep", an old order who communicate through dreams. The priest requires their assistance in investigating a mysterious cylinder containing a swirling green liquid. Among the thirteen academics present are wise-cracking Walter, demure Kelly, the highly-strung Susan, laid-back Mullins, and lovers Brian and Catherine. Later, at Saint Goddard’s, fellow scientists Calder, Lisa, Etchinson, Lomax, Frank Wyndham, and Dr. Paul Leahy join to assist with research.
They decipher an ancient text found next to the cylinder that describes the liquid as the corporeal embodiment of
Professor Birack and the priest theorize that Satan is actually the offspring of the "Anti-God", an even more powerful force of evil bound to the realm of
Walter, trapped in a closet, witnesses the possessed bringing the cylinder to a sleeping Kelly. It opens itself and the remaining liquid transfuses into Kelly’s body, causing her to become the physical vessel of Satan: a gruesomely disfigured being, with powers of telekinesis and regeneration. Kelly attempts to summon the Anti-God through a dimensional portal using a makeup compact mirror, but the mirror is too small and the effort fails.
Hell starts to break loose as all the others, who have been infected and controlled by the green goo, start a vicious attack and try to break through the walls and barricade that the survivors have put up. Lomax is taken over and subdued by a lurking and possessed Mullins during a failed attempt to rescue a panicking Walter and escape. While the rest of the team is occupied fighting the possessed, Kelly finds a large wall mirror and draws the Anti-God's hand through it. Catherine, the only one free to act, tackles Kelly, causing both of them to fall through the portal. The priest then shatters the mirror with an axe, trapping Kelly, the Anti-God, and Catherine in the other realm. Catherine is seen briefly on the other side of the mirror reaching out to the portal before it closes. Immediately, the possessed die, the street people wander away, and the survivors (Brian, Walter, Professor Birack, and the priest) are rescued.
Brian has the recurring dream again, and now sees that Catherine (apparently possessed) is the figure emerging from the church. Brian awakens and finds Catherine, seemingly Satan's vessel, lying in bed with him. This is shown to be another dream, and he awakens screaming. Rising, he approaches his bedroom mirror, hand outstretched, the screen going black just before he touches the mirror.
Cast
- Donald Pleasence as Priest
- Victor Wongas Professor Howard Birack
- Jameson Parker as Brian Marsh
- Lisa Blount as Catherine Danforth
- Dennis Dun as Walter Fong
- Susan Blanchard as Kelly
- Anne Howard as Susan Cabot
- Ann Yen as Lisa
- Ken Wright as Lomax
- Dirk Blocker as Mullins
- Jessie Lawrence Ferguson as Calder
- Peter Jason as Dr. Leahy
- Robert Grasmere as Frank Wyndham
- Thom Bray as Etchinson
- Alice Cooper as Street Schizo
Analysis
Film critic
Production
Prince of Darkness was shot in
Executive producer Shep Gordon was also manager to singer Alice Cooper, and suggested Cooper record a song for the film. Carpenter also cast Cooper as one of the homeless zombies. Cooper allowed the "impaling device" from his stage show to be used in the film in the scene where Cooper's character kills Etchinson.[7] The song Cooper wrote for the film, also titled "Prince of Darkness", can be heard briefly in the same scene playing through Etchinson's headphones.
Carpenter cast people that he had worked with previously, including Victor Wong, Dennis Dun and Donald Pleasence. It was Peter Jason's first film for Carpenter, and he would afterward become a Carpenter regular. The film was shot with wide-angle lenses, which combined with anamorphic format to create a lot of distortion.
Carpenter wrote the screenplay but was credited as "Martin Quatermass," which, along with the name of Professor Birack's institution (Kneale University), was an homage to
The poster for Prince of Darkness was created and designed by Henry Rosenthal, who worked for print production vendor Rod Dyer.[8] According to Carpenter in the DVD audio commentary, the post-production was done at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.
In an interview with Michael Doyle in the November 2012 issue of Rue Morgue, John Carpenter revealed how he created the eerie dream sequences in Prince of Darkness that feature a shadowy figure emerging from a church doorway. Carpenter first shot the action of the figure (played by actor Jessie Ferguson) with a video camera and then "re-photographed it on a television set" in order to give the image a peculiar, dislocated feeling that also appeared as if it was being filmed live. Doyle also reminded Carpenter that the director himself provided the disembodied voice that narrates each dream.
Soundtrack
Release
Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Prince of Darkness holds an approval rating of 62%, based on 39 reviews, and an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus reads, "Prince of Darkness has a handful of chillingly clever ideas, but they aren't enough to put John Carpenter's return to horror at the same level as his classic earlier outings."[9] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[10]
In his review for the
In 2004, Jim Emerson wrote that Prince of Darkness was an undervalued horror film: "What makes me goose-pimply about Prince of Darkness is its goofy-but-ingenious central conceit and its truly surrealistic imagery, some of which could have sprouted out of Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou."[15]
Like most of Carpenter's films, Prince of Darkness went on to have a cult following.[16]
The dream sequence narrations have been sampled by a variety of musicians and producers over the years, including DJ Shadow on his debut Endtroducing..... LP.[17]
Accolades
In 1988, the film was nominated for a
Home media
On September 24, 2013, the film was released by
. In January 2021, Scream Factory issued their own 4K release of the film, which includes both a 4K UHD disc and a Blu-ray disc.References
- ^ "PRINCE OF DARKNESS (18)". British Board of Film Classification. November 23, 1987. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
- ^ Topolsky, Joshua (September 2, 2012). "The Classics: John Carpenter's 'Apocalypse Trilogy'". The Verge. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
- ^ a b c Muir 2015, p. 142.
- ^ Powell 2004, p. 148.
- ^ Muir 2015, p. 143.
- ^ a b Boulenger, pp. 201
- ^ Boulenger, pp. 204
- ISBN 1-900486-50-4.
- ^ "Prince of Darkness (1987) – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes.com. Fandango Media. Retrieved December 2, 2023.
- CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
- Washington Post. pp. D15.
- ^ Lacey, Liam (October 26, 1987). "After Starman, Prince is painful". The Globe and Mail.
- New York Times. p. 26.
- ISBN 978-1-846-70208-2(p. 848)
- ^ Emerson, Jim (October 14, 2004). "The critics were horrified!!!! 4 undervalued scary movies on DVD". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved October 26, 2021.
- ^ Biese, Alex (October 30, 2015). "Halloween tales". Asbury Park Press. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "This Is Not a Dream from Prince of Darkness on WhoSampled". WhoSampled. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
Bibliography
- Boulenger, Gilles. John Carpenter Prince of Darkness. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press (2003). ISBN 1-879505-67-3.
- Doyle, Michael. "The Essence of Evil", Rue Morgue #128 (November 2012), p. 16-22.
- Muir, John Kenneth (2015). The Films of John Carpenter. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-49348-7.
- Powell, Anna (2004). ""Something Came Leaking Out": Carpenter's Unholy Abominations". In Conrich, Ian; Woods, David (eds.). The Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror. London: Wallflower Press. pp. 140–159. ISBN 978-1-904-76414-4.
External links
- Prince of Darkness at IMDb
- Prince of Darkness at the TCM Movie Database
- Prince of Darkness at AllMovie
- Prince of Darkness at Box Office Mojo
- Prince of Darkness at Rotten Tomatoes
- Prince of Darkness at Metacritic
- Prince of Darkness at theofficialjohncarpenter.com
- Prince of Darkness at Trailers from Hell