If you mention the director John Carpenter, most people will probably think of Halloween (1978) or The Thing (1982). It is fairly unlikely that they will immediately think of 1987’s Prince of Darkness; although it has attracted a small cult following, it remains a somewhat neglected, divisive work. In this article, I will explore what I believe to be a unique, fascinating, and profoundly terrifying film, deserving of a far wider audience.
By 1987, Carpenter was looking to return to his low-budget roots. Halloween had made his name, achieving astonishing box office success for a small independent production. It was only his third film, following the similarly thrifty cult sci-fi comedy Dark Star in 1974 and 1976’s terrific thriller Assault on Precinct 13. Unfortunately, his career ran into serious trouble with his first major studio film: The Thing. Though now widely acknowledged as a classic, most contemporary critics despised the film and audiences stayed away, perhaps preferring the more benevolent aliens of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, released the same year.
Following the smaller-scale successes of Christine and Starman in 1983 and 1984, respectively, Carpenter endured studio interference and disappointing box office returns on 1986’s generously-budgeted and ambitious Big Trouble in Little China. Seeking to escape the confines of the Hollywood system, he signed a deal with Alive Films, giving him full creative control, albeit much lower budgets. This resulted in Prince of Darkness, followed by the more influential They Live in 1988.
Prince of Darkness tells the story of the discovery of a mysterious cylinder in the basement of a disused church, which contains a strange swirling green liquid that may just be the essence of Satan himself. From this admittedly bizarre synopsis, you could be forgiven for expecting a gory and gothic B-movie, or perhaps a portentous religious horror along the lines of The Exorcist (1973). While Carpenter regular Donald Pleasence does play a troubled priest, and there are some grisly set-pieces, the film largely disregards the expected cliches in favour of a far more insidious, atmospheric, and quasi-scientific approach.
The concepts behind Prince of Darkness came from Carpenter’s interest in the utterly uncanny world of quantum physics. During the lengthy opening credits, we see a university seminar delivered by theoretical physicist professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong), who describes his unnerving field of study: “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.” These notions are fundamental to the film’s deeply unusual take on the tropes of devilish horror.
Professor Birack is approached by Pleasence to investigate the cylinder, which has come to his attention following the death of a fellow priest. The deceased priest belonged to a secretive order known as The Brotherhood of Sleep, whose purpose seems to have been to guard the contents of the derelict church. Birack in turn recruits the assistance of his students, with tentative couple Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount) leading the ensemble cast. The group moves into the church for the weekend to study the strange find, setting the stage for a nightmarish base-under-siege thriller, with Carpenter once again repurposing his love of this staple Western plot for the horror genre.
As night draws in, the scientists begin to experience strange and increasingly violent phenomena. They translate apocryphal ancient texts found in the vaults which suggest the cylinder has demonic, pre-Christian origins. More alarmingly, they find that the liquid within is very much alive, broadcasting esoteric mathematical equations, generating bursts of energy, and exhibiting telekinetic powers, which begin to be used against the team one by one. The building is surrounded by the local disturbed destitute, and the grounds crawl with insects, apparently possessed by unnatural forces. The scientists also begin to experience shared “dreams” of a sinister shadowy figure emerging from the church, accompanied by a disembodied voice (actually Carpenter’s own) insisting that this is a vision broadcast from the future. These truly eerie sequences have arguably become the best-known aspect of the film, having been sampled many times over the years, most prominently on the “Transmission” tracks on DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…album in 1996.
Strikingly, Prince of Darkness utterly refuses to allow religion a prominent role in the Satanic proceedings. The walls of the basement containing the cylinder are covered with crucifixes, but they present no obstacle to the demonic force’s escape — they are rendered completely irrelevant by the quantum world. Pleasence’s priest is horrified to find that his entire theology is a sham, his church having papered over reality with a fairy tale, recasting “pure evil” as a spiritual rather than an actual force. If his character makes any decisive contribution to the situation’s outcome, it is through instinctive physical action rather than through his religious beliefs or his Latin incantations.
Even the physical setting of the film subverts the visual darkness and crumbling architecture the viewer might expect from the subject matter. The opening sequences take place in the bright Los Angeles sunshine, and the church is located in urban, grimy downtown LA rather than in a secluded gothic forest or amongst ancient ruins. Appropriately enough, given the central theme of lost knowledge returning to life with a terrible relevance, the church itself looks more like an abandoned university building than a place of worship, with its red bricks and imposing Doric columns. Gary B. Kibbe’s anamorphic cinematography emphasises subtle distortions at the edges of the frame, making chilling use of the modern environment, replacing the shadows and claustrophobia of much horror cinema with a kind of wide-open, panoramic unease, slowly closing in as events spiral out of control.
The events are firmly placed within the framework of the world of quantum physics — theoretical, but not entirely implausible. The “dreams” from the future are suggested to be tachyon transmissions, moving faster than light and therefore capable of travelling through time. The “Satanic presence” in the cylinder represents a whole other universe of antimatter, the inverse of everything we hold to be true — reflecting the way in which quantum theory totally upends our observable “realities.” In an ingenious visualisation of this notion, the antimatter universe is quite literally found in the mirror image.
This broadly scientific approach to the “supernatural” finds owes something to the work of the acclaimed UK television writer Nigel Kneale, particularly Quatermass and the Pit, broadcast as a series by the BBC in 1958-59 before being remade by Hammer Films in 1967 (released under the title Five Million Years to Earth in the US). The series and film both concern the scientific investigation of a mysterious ship found underground, which eventually reveals a terrible ancient influence on man. Carpenter fully acknowledges the debt by having his characters attend the fictitious Kneale University, as well as using the pseudonym Martin Quatermass for his screenwriting credit. Kneale had in fact worked with the director previously, providing the original screenplay for Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which Carpenter co-produced. Sadly, Halloween III was not a happy experience for the writer, who insisted on his name being removed from the credits after changes were made to his work.
Retrospectively, Prince of Darkness has become part of John Carpenter’s unofficial “Apocalypse Trilogy” alongside The Thing and 1995’s In the Mouth of Madness. As the name suggests, these three films are loosely linked by their end-of-the-world scenarios, though only The Thing has been fully embraced by the critical and cultural mainstream (albeit several years after its initial release). It is perhaps fair to say that, despite solid work from its cast, Prince of Darkness is more concerned with ideas than characters, with little time for complex backstories and motivations. It also requires the audience to embrace abstract concepts for much of its duration before the more visceral thrills of the third act, possibly costing it viewers expecting a more typical Satanic, generic horror movie.
As with many of Carpenter’s best films, Prince of Darkness really rewards repeat viewings. Let it linger in the mind, and its terrors and fascinations multiply. With a palpable, brooding atmosphere aided by one of Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s most doom-laden, pulsating scores, it builds stealthily from its deceptively sun-drenched opening to the exquisitely timed, spine-tingling cut that closes the narrative. It is one of the few films to truly scare me as an adult.
Let it scare you, too.
