Prince of Darkness (1987)

 

Prince of Darkness (1987)

 

Writer/Director/Producer/Composer John Carpenter’s career had ups and downs: A student film of his won an Oscar, “The Resurrection of Broncho Billy” (1970), and though Carpenter wore many hats for this project, the Director was a James A. Rokos, who didn’t go on the make features. Carpenters first two features as Director, “Dark Star” (1974) and “Assault on Precinct 13” (1976), were both financial failures, but attracted enough attention that he was still able to secure at least meager funding for additional projects. He Wrote the successful Thriller, “The Eyes of Laura Mars” which was released the same year as his third Directorial feature “Halloween” (both 1978, and there were a few other projects squeezed in that year as well), and as “Halloween” became a phenomenon leading Carpenter to be known as a Master of Horror. This began a string of films he Directed that enjoyed progressively increasing budgets and sustained financial success.

 

Well, until “The Thing” (1982), his first big studio film. It’s now recognized as a Masterpiece, but at the time was savaged by the Critics and financially Bombed. This began a perceived decline that maybe wasn’t a decline, but certainly things got bumpy. Initially the quality of his films held up, but they were struggling more-and-more to find an audience; those that didn’t lose money were unimpressively successful (“Starman” (1984), Carpenter’s only other film to get an Oscar nod, took a Devil of a Time to bring in significant money), and there were serious Bombs in there as well.

 

There was also, eventually, a decline in quality. This film, though I’ll mostly praise it, probably marked the beginning of that. But just like the decline in his popularity wasn’t as linear as it would seem at first glance, similarly his decline in quality wasn’t a one-way trip. This misfire is truly ambitious, exploding with ideas, and often tautly suspenseful. (Critic Abraham Berlin put it well, “Another one of those films that is hard to either hate or to like because there are so many reasons to do both”). In the years that followed, some other truly great Carpenter films would pop-up unexpectedly in a field that was assumed to have become fallow.

“Prince of Darkness” was strongly influenced by the classic works of Screenwriter Nigel Kneale, who, following an unfortunate collaboration with Carpenter for “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” (1981, which Carpenter didn’t Direct), became a harsh Critic of Carpenter’s, but then Kneale didn’t seem to like anyone. Carpenter specifically drew from Kneale’s Masterpiece, “Quatermass and the Pit” (TV miniseries 1958). Carpenter went as far as to credit his own screenplay here to the Pseudonym Martin Quatermass. This film boldly tackled the intersection of Science and Occultism as Kneale so often did, and engaged in Heresies, even Blasphemies, creating a Cosmology that reflected the works H.P. Lovecraft mixed with of the Dualisms of Voodoo and Santa Ria.

 

This is the second of the thematically-connected films now known as the Apocalypse Trilogy (the first was “The Thing,” and the third would be “Into the Mouth of Madness” (1994)). All, obviously, about a Humanity-Erasing Threat and Darker than Carpenter’s typically dark outings, but their connectivity runs deeper than that. The Lovecraft themes (to quote Lovecraft, "Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large") get progressively stronger from one film to the next. Evil is not treated as a Spiritual problem but a Manifestation of Forces of a Hostile Universe that has come to Earth to roost. All feature something akin to Demonic Possession, but in each case, it is treated as a Physical Infection, with the Scientific Rationales being central to the first two. The Characters are battling an Enemy that is Physical, but also Beyond the Boundaries of the Physical, so it is, at the same time, both Seen and Unseen. Also, in each case, the Characters are Physically Trapped in some place with the Evil (an isolated Antarctic Research Station in the first, and old Church in this one, a creepy town in New England in the third) that they need to escape, but it is even more imperative that the Evil not be allowed to Escape and be Loosed Upon the Whole World.

 

A pre-credit sequence introduces a Secret Order within the Catholic Church called the Brotherhood of Sleep. They have been hiding the Physical Essence of Satan for Centuries is various dungeons and basements around the world, and currently in an abandoned Church in a Los Angelas slum (perhaps chosen because of the cheap Real Estate). As the last member of this Order dies, he fails to properly communicate the nature of the Great Secret to any others. This is ill-timed, because Satan is starting to wake up.

 

Enter another Priest (Donald Pleasence), not of the Order, knows only a fraction of the nature of the responsibility he’s been burdened with, so in hopelessly over-his-head. This Priest is oddly unnamed in the films credits though in the dialogue he’s called Father Loomis, a nod the Actor Pleasance’s Character in “Halloween.” He’s not a man of Secrets, except this one that was just dumped on him, and neither Backwards-Looking or especially Superstitious, at least until inexplicable things start happened around him. When it dawns on him how badly-over-his-head he is, he doesn’t retreat into a Monastery, seek out the Secret and Forbidden Libraries of the Vatican, or engage in hysterical Flagellation, but visits an old friend/intellectual sparring partner, who can bring a radically different perspective on things, Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong).

 

Howard, a Theoretical Physicist, has spent his career teaching Bright Young Minds how to absorb those things that have Evidentiary Foundations, but spiral beyond all Human Knowledge and/or Conception. "Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows." He doesn’t necessarily have any Religious Faith, but he knows an Unexplained Phenomena when he sees it, and puts together a team of Graduate Students to take over the Church with the best equipment available and crack the Conundrum.

 

Carpenter stated that the inspiration for the screenplay was his own reading of Popular Science journalism. “I thought it would be interesting to create some sort of ultimate evil and combine it with the notion of matter and anti-matter.”

 

There’s more-than a half dozen of these Students, with the focus on Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount), who are dating. Also notable is the Religiously inclined but un-pushy  Calder (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson), the amusingly annoying Walter Fong (Dennis Dun), demur Kelly (Susan Blanchard), and Linguist and Theology Student Lisa (Ann Yen).

 

A notable thing about Carpenter’s pre-“The Thing” films was his reliance of the same people over-and-over, both in front and behind the camera. This became somewhat less-so when he started working with major studios (“The Thing” was with Universal), but  one starts seeing that trend re-emerge here, the first of a multi-picture deal with low-budget studio Alive Pictures. Actors Dunn, Pleasence, and Wong, were all Carpenter veterans, and though this was the first Carpenter for Actor Peter Jason (he played Dr. Paul Leahy) he’d would return in later Carpenter films. Another Carpenter veteran was Composer Alan Howarth, and first time Carpenter collaborator Cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe would work with Carpenter again in the future. Kibbe seemed perfectly suited for Carpenter, who was influenced by Director Howard Hawks more than any Director in the Horror Genre, and the film was shot mostly with wide-angle lenses, giving a Hawks-ian feel to the exterior scenes, then continued as the film moved into interior and claustrophobic spaces, where those same wide-angles created distortions near the edge of the screen.

 

The opening scene concerns the Brotherhood of Sleep was shot with a rich Gothic atmosphere: Moonlight, candles, fluttering curtains, but when the titles begin we switch to a brightly-lit, modern, College campus Kneale University (note the name). The title-sequence is unusually long, and during it we’re introduced to the wilder Scientific concepts as Howard’s lecture unfolds. Soon after, the film moves to the ruined Church, and the Gothic-ness returns: Its dark, has a Catacomb (in Los Angelas?) and there’s lots of candles. The alternating style is a symbol of the Trap, with the contrast setting up the dichotomy between the decline of Religious Relevance and the Rise of Science and finally Science itself becoming Irrelevant is the face of an even Greater Power. Later in the film there’s a communication through a computer screen, Satan mocking both Religion and Science with the repeating scroll, “I live. I live. I live …” followed by:

 

"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."

 

But before that, and setting that up, was Character Lisa’s translations of Ancient Manuscripts revealing that a cylinder in the basement, containing a swirling, glowing, green liquid, and seemingly locked in a manner that it can only be opened from the inside, is the “Anti-God,” a sentient being from a different Universe. This Anti-God is cast as the Anti-Christ, paving the way for his more powerful Father, and our Jesus Christ was an Extraterrestrial sent to Earth to warn us of the danger. 

 

As the Scientists examine it, it begins sending messages, Mathematical Formulas so complex that they stump the computers and best minds in the room. Also, all the Students start having the same dream, a grainy TV News broadcast that might have been sent from the future.

The liquid Anti-God has been active for a month before the Scientists arrival, effecting the behavior of the Homeless on the surrounding streets. The Homeless have a Leader (identified in the credits as “Street Schizo” and played by Rock Star Alice Cooper) and he directs his Legion to surround the Church, trapping the Scientists within, and killing those that attempt to leave. Worse still, the Anti-God begins to possess many of the Scientists, who turn against their un-Infected Colleagues, so we have Zombies outside Guarding the Church, and Zombies inside Stalking and Multiplying.

 

One of the film’s triumphs is the Collective Identity among the Doomed Scientists; you believe them as Intellectual and Professional Equals with shared purpose, we believe how they work together. The biggest flaw is the lack of Individual Identity for the Characters, something that other Carpenter films never lacked. Like “The Thing,” this has an Entourage Cast, but in the “Thing” each member of the Ensemble there had and distinct Identity. Here, only the Priest and Professor Howard have any convincing development and Actors Pleasance and Wong unsurprisingly provide the best performances. Actors Dunn and Ferguson do make an impression in their underwritten roles, but most others fail. With the focus on the Romantically attached couple, this failure threatens the whole film, as Actors Parker and Blount wholly lack chemistry and are boring (both Thespians have been much better elsewhere).

 

Critic Liam Lacey, who hated the film, titled her review "After Starman, Prince is painful,” and wrote, “There is no character really worth caring about, no sympathy to any of these characters. The principal romantic couple … are unpleasant enough to create an unfortunate ambivalence about their eternal destinies”  

 

With all the film’s flaws, its sense of Dread, so thick you can cut it with a butter knife, permeates from first frame to last. This was, perhaps, more a product of the score (Composed by Carpenter and Howarth) than any of the things we actually see. Some critics actually argued that the triumph of the score was why the film so annoyed them, Carpenter’s skillful suspense-building set up so much, but then delivered so little.

 

The last third though, is intense. A protracted Climax after all Hell Breaks Loose and the Zombies Stalk the halls, slowly, not displaying Superhuman strength, but Inexorable none-the-less. The powerlessness of our Heroes is palpable and the stakes could not possibly be higher. Perhaps the best scene was Character Walter trapped in a closet while several of his Colleagues, now Zombies, lurk just outside. But it was one of a string of good ones, moving forward with throbbing determination, as the noose tightens inch-by inch.  Character Calder’s last words as a Human, no longer able to resist the Possession already Infecting his body, was the singing a Religious hymn as he kills himself, is especially disturbing.

 

Much of it is gory, and much of that gore is goopy. This is a Body Horror film, presenting Infection and Identity Corruption with bluntly Physical Manifestations. Attractive Kelly is forced to swallow the disgusting liquid Satan-Ooze, becoming Evil’s Primary Instrument; she’s then covered with boils, erupting in scars that ooze blood, as she searches out a large mirror that will open the door between Earth and Hell.

 

Carpenter’s sophisticated ambitions always have a B-movie heart, and that love allowed him to mix the Horrific and the Camp, like having Character Susan Cabot (Anne Howard) crawl a top Lisa who is napping on a cot. Lisa, who had been brushing off sexual come-ons from her male Colleagues throughout the film, is annoyed, but not enraged, as she says no to the presumed drunken lesbian, but no, Susan is possessed by the Satan, and the intents are far worse than that.

 

Later, the film displays the powerlessness of the Priest by having him attack Kelly with an ax, only to watch her regrow or reattach every body part he cuts off.

 

Other fun stuff includes, worms writhing in clumps on window panes; a crucified pigeon; the way the Satan goo pools on ceilings and reaches out with precision eye-sockets, noses, and mouths, sometimes when the victim is lying asleep and helpless; a corpse (Character Frank Wyndham, played by Actor Robert Grasmere) crawling with bugs that speaks in a Sinister Voice as it crumbles before our eyes.

 

Body Horror was more-or-less invented by Writer/Director James Cameron with his film “Shivers” (1975), but became especially popular during the height of the AIDS pandemic (AIDS is still with us, but the worst years were 1981-mid-1990s) and no film that illustrated and infection that was physically manifested on the skin could avoid being called an AIDS metaphor. In Horror, where themes of Transgressive Sexuality often walk hand-in-hand with Death, this presumed connection was especially notable. Critic John Kenneth Muir stressed this point especially strongly, the film shows Demonic Possession as being transmitted through exchange of Body Fluids, that Character Walter was implied to be gay, though he did attempt to flirt with Character Lisa, and in the well-executed fright scene he’s trapped in a closet surrounded by threatening Zombie women. This might have some legitimacy, but the idea stumbles: The first two important Characters to be possessed are Susan and Lisa, both females, and the manifestation of their evil is first lesbian, then bisexual; lesbians were among the lowest risk groups during the epidemic’s height.

 

Trailer:

Prince Of Darkness (1987) - Official Trailer