Video Cover
Prince of Darkness opens with a montage of scenes, intercut with Carpenters trademark, stark white on black credits. One of his best, most eerie scores accompanies this opening. The opening sets the scene. We are introduced to Donald Pleasence, an aging monk entrusted with a dark secret after the death of a very old monk, a member of the mysterious Brotherhood of sleep.
Plagued by the gravity of this knowledge Pleasence seeks help from the scientific community in dealing with this awesome phenomena. A theoretical physics group, together with some geologist, translators and assorted scientific minds congregate on a disused church, the home of The Brotherhood. What they find in the basement not only places huge demands on their sanity, but also on the whole concept of reality and good/evil.
Prince... presents the viewer with an intelligent horror film. Enlightening discussions are presented on the true nature of reality and the existence of evil as a quantifiable force. It also has some truly terrifying moments in the best Carpenter style. Pleasence is masterful as the priest losing his faith, coming to the awful conclusion that most of what he believes is a lie, to protect humans from the truth. The startling revelations start coming so fast that the mind is buzzing with the epic nature of it all. In this way Prince... has been likened to a HPL film, evil forces outisde our world, too large for us to comprehend, we too small for them to bother with.
Most of Prince... occurs within the claustrophobic confines of the church. Our gang of scientists are under siege from zombified tramps outside, and an insidious evil inside. The players perform well, though the Jameson Parker is a little stiff. Alice Cooper has a cameo as 'leader' of the tramps, bringing his own image of evil to the part.
Prince... is a brilliant film, one of the highlights of Carpenters career. It shows that horror films can be made intelligently, when done so they are able scare the audience in a much deeper way. Definitely one of the best horror films of the '80s.