07-01-2020, 04:15 PM
Prince of Darkness (1987)
I've seen most of John Carpenter's better films but I'd never seen this one, despite some flaws I really enjoyed it. The romance subplot is rubbish and distracting, Dennis Dun's comic-relief character falls totally flat and is tonally misjudged and the conceit that all the characters have no idea what is going on around them, despite them being there for the explicit purpose of finding out what is going on gets rather silly. Yet, the premise about a priest inviting a team of scientists and students to investigate a bizarre ancient relic, which possibly contains the gestating form of the anti(matter)Christ is fascinating. It's essentially a cerebral spin on the "Teenagers spending a night in a spooky mansion" trope. Donald Pleasence brilliantly plays the priest, a man utterly shattered by having everything he's ever believed proved and disproved in the same revelation. There's a David Cronenberg/'Videodrome' feel to some of it. The swirling green light inside the glass tube FX were really freaky, surrounded by the world's supply of crucifixes and candles.
I've seen most of John Carpenter's better films but I'd never seen this one, despite some flaws I really enjoyed it. The romance subplot is rubbish and distracting, Dennis Dun's comic-relief character falls totally flat and is tonally misjudged and the conceit that all the characters have no idea what is going on around them, despite them being there for the explicit purpose of finding out what is going on gets rather silly. Yet, the premise about a priest inviting a team of scientists and students to investigate a bizarre ancient relic, which possibly contains the gestating form of the anti(matter)Christ is fascinating. It's essentially a cerebral spin on the "Teenagers spending a night in a spooky mansion" trope. Donald Pleasence brilliantly plays the priest, a man utterly shattered by having everything he's ever believed proved and disproved in the same revelation. There's a David Cronenberg/'Videodrome' feel to some of it. The swirling green light inside the glass tube FX were really freaky, surrounded by the world's supply of crucifixes and candles.
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