I don’t think we give John Carpenter enough credit. That might sound hyperbolic, given that we’re talking about the creator of one the most enduring cinematic horror franchises of all time, but it’s true. He’s more than just the mastermind behind Halloween; he’s a renaissance man, at once the director of such touchstones as The Thing, They Live, and Escape from New York and an accomplished, self-taught composer. Not to mention a passionate gamer, no-nonsense straight-talker, and overall jovial elder statesman of horror cinema.
Any of these reasons alone would suffice for why you should make time to watch Prince of Darkness before it leaves Prime Video on April 1. But an even better reason is the fact that it’s too often given short shrift when compared to the other masterpieces in Carpenter’s oeuvre.
Written by Carpenter himself under the pseudonym of “Martin Quatermass,” Prince of Darkness centers on a group of quantum physics students who have been enlisted by their professor to work on an urgent project: studying a mysterious glowing cylinder hidden below a monastery in Los Angeles. Working alongside students of other disciplines, like mathematics, radiology, biochemistry, microbiology, and theology, the students eventually uncover the shocking truth: The cylinder contains the sentient, liquified essence of Satan himself, and the Prince of Darkness has just begun to stir from his centuries-long slumber.
Prince of Darkness is a slow burn, especially compared to Carpenter’s other work. While rife with supernatural horror, ghoulish gore, and scintillating special effects, the real thrust of the story is in the philosophical tussle between theology and science in their respective attempts to wrestle with the inherent unknowability, and implicit hostility, of a chaotic universe.
“Fruit rots, water floats downstream; we’re born, we age, we die,” says Howard Birack, an avuncular physics professor played by Victor Wong, tells a classroom of students near the beginning of the film. “None of this is true; say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows.” In Prince of Darkness, the quantum uncertainty inherent to our physical reality is rendered as a demon-haunted world, a solid plane of existence collapsing into a net of particles bound perilously together by the grace of gravity.
When the film finally shows its hand and shifts into the full-blown supernatural, it’s hell on Earth — literally. Zombie-like itinerants converge on the monastery, blocking all passage and ruthlessly killing anyone who even dares to escape. The cylinder springs to life, its contents spewing forth like a sentient pathogen, spreading among the scientists and infecting them with a monstrous single-minded bloodlust. Insects writhe, blood flows; heads quite literally begin to roll. And that’s not even scratching the surface of the quantum strangeness of a series of visions being seemingly beamed into the minds of the science team from a then-future 1999.
Prince of Darkness was panned during its initial theatrical debut in 1987, but has since been rightly reclaimed by fans and critics alike as one of Carpenter’s most conceptually ambitious films. If you haven’t yet seen it, it’s more than worth the time to experience it for yourself.
Prince of Darkness leaves streaming on Prime Video on April 1.
