Prince of Darkness (Spoilers here and there)

[Mofo Rising]

So John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS was rereleased on DVD (with Alice Cooper's face on the cover for some reason), and it's a lot cheaper than the first go round.  Sadly, the DVD has got crap all on it.  One trailer and "recommendations".

But oh well, this is one of my favorite horror movies.  Mainly for one idea.  Humanity's need to know truth as an absolute breaking down on a quantum level, revealing chaos.  And what's left in these tiny details but the devil.  No faith leads to Satan reasserting his mastery on the material world.  Whoops.  Heady stuff for an 80's horror movie, and the quantum physics stuff is basically sound.

Of course, they didn't stop there and layed on pseudoscience idea after pseudoscience idea (telekinesis, and let's not forget that Jesus was an alien).

However, I still enjoy this film quite a bit.  Especially the structure, capped off by the whole tachyon dream thing.  Of course, the dream stuff has lost a bit of its punch since 1999 came and passed.

Not that the film doesn't have its flaws.  80's horror film mechanics must have required the whole "zombie" aspect, and the wisecracking Asian character seems a bit misplaced.  But hey, Donald Pleasance and James Wong.  And Carpenter's synth score works wonders.  And, last but not least, one of my favorite scenes "I've got a message for you, and you're not going to like it. . ."

Anyway, PRINCE OF DARKNESS.  Buy it on the cheap.  (And Alice Cooper was pretty creepy looking in the movie.)

[Cullen]

My copy of Prince of Darkness, the original with the movie poster art, is widescreen.  And that's about it.

So one trailer and "recommendations" is a slight step up, as far as I could see.

I mean, a director's commentary would've been nice.

(On the flip side, this means I don't have to buy another copy.)

On the movie itself:  I really love this movie.  Carpenter's last truely great film, as far as I can tell.  One always hopes that he'll come back to form, but so far...

[Conrad]

Aha, Prince of Darkness - excellent film!  I really enjoyed watching the video, but it scared the living daylights out of my wife - she wouldn't go to bed until I'd gone upstairs and turned all the lights on and checked the bedroom for evil zombified killers.  I too like that scene with Wyndham (namecheck/reference for John Wyndham?) - "pray for death".  And the word-processing heads-up from the possessed Asian girl "You will not be saved by the false God Plutonium - You will not be saved by the false God Uranium - in fact YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!"
Proving that the Devil has a sense of humour, if not a very nice one.