Spooptober II Day 23: Prince of Darkness

Starring: Jameson Parker, Donald Pleasence, Victor Wong, and Alice Cooper
Written and Directed by: John Carpenter

John Carpenter is one of my favorite filmmakers. A lot of people know that I love Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone and Billy Wilder so they're always surprised when I mention Carpenter. I like Carpenter because he makes this really cool movies without a lot of money at his disposal.

Prince of Darkness is a movie about the anti-god living in a tube under the church. A lot of Prince of Darkness doesn't make sense from a story perspective and Carpenter even admits this. However, it doesn't need to. The anti-god lives in a tube and is trying to control the world. It's turning people into demon possessed zombies.

As I mentioned, the story doesn't matter but it's cool seeing Alice Cooper impale a dude with a bicycle (which he provided from one of his live shows, by the way). It's cool watching the man made of bugs scream out "Pray for death" before he falls to pieces. It doesn't need a great story because it's just a cool movie.

The worms on the window that are being played backward. The weird dream sequence that John Carpenter shot on video tape and then filmed a television to capture the footage of. The dream sequences by the way remind me so much of nightmares I would have as a child of a shadowy figure looming in the distance. They could easily be considered the genesis of the current fad of analog horror.

While it's not as good as The Thing, Prince of Darkness is definitely a killer film that every fan of Carpenter and low-budget filmmaking should check out.