Prince of Darkness is my favorite John Carpenter movie. Every time I watch it, I’m ready to watch it again. Demon possessed scientists spit green Chloraseptic at each other while Alice Cooper commands an army of ants to eat a guy alive. I only wish they had made a sequel in 1999 so we could find out the rest of what was on that videotape everyone kept dreaming about! Also, Carpenter missed a golden opportunity to use T.G. Sheppard’s classic country song “Devil in the Bottle” on the soundtrack. Here’s a reprint of a fun post I did for my husband’s blog.

Prince of Darkness (1987)
Director: John Carpenter
Stars: Donald Pleasence, Lisa Blount, Alice Cooper

 

The Catholic Church and Donald Pleasence are keeping the devil in a 7 million year old jar in a Los Angeles church basement. When the devil becomes disturbingly active, a team of scientists working for Victor Wong try to quantify ol’ Scratch; unfortunately, they are soon under siege by both Satan on the inside and a bunch of possessed homeless people led by Alice Cooper (whose hair looks great here) on the outside. Best of all, everyone in the church starts having the same dream: a creepy transmission of a video from the then-future of the 90s warning them of something they’d find out about if all the crap going on would let them sleep long enough to get that far in the dream. I am not ashamed to say that I think Prince of Darkness is John Carpenter’s best work.

 

Six Things I’ve Learned from Prince of Darkness

 

1. “A nice Chinese restaurant” is an obscure euphemism for an orgasm.

 

2. Susan is a radiologist with glasses.

 

3.Jesus was an extraterrestrial.

 

4.They didn’t have differential equations 2000 years ago!!

 

5.You can stave off demonic possession just long enough to cut your own throat by singing “Amazing Grace” and laughing manically.

 

6.When you’re trapped in a closet by two demon possessed women, the best thing to do is make wisecracks. That way the other people in the building will hear you and come to your rescue.