John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS
is my favorite John Carpenter film and one of my favorite films of all time. It
is an underrated horror movie which mixes horror, spirituality, science, and science fiction in a film which is clearly inspired
by the film QUARTERMASS AND THE PIT (released in the US as FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH) due to how similar the plot of the
two movies are even though the characters are different (and Carpenter writing the screenplay under the pseudonym of Martin
Quartermass). I like some of the ideas in the movie in how God has an opposite
force known as Anti-God and how Jesus is an alien who came to Earth to warn Earth of a dark force that want to come to our
universe. The idea of God and Anti-God were inspired by John Carpenter reading
up on quantum mechanics. This $3 million dollar production has been misunderstood
by critics, but it found its audience on VHS and now I hope the Scream Factory release brings new fans to the movie. This release marks the blu-ray debut of PRINCE OF DARKNESS as Scream Factory
presents another great release, but I wonder if they were considering this for Shout Factory at first since many the extras
say Shout Factory presents.
PRINCE OF DARKNESS is about a priest
(Donald Pleasence) who contacts Professor Birack (Victor Wong) for his help to study an ancient canister found in the basement
of an abandoned church. Birack recruits his students and others to help study
it, but soon they find their lives are in danger as some of them get possessed by the liquid which is in the canister. Also the homeless people are being controlled and they surround the church. They discover the Anti-God wants to break into our universe and Jesus was trying to warn people about
it a couple of centuries ago. Also they all are having the same dream which
is a message from the future sent as a tachyon transmission. They must find a
way to stop it with no help from the outside.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Audio commentary with director John Carpenter
and actor Peter Jason in a pleasant commentary track as they remember the making of the film.
Featurettes made by Red Shirt Pictures
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: AN INTERVIEW WITH
JOHN CARPENTER- John Carpenter talks about making the movie and he says he doesn’t know whether people like his movies
or not since he mostly watches basketball on TV
ALICE AT THE APOCALYPSE: AN INTERVIEW
WITH ALICE COOPER- Alice Cooper mentions how he watched creature features on Saturday afternoons as a kid, how he met John
Carpenter, and how he came to be involved as the schizoid homeless person in PRINCE OF DARKNESS.
THE MESSGENER- an all new-interview with
actor and special effects supervisor Robert Grasmere has Robert tell the story of how he was cast, and talk about his two
death scenes and the visual effects of the film
HELL ON EARTH with Allan Howarth- the film’s co-composer reveals how the score was created with John Carpenter
and how today’s composers are referencing scores like PRINCE OF DARKNESS for their film scores
HORROR’S HALLOW GROUND- a tour of
the locations in PRINCE OF DARKNESS with Sean Clark
Alternate Opening from TV version
Trailer and two radio spots
Still Gallery
SCREAMFEST 2012 audience Q&A at the
25th Anniversary screening of PRINCE OF DARKNESS has John Carpenter answer audience questions about his movies
in a 12 minute segment where you can hear John talk while the questions you can barely hear.
You can find this last extra by clicking on the cross on the second bonus screen.
FINAL ANALYSIS: It is great to see my favorite John Carpenter film on blu-ray because PRINCE OF DARKNESS is an underrated
cult classic.
This blu-ray review is ©10-5-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com
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