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DVD Prince Of Darkness
The B picture lives on in the films of John Carpenter. Prince of Darkness weds supernatural horror with quantum weirdness, when a group of theoretical-physics students, led by their professor, Birack (Victor Wong), joins forces with a priest (Donald Pleasence) to forestall the coming of the Dark Lord. His Darkness has been imprisoned in a cylindrical container as a swirling green plasma since time immemorial, and is now beginning to find his way out. All of this is bolstered by a lot of fancy science talk (all of which is real, I can assure you--someone did his homework), which allows us to settle down, say okey dokey, and enjoy the thrills that this presages. As the title character spreads his contagion through the group of students, holed up in a church to study the sequestered Satan, the film shapes up as an homage to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, much like Carpenter's earlier film, Assault on Precinct 13. But this adds the twist of quantum physics dovetailing with religious orthodoxy, and in the bargain spawning numerous zombie minions. There are plenty of squishy splatter opportunities, the kind that make some affected people say, "This is a bad movie!" while they grin from ear to ear. Look for Alice Cooper as a street schizo. I think you'll recognize him. --Jim Gay
I Live! I Live! I Live! I Live! I Live! I Live! I Live! I Live! YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED
An equally horrifying and fascinating movie that only gets better with time. An unusual blending of theoretical physics and theology turned on its head amplifies this gem far beyond the realm of typical horror. There is violence and gruesomeness but not anything I'd consider gratuitous--just killer storytelling and theatrics in the inimitable style of John Carpenter. A B-movie classic, which is no insult--you'll remember this long after the saccharine tendrils of an Oscar-winning drama exits your brain.
John Carpenter's Lost Little Gem...
I remember reading up on this movie on the Retrocrush website, and being curious about it. One day I decided to give this movie a rental chance. Well after watching the movie twice, I can safely say it's now a part of my collection. PRINCE OF DARKNESS is a lost little gem in the catalog of director John Carpenter. While some of you will ultimately be perplexed by it's scientific elements, the movie is ultimately a suspense/horror film with many good elements contained within its confines.
PRINCE OF DARKNESS picks up a group of high-level education students who are on a quest in a church that is hiding a dark secret: it has a past linked to the dark master himself. Donald Pleasance plays his role with dignity as a priest helping out in the investigation into a container of mysterious green acid-y liquid, which happens to be Satan himself, according to some of the sypnosis' I have read. Without warning, one of the students walks in on a leakage where a pool of green "mystery liquid" is on the ceiling, and suddenly it sprays into her mouth, turning her into a possessed servant of evil. Many of the towns homeless population have turned (watch for a nice turn from Alice Cooper as a silent servant of evil), the students are trying to fight off the evil...it spreads if someone infected spits directly into the mouth of their next victim. The plague spreads around in somewhat pedestrian fashion, but it's no less effective than the last. The last person affected, the blonde, turns into a hideous thing (she's supposed to be Satan himself) and things turn real ugly. Many of the unaffected are having dreams that are really creepy. The dream is a sequence where some film footage, while grainy, captures the church's frontside with a dark figure in the doorway which is Satan himself. It makes for a very creepy and menacing development within the group's dream pattern. Is this some kind of sign the group needs to heed warning to? Now it's up to the priest and the remaining survivors to stop the ultimate anti-god from crossing from a mirror into the real world. The special effects are what they should be for a movie of this caliber, and while Carpenter's direction for the most part is quite good, I wished for more in the way of gore and monster effects - that girl could have been so much scarier than she was made up to be, but we'll settle for what we get. The ending left the movie wide open for a sequel, as our main man has the same dream sequence, but sees his lost girlfriend standing in the doorway instead of the devil, ultimately making her the next evil. He walks toward the mirror in his room and proceeds to put his hand to the mirror, where the movie cuts to the end credits.
To this day, no sequel has been made and there are no current plans for any sequel to this film. It does give the movie a potent ending, though. It ultimately will leave you hungry for the next move, which of course we may never find out.
For what it is, PRINCE OF DARKNESS is a pure gem from the mastermind behind HALLOWEEN and THE THING. Carpenter's unknown and overlooked film has good suspense and decent scares, with the rigid cast keeping things real. PRINCE OF DARKNESS will always be underrated, but for those fortunate enough to witness it, it will be a much appreciated discovery.
Garbage, bad acting, script and special effects.
I bought this film because of the great AMAZON reviews. Don't get ripped off, save your money. The script stinks, the acting and actors are lousy and the few special effects are terrible. The film is funny without meaning to be. NOT AT ALL SCAREY!!!!!
The peopele writing these rave reviews must be the ones trying to sell it.
An economic crisis brings unemployed Nada (Roddy Piper) to L.A. in search of work. What he finds instead is that the ruling elite of the world are aliens in disguise, their aim being to keep humans in a state of mindless consumerism. His discovery comes when he dons a pair of special sunglasses made by a resistance group and sees for the first time reality unadorned. Billboards, store signs, magazine covers--all bear subliminal messages to OBEY, to CONSUME, to have NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT. Money itself says THIS IS YOUR GOD. But worst of all, with these glasses you see which of us are really hideous, bug-eyed aliens. The conceptual breakthrough is hilarious while keeping its roots in darker matters. Although some fault the film for settling into its action plot, the ending has a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Roddy Piper - Keith David Director(s): John Carpenter DVD Release Date: Released the 23 September 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Howard Hawks's original 1951 production of The Thing from Another World can be glimpsed playing on a TV that fateful October evening in John Carpenter's blockbuster hit, Halloween (1978). A few years later, Carpenter reteamed with his Escape from New York star Kurt Russell to do a remake. But while the first movie version of The Thing was in atmospheric black and white, Carpenter's 1982 version is in widescreen, full color, and features some of the most revoltingly explicit, surreally imaginative special effects (courtesy of FX-meister Rob Bottin) that have ever been seen on the screen. Researchers in the remote Antarctic dig up the remains of a spacecraft that has long been frozen in the ice. But the alien life unthaws and infects the living (not only humans... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kurt Russell - Wilford Brimley - Keith David - Richard Masur Director(s): John Carpenter DVD Release Date: Released the 26 October 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The mind-bending worlds of author H.P. Lovecraft have long interested horror directors, but the films have rarely successfully captured his nightmarish mix of madness and mythology. John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness is not directly based on Lovecraft's work, but screenwriter Michael De Luca draws his inspiration from Lovecraft's Cthulu mythology and then adds his own ingenious twists. John Trent (Sam Neill), an insurance investigator recently fitted for a straightjacket, tells his story to a psychiatrist. Hired to track down the missing pop-horror phenomena Sutter Cane, a Stephen King-like author whose fans are literally made for his books, Trent finds the supposedly fictional Hobb's End. He watches the town collapse into madness, murder, and monstrous transformations: the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sam Neill - Jürgen Prochnow Director(s): John Carpenter DVD Release Date: Released the 08 February 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Horror master John Carpenter offers up a triple treat with The Fog: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, and Janet Leigh all in the same movie. As if that weren't enough, both John Houseman and Hal Holbrook make appearances, each clearly enjoying the novelty of being in a horror flick. The Fog opens just before the centennial celebration of the seaside town of Antonio Bay. Then the witching hour strikes, glowing fog rolls in, and all hell breaks loose. Carpenter wrote the script with producer Debra Hill, his collaborator on Halloween, and the two know their craft. It's a creepy story and a tight script, and, as in their previous effort, the audience gets to know the main characters a bit before they're put in danger. The movie also has a sly sense of humor:... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Adrienne Barbeau - Jamie Lee Curtis Director(s): John Carpenter DVD Release Date: Released the 27 August 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Before making the original Halloween into one of the most profitable independent films of all time, John Carpenter directed this riveting low-budget thriller from 1976, in which a nearly abandoned police station is held under siege by a heavily armed gang called Street Thunder. Inside the station, cut off from contact and isolated, cops and convicts who were headed for death row must now join forces or die. That's the basic plot, but it's what Carpenter does with it that's remarkable. Drawing specific inspiration from the classic Howard Hawks Western Rio Bravo (which included a similar siege on disadvantaged heroes), Carpenter used his simple setting for a tense, tightly constructed series of action sequences, emphasizing low-key character development and escalating tension.... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Austin Stoker - Darwin Joston - Laurie Zimmer Director(s): John Carpenter DVD Release Date: Released the 11 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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