Prince of Darkness

Prince of Darkness(1987) - John Carpenter

It’s interesting that none of the films in Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy(The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness) were well received when they were released, but all of them have since been re-evaluated as horror masterpieces to varying degrees. The Thing has probably had the most dramatic re-evaluation, with professional critics outside of horror fandom declaring it a classic, but Prince of Darkness seems to only have been re-visited by hardcore Carpenter fans and weirdos. What struck me most about Prince of Darkness was the tone and how it is maintained throughout the film, so much so that Prince of Darkness almost feels like one long scene instead of a traditional series of scenes. Prince of Darkness is constantly cutting between simultaneous action in short evenly paced scenes. The effect of this strange pacing gives the film a feeling of inevitability and impending doom. The feeling of dread is helped along by Carpenter’s best score. The music is so pervasive in the film that it's almost oppressive. Carpenter’s score starts early during the production logos and only pauses occasionally for emphasis. Price of Darkness also stands out as a strangely small movie about the apocalypse, but Carpenter leverages his budget constraints by focusing on a small group of people trapped together. I don’t know if everyone will like Prince of Darkness quite as much as I do, but I think it’s Carpenter's most underrated, and one of his very best films.