John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987) in '80s and '90s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987)

Author	Comment
unclefred		#41	[-]
May 28 09 12:22 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	What lessened the effect of POD was the casting of the two leads. Neither of them brought anything to the roles and there was no chemistry at all between them. The film needed a Russel or Barbeau to make it work the way it was intended.
Gossamer		#42	[-]
May 30 09 12:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I really liked this one "When I was Kid" I rewatched it a few years ago and thought "what was I thinking or What was Carpenter thinking" I mean I may never forgive him for making me watch Ghosts of Mars but it was my choice to rewatch this one. As pointed out there was some excellent thought and originality put into this one but it lacked the glue to keep it all together. Very fragmented and disjointed. The flashbacks or flash aheads to the grainy images of the devil was fantastic and the design for the canister of goo with the great swirling greens was cool. I just needed more explanation to what was going on. Plus a total cast of second string actors didn't help. The only performance I can recall as decent was Donald but I find he is never poor in any role. Or maybe it was just the fact that I was not that yound boy anymore. I lacked the childish imagination to join Carpenter on this dark ride. I just didn't get anymore. My Website WE DID IT
Koukol 5		#43	[-]
May 30 09 3:13 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Great avatar of DR PHIBES, Gossamer!
Gossamer		#44	[-]
May 30 09 4:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thank You very much Koukol 5. I was very inspired by a painting I stumbled across on the net of it. I found the scene and painted my rendition of it. I love both of the Phibes movies alot. My Website WE DID IT
bipolarber		#45	[-]
Jun 8 09 4:15 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, we can dis POD as much as we like... but I still wish I could find a CD of the soundtrack! I think it's one of Carpenter's best! "[The audiance] will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of. If you make the screen dark enough, the mind's eye will read anything into it you want! We're great ones for the dark patches." -VAL LEWTON
Steve R		#46	[-]
Oct 19 09 4:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Finally got around to seeing this. I'm a big Carpenter fan but this was from that short odd period of his stuff. Anyway the first half built up fantastically for me. Nice atmosphere, good tension, dread. Nice getting all the scientists donw in the bumker. And then it just failed to deliver fo rme. More Lovecraft type leanings but no real pay off. I got that new set of four JC flicks - already have and love The Thing, enjoy They Live as a great B styel fun flick - haven't seen his remake of Children of the Damned.
Uncle Bingo		#47	[-]
May 12 11 12:31 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I recently bought this one on DVD. The soundtrack is really good. The story (with all its mumbo-jumbo-scientific-Lovecraftian-jive) talks a good talk but never really delivers much. The dream sequences (or messages from "the future") are cool enough as is the green devil-goo but Alice Cooper never really does much, Donald Pleasance is pretty much Dr. Loomis with a clerical collar, and the male lead is a bore. The thing is, I buy into it at the beginning, and then once the girl on the cot gets possessed, I start feeling betrayed. Then they start digging through the walls....and it's the two guys from "Big Trouble in Little China" so I keep expecting Jack to come roaring in with lipstick smudged on his face... It's cool to have a bunch of actors you like, but in some ways it can kill a movie if you associate it too much with another movie from the same director. Basically, it is a movie with grand intentions that would have needed to triple its budget to deliver scares equal to the set up. Or at least better actors to sell the scares!!!
VoltronLions		#48	[-]
May 12 11 11:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I like They Live a lot better than this film its only saving grace for me is Alice Cooper was in it
Jonatwork		#49	[-]
May 13 11 2:10 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I spent years saying this was the one Carpenter movie i really liked. I re-watched it recently. Well, I still really like DARK STAR. The problem here is that the movie starts out ambitious and then dissolves to people just smacking each other around. The opening half hour or so builds this great sense of impending doom, which returns when the 'future transmissions' and the shots of the milky water behind them mirror are shown. We hear about a legend, and that something of incredible evil is inside this jar...and then it leaks and makes people kill each other. The beginning promises apocalypse, and we get roughhousing with zombies. A tremendous disappointment, probably because I'd misremembered it, improving it in my memory. I have the LP but not the CD, sorry. “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” Joseph Priestley
diabolik72		#50	[-]
May 18 11 12:16 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I can totally see where people are coming from with the criticisms, but I still find it spooky and effective, probably more for the overall downer atmosphere of the film. But I like IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS better. Should go watch that right now....
Dr Acula		#51	[-]
Jun 21 11 4:49 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	In the famous Twilight Zone episode The Howling Man, were the priests watching over the devil called "The Brotherhood of Sleep", just like the sect in Prince of Darkness? Both Howling Man and Prince of Darkness deal with a priestly class trying to hold the devil away from the world...
Uncle Bingo		#52	[-]
Aug 22 11 12:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I think they just called it "the Brotherhood." The Howling Man was one of my favorite episodes of the Zone.
Victor Frankenstein		#53	[-]
Aug 23 11 2:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yeah, Dr.Ac and Bingo...I just watched this a couple weeks ago. Very similar now that I think of it.
Low Fidelity		#54	[-]
Jan 24 12 5:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	unclefred wrote: What lessened the effect of POD was the casting of the two leads. Neither of them brought anything to the roles and there was no chemistry at all between them. The film needed a Russel or Barbeau to make it work the way it was intended. I dig the movie but I agree with this statement. This needed great leads to reach its potential, and having Pleasence hiding away in the third act wasn't a good idea either. I think it's a good movie, if a bit uneven.
skelton knaggs		#55	[-]
Jan 24 12 6:02 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Agreed. Some amazing visuals. Some very interesting ideas with some incredibly sloppy execution. Disjointed, predictable situations, And very sleepy performance from the two so-called leads. Some of the secondary characters carried the film as much as they could. Big.BIG missed opportunity for Mr.Carpenter to redeem himself for some real shoddy work since THE THING. It was just a good thing Nigel Kneale never caught up with writer Martin Quatermass. Or he would have punched him right in the nose! "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
Godziwolf		#56	[-]
Jan 27 12 5:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Low Fidelity wrote: unclefred wrote: What lessened the effect of POD was the casting of the two leads. Neither of them brought anything to the roles and there was no chemistry at all between them. The film needed a Russel or Barbeau to make it work the way it was intended. I dig the movie but I agree with this statement. This needed great leads to reach its potential, and having Pleasence hiding away in the third act wasn't a good idea either. I think it's a good movie, if a bit uneven. I think the biggest problem is that the end of the movie is big and the first half is huge, but the stretch from Evil escaping the Jar and the grainy end footage is just so... banal. Even Michael Myers was more alien and active than the very disinterested zombies roaming around the church. You have this transdimensional something, and it... just kinda cruises around the room some and looks for a big mirror? That's it?

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John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987)