"Hello? Hello. I've got a message for you, and you're not going to like it. ... Pray for death."
When a priest investigates the death of another priest, he discovers a hidden chamber in an abandoned California church. Known only to an ancient, secret order of priests called the Brotherhood of Sleep, this chamber has housed a terrible artifact for five-hundred years, keeping its existence hidden from the world, and even the Catholic Church itself.
It is pure evil, concentrated, and incredibly ancient. It is Satan, the son of an evil god who walked the Earth before time began. He was contained in this artifact millions of years ago to await a time when he will be unleashed up on the world to open the door for the return of his father. the Anti-God.
The priest consults with a physicist friend, and they bring together the brightest young minds in the fields of theoretical and applied physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, theology, ancient languages and texts, and other subjects to study the artifact. The goal is to prove scientifically what the priest knows through his faith - that evil is a real, fundamental force, and it is imprisoned in the artifact, working to find its way out and be reborn.
The evil force reaches out from its containment to infect those susceptible to its growing power and influence. Moving objects by its conscious thoughts. Causing the local homeless population to stand guard around the church, killing anyone who tries to leave. Controlling the creeping things that crawl upon the Earth. Preparing a vessel for the evil's return.
The priest and the assembled scholars are all that stand between the world and the incomprehensible evil within the artifact. Together, they must stay alive long enough to understand the evil force, unlock the mystery of the recurring dream shared by the Brotherhood of Sleep, and keep the Prince of Darkness from reigning over the Earth.
Prince of Darkness is one of John Carpenter's most underrated films. Some people may be put off by the "Satan in a jar" concept, which could seem silly at first blush, and fail to give the movie a chance. But if you go along with what the movie is telling you, and go a little deeper than the four-word elevator pitch above, you will find that it's a terrifying, cosmic-scale, Lovecraftian story with implications beyond our normal comprehension of evil, religion, science, and reality.
The movie is full of dreamy, atmospheric, creepy visuals, from the swirling green substance in the artifact, to the motionless homeless people standing vigil outside the church, to the insects crawling everywhere the evil touches, to the terribly unsettling VHS-quality recurring dream everyone experiences. And Carpenter's airy, bouncy, chorus-y synth score - possibly his very best work on the keyboards - is tailor-made to set you on edge and open you to possibilities you had never imagined.
Carpenter considers Prince of Darkness a part of a loose trilogy of apocalyptic films he has created, along with The Thing and In The Mouth of Madness. These films have very different mechanisms for bringing about the end of the world, but they share a number of commonalities. Each has themes of something alien and evil entering our world, an isolated few protagonists being the only ones who know what is happening, an unsettling, hopeless tone, and a sense of reality breaking down in some ways. And each of these movies is the work of a true "master of horror" at the top of his game. Highly recommended.
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