Liquid Evil

Film: Prince of Darkness
Format: DVD from New Lenox Public Library through interlibrary loan on basement television.

For whatever reason, we have decided that when it comes to horror, the only real religion is Catholicism. Protestants, Hindus, and Muslims can all take a back seat, because it’s the holy celibates who have the real ability to hold back evil. If I had to guess, I would say that this comes from the fact that huge parts of the Catholic faith are hidden and kept secret. Tell someone that there is a secret Presbyterian library that holds secret lore and they’ll roll their eyes at you. Tell them that there are secret Catholic scriptures, and they’re right on board. This is, more or less, the starting place for Prince of Darkness (or John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness if you like that stamp of approval).

The secret lore in this case is a completely unknown Catholic sect of priests called the Brotherhood of Sleep. Centuries ago, the story says, the order found a container of swirling green liquid. The container, which can only be opened from the inside, is millions of years old, and we will eventually find out that the liquid itself is, essentially, the essence of Satan. The Brotherhood of Sleep has existed to keep this container sealed—and hidden even from the Vatican—but the last of the Brotherhood has died before passing on the secret.

And so, the man who discovers the existence of the container is an unnamed Catholic priest (Donald Pleasance). Not sure what to make of the container or the swirling liquid, he contacts Dr. Birack (Victor Wong), a quantum physicist at a nearby university. Intrigued, Birack brings in a number of his graduate students, and also has students from other disciplines, including Latin, to investigate the cylinder and what is inside.

It will not surprise you, then, that all hell literally breaks lose. Eventually, the cannister is going to open up and start infecting people, turning them into something akin to zombies, except that these are more the stereotypical Voodoo-style zombie rather than flesh-eating ghouls. Once infected, our grad students will start seeking out others to infect as well. And, because we’re talking about the actual Satan here, we’re going to need a living body for him to possess. To keep all of the students and others trapped inside with the can o’ Satan, we’re also going to have a collection of possessed street people who will surround the church in question, murdering anyone who attempts to leave. Worth noting that one of the leaders of the street people is played by Alice Cooper.

What makes Prince of Darkness especially interesting is that it is a nearly perfect combination of a completely new idea wrapped up in an old and expected package. Satan trying to muscle his way onto the planet through something perverted happening in the church, or breaking through the walls established by the church is a story as old as, well, stories. This is the plot of literally hundreds of horror movies over the last century. But having a container of Satan, the actual Satan not existing in Hell but in an earthly prison from which he can escape feels like something new. The closest adjunct I can think of to it is the reliquary containing the bits of Samael in the first Hellboy movie.

Not all of John Carpenter’s movies are successful (anyone who has seen Ghosts of Mars knows exactly what I am talking about), but his track record is incredibly good. Prince of Darkness is one of his better films because of how original it feels. There are moments here that are also incredibly effective despite the fact that they feel expected. Once one of our grad students is infected by distilled essence of Satan, we expect that she will show up in weird places, staring off into the middle distance. Once we see someone murdered for leaving the church, we expect to see his body resurrected. But expecting these things is not the same is how they show up in the final film.

There are also some really nice squeamish moments. At one point, we have windows of the church not covered in flies, but in earthworms, and they seem to keep multiplying. Flies are upsetting, but seeing writhing earthworms, not on the ground, but on a window, seemingly counter to gravity, is especially upsetting. When one of our murdered grad students dissolves into a collection of bugs and insects, it’s really upsetting, and the effect is pretty good, despite the low budget.

Ultimately, what works for Prince of Darkness is just how bleak it feels. We’re trapped in a church with our priest and professor and grad students, but it genuinely feels like there is nothing there that can save anyone. The church in this film is just the trappings of holiness, not anything real that can protect us. That façade might be there to help us feel better, but put to the test, evil will always break through.

Prince of Darkness isn’t Carpenter’s best film (and how could it be, with The Thing, Halloween, and so many others in his repertoire), but it deserves to be spoken of in the same sentences as his best work.

Why to watch Prince of Darkness: When John Carpenter is good, there’s not a lot who do it better.
Why not to watch: “Liquid Satan” is not a phrase I expected to say at any point in my life.