Review: Prince of Darkness (1987)
I like John Carpenter, he’s only made one really great movie (The Thing), but even his lesser films have a certain low budget fuck you attitude that is very appealing. Carpenter also gives one heck of an interview: frank, unpretentious and very funny. I think if we had to choose one word to describe why John Carpenter is overrated in certain circles, attitude would be the word to go with . The guy seems to be legitimately cool.
Anyone who provides us with Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York, and Christine deserves a big heap of respect and cred in the genre, but great filmmaker? I think that is overstating things a bit. I intentionally left out Halloween because its the most overrated of the bunch, a spunky little horror movie that’s been made out to be a lot more than it actually is. Halloween is pretty good, its moody, and stylish, but its also rather empty and, with the exception of Donald Pleasance, populated with boring characters.
Vampires is goofy crap, but cool goofy crap with a funny James Woods performance. Ghosts of Mars is goofy crap that’s not particularly cool, but I seemed to recall it having a mild dosage of Jason Statham, so it’s probably partially ok. I guess we’re beginning to get to the bottom of why I can’t speak more comprehensively of our past international film masters.
All that said, Prince of Darkness is just bad. I think the intention was to blend the classic Carpenter take on the classic Howard Hawks theme of a few against many with an occult, Satan returns to take over the world story. Ok, I’m down with that. Except nothing happens, ever.
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