Donald Pleasence plays the priest, and Pleasence is one of those actors who can make a box of Cheerios sound like Shakespeare, so all his scenes are great.
Victor Wong plays the physicist, and not only do he and Pleasence have great chemistry and play off each other well, but he also has a real likable, down-to-earth, fun teacher vibe that really helps him stand out.
There are a lot of characters in this movie, honestly a little too much, like there are 11 main characters you have to keep track of, and so you don’t get a lot of time to really develop these characters, but John Carpenter is a strong enough director that he’s able to give enough personality and character quirks that, well, you might not remember their name, but you’ll find the characters all enjoyable and realistic.
Jameson Parker and Lisa Blount are solid leads; they have enough charm and chemistry that you find their romance.
Walter Fong is very sarcastic yet charming in the film, probably my favorite character and a solid comic relief.
Peter Jason was a lot of fun and brought a lot of personality to his role.
One of the big things of any John Carpenter movie is the soundtrack, and this is one of his most underrated. It has this slow, hypnotic, yet boating theme that adds a lot of atmosphere to the film.
Speaking of atmosphere, the film is going for a slow burn of dread feel, which is very effective in parts, but towards the third act, the movie does have a section where it feels like it drags. It’s not necessary or boring, but you can definitely feel the movie slowing down compared to before.
My favorite thing about the movie was how they combined the supernatural with hard science; they really melted the two in a way that, while they do work off each other well, they do have enough space to do their own thing, and how their differences work off each other is really interesting as well.
That being said, there is a lot of theorizing and science-techno-talk thrown out, and at a certain point you may start to feel your mind starts to get information overload, but never to the point that it becomes distracting, just something to be aware of.
All the effects look great; for a $3 million movie, they really knew how to stretch that budget to get the most out of it.
If bugs creep you out… This is not the movie for you. 😂 I mean, I don’t have a fever, bugs, but there was one scene with some ants that was making me… ANTsy 🐜
Alice Cooper has a small role in the film as a strange, homeless man who’s being controlled by the antichrist, as well as a bunch of other homeless people, and he’s fun in the role; he even brought one of his show props for a kill scene, but after that he kind of disappeared in the movie, which is a little anticlimactic because they were building him up as, like, the leader of this crazy pack, and you don’t even get a death scene with him. He just disappears.
And while I do think the third act could use some work, it does have a very strong and memorable ending that really brings the whole story together.
I didn’t know where else to put this, but I got to say the main character, Brian, has a really impressive mustache, like it hits Burt Reynolds levels of impressive and cool.
Prince of Darkness may not be a perfect film, but it’s definitely a fun and creative film with some interesting ideas, effective storytelling, fun performances, and a killer score. I give a low four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s close to three stars, but the performances and ideas really pushed it over for me.
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