Prince of Darkness (film)
| Prince of Darkness | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | John Carpenter |
| Produced by | Larry J. Franco |
| Written by | John Carpenter (as Martin Quatermass) |
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| Music by | John Carpenter Alan Howarth |
| Cinematography | Gary B. Kibbe |
| Edited by | Steve Mirkovich |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
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| Budget | $3 million |
| Box office | $14.1 million |
Prince of Darkness is a 1987 American supernatural horror film directed, written and scored by John Carpenter. The film is the second installment in Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy, which began with The Thing (1982) and concludes with In the Mouth of Madness (1994).
A priest invites Professor Howard Birack and his students to join him in the basement of an abandoned Los Angeles church. He requires their assistance in investigating a mysterious cylinder containing a swirling green liquid. Among those present is Brian Marsh, a student in theoretical physics.
They decipher the text found next to the cylinder which describes the liquid as the corporeal embodiment of Satan. The liquid appears sentient, and broadcasts increasingly complex streams of data. The academics use a computer to analyze the data, and find that it includes differential equations. Over a period of two days, small jets of liquid escape from the cylinder. Members of the group exposed to the liquid become possessed by the entity, which uses them against the others. Attempts to escape from the building are thwarted by a mass of possessed street people who surround it and barricade the doors from the outside. Two members of the research group are killed.
Birack and the priest theorize that Satan is actually the offspring of an even more powerful force of evil, the "Anti-God", who is bound to the realm of anti-matter. The survivors find themselves sharing a recurring dream (apparently a tachyon transmission sent as a warning from the future year "one-nine-nine-nine") showing a shadowy figure emerging from the front of the church. The hazy transmission changes slightly with each occurrence of the dream, revealing progressively more detail. The narration of the transmission each time instructs the dreamer that they are witnessing an actual broadcast from the future, and they must prevent this possible outcome.
Eventually, the cylinder opens and the remaining liquid is absorbed into the body of student Kelly, who transforms into the physical vessel of Satan: a gruesomely disfigured being, with powers of telekinesis and regeneration. Satan attempts to summon the Anti-God through a dimensional portal using a mirror, but the mirror is too small and the effort fails.
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