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Oh yeah, that plot synopsis - it literally said "When an ancient container is discovered in the basement of a church, a group of priests and scientists discover that it contains liquid Satan."

I'm not kidding. Liquid Satan. Can someone give me a job writing smart-ass one-line plot synopses, please? With a description like that, I figured it had to be worth checking out for an unintentional laugh or three.

As it turns out, the synopsis really wasn't far off. Indeed there is a container with ancient symbols on it in the basement of a church, and indeed ther container appears to hold a kind of evil embryonic fluid with something growing inside. Could it be . . . Satan?

Why yes . . . but not just any Satan. This time, it's NEW and IMPROVED LIQUID SATAN!!!

And so we get a bunch of priests, led by over-the-top Donald Pleasance, and a bunch of scientists led by moustachioed disco-king Jameson Parker (he was on Simon and Simon, if that moustache looks familiar). All Parker needs to finish out the look is an open-collared shirt and a few bits of neckwear from the Mr. T. collection, and he would have made a great extra in Saturday Night Fever.

As the scientists and men-o'-the-cloth try to decipher ancient texts and analyze the mysterious swirling fluids inside the Price Club sized container of Agua de Satanas, said container begins squirting devil juice into the mouths of the alone and unwary who wander too close. These hapless bastards instantly turn into possessed zombies, and go snowballing their satanic spew into the mouths of the next victim to come along. Soon the church is overrun with the possessed, while the prenatal Satanic being continues to grow.

Unfortunately, none of these events are at all scary (except, perhaps, the occasional unnerving moment of running from the demonically posessed homeless people outside), and the devil-juice squirting is more comical than anything else. Most of the acting is as wooden and clogged-up as the riverbank outside of a lumber mill, yielding results that are twice as soggy. Pleasance and Parker are by far the worst offenders, but the whole cast is rather dreadful and monotone. Even the smart-ass token Asian scientist (Victor Wong) can't save the day with much in the way of comedic relief.

Sadly, the film's one chance for potential is ultimately squandered. There is a subplot concerning strange transmissions being beamed into the characters' heads while they sleep - presumably transmissions from some time in the future. These transmissions reveal the front of the church these characters currently inhabit, as a shadowy figure looms menacingly in the open doorway. The images are creepy and intriguing, as is the static-filled message that is repeated over and over during the transmissions. Alas, the imagery is used to little effect, and the final dream image is a bit of a cop out.

John Carpenter was on a serious roll in his early career, and even his crappier low-budget movies had an enjoyable edginess to them. Then came Prince of Darkness. Although he managed to release the cheesy-but-fun They Live the next year, it was followed by a slew of mediocre-to-awful flicks like Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Village of the Damned, Vampire$, and of course, his latest albatross, Ghosts of Mars. One has to wonder if he's given up on directing altogether, since he's not even bothering to helm the remake of his Assault on Precinct 13.

While John Carpenter's twilight films have given fans cause to wonder if he's officially washed up, PRINCE OF DARKNESS should have been the writing on the church basement wall. Unfortunately, a few choice atmospheric visuals were squandered on a muddled script, lackluster direction, and laughably flat acting. And while I'd like to think that the man who brought us THE THING and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK still has one or two solid films left in him, perhaps the nearly septugenerian director is just more concerned with having one or two solid bowel movements left in him.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=3003&reviewer=258
originally posted: 08/04/04 11:46:40
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