But the plot is hackneyed and nonsensical, the effects all rather bland and old school. With a cast of lamentables, other than Pleasance, of course, Prince Of Darkness is one of those movies that truly believes it is working up towards a fever-pitch of excitement. He amasses a gaggle of totally unbelievable students, scientists and theologians to do battle with the Devil and then the scene is set for another siege-type of deal (the sort of of scenario that Carpenter loves) as various members of the team bend to the Evil One's will and a veritable army of the homeless gather ominously outside, seemingly called by the awakening spirit down in the bowels of the church. Carpenter, under the rather silly pseudonym of Martin Quatermass, penned the screenplay, and a splendid piece of turgid old tosh it is too. Prince Of Darkness, starring Donald Pleasance as a priest - named rather unimaginatively Loomis (once again) - who uncovers Satan's liquefied form in the basement of a disused LA church and assembles a group of theological students and professionals to study it and make sure that it remains corked in its bottle, was a devout attempt by Carpenter to emulate the classic themes of science, religion, age-old horror and the desperate plight of mankind in the face of such history-re-writing that English author and script-writer Nigel Kneale had made so popular back in the fifties when his celebrated brusque hero Professor Bernard Quatermass did battle with all manner of otherworldly oddities. Starman was an intriguing premise, but his body-grafted adult ET still seemed to lack that spark that set the writer/director/composer apart from the crowd. Whilst his previous Big Trouble In Little China was mindless hokum, it still made it clear that Carpenter was hell-bent on tackling every sub-genre that fantasy cinema could offer him. Pray for death.вЂќДЄfter a string of hits that took him from ambitious film school student to grand-slamming indie genre god, John Carpenter - bolstered by the cult kudos of Dark Star, Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York and, of course, The Thing - had already shown signs of burning out before his 1987 satanic pot-boiler, Prince Of Darkness, came out of the shadows.

Prince of darkness album