It Came From the ‘80s is a series that pays homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
In John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, science and religion collide. Science fiction meets horror. It’s the second film in what Carpenter referred to as his Apocalypse Trilogy, sandwiched between The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness. This time, it’s Satan and his father the Anti-God that threaten to destroy all of humanity. When most horror movies involving the devil take the possession approach, Carpenter uses it as a launching point for a demonic siege with the end goal of summoning the Anti-God to usher in the apocalypse. And Satan is swirling green liquid.
Penned by Carpenter under pseudonym Martin Quatermass (an homage to Quatermass and the Pit creator Nigel Kneale), Prince of Darkness begins with the passing of an elderly priest. On his person is a small box containing a key, which leads another Priest (Donald Pleasence) to investigate. He discovers it unlocks the basement of an older church, St. Godard’s. In it is a large ancient canister full of swirling green liquid, and it’s evil. It prompts him to enlist quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) and his students to join his search for answers.
The group learns the liquid is sentient, broadcasting complex data that they analyze. As they realize the truth about it, that perhaps God and Satan were extra-terrestrials and Anti-God exists in the realm of anti-matter, the liquid begins to infect the students one by one. There’s nowhere to flee, either, as a growing mass of crazed homeless people surrounds the church to slay anyone trying to escape.
The first to fall is Susan (Anne Howard). Alone with the canister, it injects some of its liquid straight into her mouth, beginning a gruesome transformation from human to minion of evil. For the makeup effects, Carpenter turned to Francisco X. Perez (credited as Frank Carrisosa), a protégé of Stan Winston and Tom Burman. He was initially hired to do general makeup on the film, but after discussions on the transformation sequence Perez drew up sketches of ideas. Carpenter was so impressed he let Perez handle the transformation.
Prince of Darkness was an indie project, so the budget was limited. Meaning Carpenter had to get creative. The heroes of the film have recurring nightmares, which are actually tachyon transmissions from the future as a warning. To give the dreams that otherworldly quality, Carpenter simply shot them on video and then filmed them off of a TV.
That iconic moment in the climax that sees the gnarled hand of Susan pulling the Anti-God into our world through the mirrored world? Carpenter and crew ingeniously drained their camera crane of its mercury, and put it in a container. It gave the effect of liquid mirror glass. The arms in this shot are prosthetics. After Carpenter was satisfied with the effect, they put the mercury back in the crane and forged on. It was the trickiest effect of the film.
As with a lot of Carpenter’s films in the ‘80s, Prince of Darkness was maligned by critics upon release and didn’t fare well at the box office. Inspired by the quantum physics he’d been studying, Carpenter created a world where logic is reversed and reality loses all meaning. Logic isn’t of any use, and evil exists. He poses a simple question: what if blind faith and love were the only things that stood between humanity and the black bottomless pit? There’s a hefty weight behind the simplicity. The ideas and surrealism mean it’s not one of his most celebrated works, but Carpenter has never been afraid to go full throttle on his vision. Including the application of physics and liquefying the devil.