Shocktoberfest #3 - The Devil Made Me Do It
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Oct 3 2010, 9:10 AM
It’s easy to pin everything evil on Satan— Ol’ Scratch is a convenient patsy when things go south. But when the Devil REALLY turns up, however, that’s when you know that all has literally gone to Hell. Demonic possession movies are a dime-a-dozen, but the presence of Lucifer — or his very devoted followers — is bad news for a movie’s characters, as they realize that the fire and brimstone that they scoffed at in their grade-school religion class is about to burn them in the ass.
John Carpenter’s name will rightfully turn up multiple times throughout this month’s rundown of horror classics, but one of his scariest films is also one of his most underrated: 1987’s Prince Of Darkness was made after the inexplicable box-office failure of Big Trouble In Little China and Carpenter, sick of studio interference, made two independent movies released by Universal— this film and the sci-fi action satire They Live. Both are fantastic.
Prince Of Darkness has a seemingly ridiculous premise— that Satan himself has been found in fluid form in a canister in the basement of a ramshackle Catholic church in downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles GeekWeekers should check it out— it’s the Union Center Of The Arts in Little Tokyo). A group of physicists that includes Simon & Simon’s Jameson Parker, Lisa Blount and Big Trouble In Little China veterans Dennis Dun and the late Victor Wong investigate strange readings that indicate the presence of a more powerful being above Satan— an “anti-God” bound to antimatter. Soon the fluid in the canister begins to infect the scientists— and the church becomes a magnet for the possessed as Satan makes his escape.
Here, Carpenter makes the absurd seem plausible and realistic; we believe in the characters and in Donald Pleasance, here playing a priest trying to straddle the worlds of religion and science. The presence of evil is palpable throughout the story— homeless derelicts (including a creepy cameo by Alice Cooper) become taken over by the demonic presence inside the church and lay siege to it; those hapless enough to outside are devoured by insects. The piece ultimately becomes a siege movie like Carpenter’s own Assault On Precinct 13 between the scientists and their former colleagues who’ve been taken over by the evil within the fluid. The story ultimately comes to a terrifying end where the “Anti-God” almost makes it through the portal of a mirror; you’ll never look at your reflection the same way after seeing this film.
The piece works so well because Carpenter, while keeping the tone between the characters light at times (the charismatic Dennis Dun should have been a star), never winks at the audience. While keeping the tone so serious risks us finding it even sillier, the gambit works well— we actually end up believing all that Carpenter (who also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym of “Martin Quatermass,” the name of the scientist in a series of British sci-fi thrillers from the ‘60s) throws at us. It doesn’t hurt that Carpenter, shooting as usual in widescreen, never gives us a shot that isn’t interesting and layers on one of his eeriest, most atmospheric scores with then-collaborator Alan Howarth. The weird flash-forward dream sequences in particular, are hard to shake. It’s hard to find a story about religion — particularly one dealing with good-and-evil in such stark terms — that’s so effective without being preachy or on-the-nose. This one works for believers and atheists alike.
Another worthy Devil comes in the more familiar guise of Robert DeNiro in Alan Parker’s eerie New Orleans-set thriller Angel Heart, also from 1987. The story lays on the symbolism a little thick at times and you can see the twist coming from a mile away— characters named “Louis Cypher” stick out as badly as vampires named “Count Alucard.” But the story, a grimy murder-mystery where lead Mickey Rourke, in one of his best roles, tries to solve a series of deaths in a case that ultimately turns on him, is so atmospheric and the tone so foreboding that you’re enthralled throughout. The malevolence of DeNiro’s Cypher is genteel and elegant; he radiates a disturbingly quiet authority throughout.
Even worse than the Devil himself are the Dark Prince’s followers— and never have Satanists been more difficult to deal with than in the ‘70’s exploitation classic Race With The Devil, perhaps the first and only film to combine Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, motorcycles, shotguns, an RV and a pack of Southern-Fried Satanists. Fonda, Oates and their wives interrupt a Satanic ceremony in the middle of nowhere and, when they go to report it, find their lives in danger as each town they pass through is full of cultists determined to stop them from spilling the beans. The film delivers on a number of levels — the action is fantastic — and Fonda and Oates are at their mid-‘70’s best as husbands who think they have a handle on the situation and quickly find themselves in over their heads. The tone of the piece is more Smokey And The Bandit at timesthan The Exorcist — it’s the ultimate shitkicker horror movie — but never has the notion of being a Stranger In A Strange Land at home felt so real.
It’s easy to pin everything evil on Satan— Ol’ Scratch is a convenient patsy when things go south. But when the Devil REALLY turns up, however, that’s when you know that all has literally gone to Hell. Demonic possession movies are a dime-a-dozen, but the presence of Lucifer — or his very devoted followers — is bad news for a movie’s characters, as they realize that the fire and brimstone that they scoffed at in their grade-school religion class is about to burn them in the ass.
John Carpenter’s name will rightfully turn up multiple times throughout this month’s rundown of horror classics, but one of his scariest films is also one of his most underrated: 1987’s Prince Of Darkness was made after the inexplicable box-office failure of Big Trouble In Little China and Carpenter, sick of studio interference, made two independent movies released by Universal— this film and the sci-fi action satire They Live. Both are fantastic.
Prince Of Darkness has a seemingly ridiculous premise— that Satan himself has been found in fluid form in a canister in the basement of a ramshackle Catholic church in downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles GeekWeekers should check it out— it’s the Union Center Of The Arts in Little Tokyo). A group of physicists that includes Simon & Simon’s Jameson Parker, Lisa Blount and Big Trouble In Little China veterans Dennis Dun and the late Victor Wong investigate strange readings that indicate the presence of a more powerful being above Satan— an “anti-God” bound to antimatter. Soon the fluid in the canister begins to infect the scientists— and the church becomes a magnet for the possessed as Satan makes his escape.
Here, Carpenter makes the absurd seem plausible and realistic; we believe in the characters and in Donald Pleasance, here playing a priest trying to straddle the worlds of religion and science. The presence of evil is palpable throughout the story— homeless derelicts (including a creepy cameo by Alice Cooper) become taken over by the demonic presence inside the church and lay siege to it; those hapless enough to outside are devoured by insects. The piece ultimately becomes a siege movie like Carpenter’s own Assault On Precinct 13 between the scientists and their former colleagues who’ve been taken over by the evil within the fluid. The story ultimately comes to a terrifying end where the “Anti-God” almost makes it through the portal of a mirror; you’ll never look at your reflection the same way after seeing this film.
The piece works so well because Carpenter, while keeping the tone between the characters light at times (the charismatic Dennis Dun should have been a star), never winks at the audience. While keeping the tone so serious risks us finding it even sillier, the gambit works well— we actually end up believing all that Carpenter (who also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym of “Martin Quatermass,” the name of the scientist in a series of British sci-fi thrillers from the ‘60s) throws at us. It doesn’t hurt that Carpenter, shooting as usual in widescreen, never gives us a shot that isn’t interesting and layers on one of his eeriest, most atmospheric scores with then-collaborator Alan Howarth. The weird flash-forward dream sequences in particular, are hard to shake. It’s hard to find a story about religion — particularly one dealing with good-and-evil in such stark terms — that’s so effective without being preachy or on-the-nose. This one works for believers and atheists alike.
Another worthy Devil comes in the more familiar guise of Robert DeNiro in Alan Parker’s eerie New Orleans-set thriller Angel Heart, also from 1987. The story lays on the symbolism a little thick at times and you can see the twist coming from a mile away— characters named “Louis Cypher” stick out as badly as vampires named “Count Alucard.” But the story, a grimy murder-mystery where lead Mickey Rourke, in one of his best roles, tries to solve a series of deaths in a case that ultimately turns on him, is so atmospheric and the tone so foreboding that you’re enthralled throughout. The malevolence of DeNiro’s Cypher is genteel and elegant; he radiates a disturbingly quiet authority throughout.
Even worse than the Devil himself are the Dark Prince’s followers— and never have Satanists been more difficult to deal with than in the ‘70’s exploitation classic Race With The Devil, perhaps the first and only film to combine Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, motorcycles, shotguns, an RV and a pack of Southern-Fried Satanists. Fonda, Oates and their wives interrupt a Satanic ceremony in the middle of nowhere and, when they go to report it, find their lives in danger as each town they pass through is full of cultists determined to stop them from spilling the beans. The film delivers on a number of levels — the action is fantastic — and Fonda and Oates are at their mid-‘70’s best as husbands who think they have a handle on the situation and quickly find themselves in over their heads. The tone of the piece is more Smokey And The Bandit at timesthan The Exorcist — it’s the ultimate shitkicker horror movie — but never has the notion of being a Stranger In A Strange Land at home felt so real.
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