Needless to say, this review might contain some spoilers, so be warned.

The movie deals with the discovery and testing of a cylinder of green fluid, sealed from within 7 million years before. The green liquid is the essence of Satan who awaits his rebirth so that he can summon his father ("the Sleeper") who once ruled this world and will do so again. Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, Jesus was an alien who came to earth to attempt to prepare humans to battle with this great evil. Sadly, nobody understood his advanced science and everyone thought he was crazy...so they killed him. This sounds like something out of Lumley's "Titus Crow" books.

So, with that bit of Mythos connection in place we can look at the movie. As a whole it is a low budget film and it feels like one. Most of the special effects are laughable and a few just insult the intelligence of the viewers. Still, the movie doesn't go overboard and the only real effects that matter (the canister and the transformation of one unlucky soul) manage to work quite well.

The acting in the film is fairly routine, no real standout performances by anyone and I must say that Donald Pleasence seemed to be just phoning it in (interesting that he played "Father Loomis", one must wonder if there is a connection to "Dr. Loomis" of Halloween fame), which was rather disappointing.

In the end though, the movie works on several levels and fails on a few as well. It fails in that we don't care about the people who are killed in this movie. They come, they go, and with or without them the movie continues right along. The fact that the characters don't really seem to care about their disappearing comrades is another bad sign.

Still, it works in that the story is a little creepy. Not overly so and certainly not frightening, but creepy is still a success. Filled with veiled imagery and revisionist religion, Prince of Darkness is not a bad film it just isn't a great film either. This is the movie that people should be remaking. The Fog was perfect the first time, this is the movie that needs retelling...

The DVD has little in the way of extras. There is a theatrical preview (which is fairly standard these days) and a section of recommendations. Yup, you guessed it, the recommendations are ads for three other John Carpenter films... VERY disappointing.

The DVD is available through Amazon for $13.48 and starting around $7.00 from their associated sellers. It is available in the UK from Sendit.com for £5.99

-Bob Brinkman

Special thanks to Bob Brinkman for allowing me to use this review.