Written and directed by John Carpenter in 1987, Prince Of Darkness tends to get overshadowed by the likes of Halloween and They Live but this movie holds up really well. An interesting story that in many ways pits science against religion as much as it does good against evil, it's a smart and spooky movie and one well worth revisiting.

When the movie begins, a Catholic priest in charge of a rundown church in a bad part of downtown Los Angeles turns up dead shortly before his meeting with a Bishop. Enter a priest named Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance), who finds an ancient diary containing an ancient scripture and an aged key that unlocks the basement where he finds a large canister containing a strange green substance. More than a little frightened by what he's discovered, he enlists the aid of a noted physicist and university professor named Howard Birack (Victor Wong) who in turn gathers up some of his top students and associates to try and figure out exactly what all of this means.

Accompany Birack are Brian Marsh (Jamison Parker), Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount), Lisa (Ann Yen), Susan Cabot (Anne Howard), Walter (Dennis Dun) and Dr. Paul Leahy (Peter Jason), all of whom are a little unnerved upon arriving at their location to find that there's a strange congregation of homeless people (lead by Alice Cooper) hanging about. As they start to unravel the mystery and crack the code presented to them by Loomis, bizarre events take place and anyone who doses off experiences the same dream, an eerie vision of someone or something emerging from the church with obvious evil intent. When Susan comes into contact with some of the liquid, she transforms into something not quite human while outside both the homeless and insect populations of the area seem to be answering to something unholy.

And let's leave it at that. This is a movie that reveals a lot as the story unfolds, it takes a little bit of time to get going but that pacing is deliberate and if we're not moving a thousand miles an hour here, even in the earlier part of the movie Prince Of Darkness is far from dull if you pay attention to it. All sorts of great little bits of foreshadowing are on hand, be it the calculated movements of an army of homeless denizens or the increasing amount of freak insect activity on the outside of a church window. Once Susan is infected (and in a way contagious) we're off and running, however, and the last half of the film ratchets up the horror movie elements to an incredibly satisfying conclusion. The fact that all of this takes place inside a great location, that being the church that is now only a glimpse of what it once was and which has obviously fallen into disrepair, also helps. This allows Carpenter to experiment with some interesting Catholic iconography as the story line evolves from a typical horror movie into a movie that dares to take on the subject of Christianity itself. The resulting storylines allows for a great scene in which Loomis and Birack sit in a room together, the priest's faith more than a little rattled at this point, and simply talk about what they've uncovered. It's a brilliant character heavy moment, one of quite few, and if it isn't a scene that will shock you with a jump scare it's certainly effective in the way that it presents some unsettling concepts and makes you think.

The cast do a fine job with the material here. Wong and Pleasance are the scene stealers, with Wong playing the sage skeptic and Pleasance the man who, once confronted with what's been discovered, wrestle with his entire world view and purpose in life. Both actors play their parts well, and while Pleasance does occasionally conjure up memories of a certain other Loomis he's played before, he's well cast here. Supporting efforts are strong as well, with Alice Cooper doing an excellent job in his small part as the leader of the homeless, using his body language and eerie facial features really effectively to create a solid sense of menace.

As the movie comes to its conclusion, the deliberate pacing comes to work in its favor. With an impressive sense of impending dread having been built up throughout, Carpenter finishes the film with a bang. While Prince Of Darkness is unlikely to unseat his more popular pictures, it is in many ways just as good as anything else the director has ever made. And now, thanks to Shout! Factory, it gets the special edition that it deserves, which brings us to…

Video:

Shout! Factory brings Prince Of Darkness to Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed in the movie's original aspect ratio of 2.35.1 widescreen. Generally this transfer is great. Colors really pop here, especially that strange shade of green used for the ooze in the church basement. The blue used to ‘push' the shadow of the entity out of the door during the dream sequences also looks really good. The image is very clean, there isn't any real print damage to note, though there is some softness and at times it looks like grain is less pronounced than you might expect it to be. Otherwise, there are no obvious issues with compression artifacts and no heavy edge enhancement to note. Detail is quite good, contrast looks right, black levels are very solid. The image is brighter and cleaner looking than it has been on past DVDs resulting in a much clearer picture with better shadow detail.