The John Carpenter movie he called “the most underrated of my films”
For die-hard John Carpenter fans, a compelling argument could be made that almost every one of his movies except Halloween and Escape From New York is underrated.
After all, those films are the only two from his iconic career that were critically well-received and successful at the box office at the time of release. The rest of his career is littered with films that tanked upon release, but later became cult classics when audiences realised, “Hey, this is actually brilliant.”
In truth, Carpenter would have preferred that the excellence of his films be recognised when they first hit the public arena, as that would have made his career run much more smoothly. Instead, he made films like The Fog, Big Trouble in Little China, Starman, They Live, and, most painfully, The Thing, which were all met with some combination of critical vitriol and/or box office failure, before later being reevaluated as the works of a horror master.
It’s well-known that The Thing’s reception was the most devastating to Carpenter personally and professionally. He once confessed, “My career would have been different if that had been a big hit. The movie was hated, even by science-fiction fans. They thought that I had betrayed some kind of trust, and the piling on was insane.”
However, because the film went on to experience a second life when it was correctly repositioned as one of the greatest horror movies ever made, Carpenter has made his peace with its legacy. This is likely why the legendary director considers one of his other ’80s pictures to be his “most underrated,” because its reputation hasn’t quite executed the same 180-degree turn as The Thing.
“Prince of Darkness is the most underrated of my films,” Carpenter told author Anne Billson in 1996, referring to the weird, unsettling, and misunderstood quasi-religious horror he made with Donald Pleasence in ’87. The film tells the story of a priest and a group of students investigating a mysterious cylinder of green liquid discovered beneath a monastery. To their horror, they come to believe it is Satan himself in sentient, liquid form.
Despite such an esoteric concept, Prince of Darkness made a decent amount of money upon release. However, it was only considered a financial success because Carpenter kept the budget so low. As for the critical reception, once again, it was torn apart, with one particularly cruel verdict coming from The Washington Post: “Prince of Darkness stinks. It, too, deserves to be shut up in a canister for seven million years.”
Over the years, a section of dedicated Carpenter-heads have championed the film as a fascinating exploration of science versus religion and one of the few horror movies that has managed to make the concept of quantum physics scary. It has also been read as an analogue to the AIDS epidemic, and many fans have noted that British writer Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit had the most significant influence on the film. That seminal tale was also about the scientific investigation into a mysterious object discovered underground that exacts a terrible ancient influence on the people in its vicinity.
Amusingly, any time Carpenter is asked about the film, though, he refuses to say much about it beyond agreeing that it is underrated. When asked “What’s going on in Prince of Darkness?” by Cultspark in 2017, he deadpanned, “What’s going on? Oh hell, I don’t remember. It’s been so long! It’s about an anti-god, I think.”
Fittingly for a man who rarely enjoys analysing his own work, Carpenter is loath to talk about its lofty themes or the intent behind his script, which he didn’t even credit to himself. You see, even though he did craft the screenplay, the writer’s credit on the film reads – wait for it – ‘Martin Quatermass.’ Hilariously, he admitted to using this pseudonym because he got sick of seeing his name so many times on the posters for his movies.
“At that point in my career, I was getting my name above the title,” he recalled. “I saw a poster on Sunset Boulevard, and my name was on there, like, eight times.” With a chuckle, he added, “It was like, ‘C’mon, who’s this idiot?’ So, I decided I’ve got to take my name off of this.”
