5/5 Satan In A Jar...
  by Bindy Sue Frønkünschtein (under the rubble)
PRINCE OF DARKNESS is one of John Carpenter's (Halloween, The Fog, The Thing, Cigarette Burns) better movies. The idea of pure eeevil imprisoned in a bottle is a good one, especially when it finds its way out! Carpenter uses a group of scientists turned paranormal investigators to represent logic in the face of overwhelming insanity. Donald Pleasence ( Flesh And The Fiends, Halloween 1 and 2, Escape From New York, Alone In The Dark, Phenomena, etc.) plays the priest who gets them into this mess. POD has many classic moments, including a man flenced by voracious beetles, an impalement by bicycle, and a woman impregnated and mutated by the devil! There's also a horde of homeless people / zombies led by a silent Alice Cooper! Yep, this one is vintage Carpenter, packed w/ doom and dread! Buy immediately...

2/5 typical distortion Christian faith of horror movies
  by D. Smith (Bethel, CT)
Full disclaimer i am biasd toward the church and i have learning diabilive that make my writing suck. The movie, I personaly felt was a bit disresepct of the churches. I feel there was no person in the film you really felt conction with and just to much data. I am not going to tell you about the film other then, do not buy it unless you can get for two dollars at local story suave your shipping cost.

4/5 Also Known As The Two Hour MagLight Add
  by Matt Harnick
This is the last decent film that John Carpenter ever made. It tells the story of a group of scientists who discover a strange capsule in the basement of an old church. The liquid contents of the capsule turn out to be the son of Satan and, in fact, Jesus and Satan turn out to be extraterrestrials. This of course, follows Arthur C. Clark's idea that any sufficiently advanced technology can look like magic.
Despite the seemingly corny premise, the film combines a mix of the kind of horror found in 'The Thing' and the humor of 'Big Trouble in Little China' which works very well. Though not the best of his films, it still is well worth seeing.
I should explain that that the title of this review comes from one of the funnier scenes in which one of the researchers is trapped in a closet with no hope of escape through the door. When the monster outside comes at him, he uses a MagLight to bash his way through the back wall of the closet into the next room. At the time, MagLights were new on the market and everyone I knew wanted one simply because they had seen the film. Thus, in my circle of friends at least, we often referred to the film as " 'Prince of Darkness' or 'The Two Hour MagLight Add' " in the voice of the narrator at the end of an episode of "Bulwinkle".
It should be noted that this is definitely a horror film and contains plenty of rotting corpses, bloody maulings and other grusome special effects. And things don't exactly come out right in the end. If you're easily creeped out, watch this film with plenty of friends and the lights on! Mwahaha!

4/5 Pretty Damn Cool
  by to the sun (MA)
One of those rare B-movies that actually has something intelligent going on beneath the cheese riddled surface. Those cerebral transmission scenes are especially foreboding. A fun movie that also leaves some room for reflection.

3/5 2.5 Stars, mostly a demonic dud
  by M. Ryan Fairbanks (Cleveland, Ohio)
"We believe nature is solid and time is a constant. Matter has substance, and time, a direction. There is truth in flesh, and solid ground. The wind may be invisible, but it's real. Smoke, fire, water, light...They're different. Not as to stone or steel, but they're tangible. And we assume time has an arrow because it is as a clock. One second is one second for everyone. Cause precedes effect. Fruit rots, water flows downstream, we're born, we age, we die, the reverse never happens. None of this is truth. Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level into ghosts and shadows."

If extended scenes of plodding, pretentious, not to mention laughable psycho babble like this is your cup of tea, then boy have I found a movie for you. After ten minutes of opening credits, the story begins. Father Loomis comes into a secret buried in the basement of a local church, a cylinder full of Satan in liquid form. He enlists the help of a team of scientists and psychologists to decipher the mystery behind the liquid evil and to stop the premonitions of Satan's return.

At first the story line behind Prince of Darkness is quite intriguing. Mortal man defeating the devil himself by means of science? It certainly has some interesting possibilities. Unfortunately after the green liquid escapes its ancient container and begins possessing people, it doesn't take long for the movie to devolve into a typical stalk and slash fare, and not a very good one at that.

In addition to that, there is far too much silliness here in the first place. Why does the discovery of the cylinder cause a small group of the local homeless, and no one else, to become murderous zombies? All this mayhem is taking place inside a church situated on a frequented city street in broad daylight, why is it so difficult for the group to evade a small group of zombies guarding the exit? Couldn't they call for help, or get the attention of somebody walking or driving by?

Needless to say Prince of Darkness isn't John Carpenter's crowning achievement, but that's not to say it's all bad. It does have a consistent aura of dread throughout, as well as a memorable scene involving hordes of insects and a corpse that borders upon being genuinely disturbing. Plus no movie starring Donald Pleasance could ever be a complete waste, as close as Prince of Darkness manages to come. A casual horror fan may find some entertainment here, but other than that this is definetly one best left for John Carpenter fanatics.

PS: They also should have stuck to the original cover art.