hail satan!

"I used to break out when I was twelve.  Doctor said it was homosexual panic."

I got real caught up in my apartment this morning - aimlessly wandering from room to room with my coffee cup, absently touching surfaces.   The outside world was just too much.  Luckily, we appear to be in the midst of one of those free Cinemax preview weekends and I am clearly blessed because John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness is on.  Blessed be!

I've probably watched this movie seven or eight times over the years and I have absolutely no clue what it's about.  None.  To my understanding, a group of scientists (or maybe they're students) in high-waisted pants and terrible haircuts lock themselves up in a vacant school building someplace (or maybe it's a church).  Donald Pleasence from Halloween invites the old man from Big Trouble in Little China to help him with something having to do with outer space and the devil and a big vat of interstellar Ooze.  Prince of Darkness posits that Jesus Christ was from outer space (or was is devil from outer space? or is it the Son of the devil?) and that homeless people are all blood-thirsty monsters from hell.  There may even be an eclipse at some point (solar or lunar, who knows).

I do know that there are a bunch of bugs everywhere and there are state of the art 1987 computers and lots of Catholic imagery (always good for a fright) and the movie has a solid John Carpenter synth score throughout.  Donald Pleasence delivers many monologues.  People get demonically possessed by water damage leaking through the ceiling.  Alice Cooper even shows up at one point.  Regardless of plot, Prince of Darkness is one of the greatest Background Movies of all time.  It should come as no surprise that I love any movie whose central protagonist looks like he came out of a 1985 gay porn.

Thank you, Cinemax.  While I am grateful to see Prince of Darkness presented in glorious High Definition, I still have no intention of ordering your services.  I have HBO.

Xo