15. “This is not a dream… not a dream.”
Prince of Darkness is the Rodney Dangerfield of the horror genre: it don’t get no respect. Not as much as it should, anyway. Especially the brilliantly designed transmissions “from the year one, nine, nine, nine”. With those sequences, John Carpenter blends tropes of ancient, theologically-tinged malevolence with sophisticated technological horror. There are echoes of La Jetee, Found in the Elevator, Quartermass and the Pit, but Carpenter’s take is somehow more pure, raw, and immediately accessible than any of those influences. A lot of that has to do with the way it sounds, as much as how it looks. Carpenter’s classics often feature ingenious audio elements. The janky, buzzing-in-your-earbones quality of “not a dream” transmissions is my favorite of them all. I’d even go so far as to say it’s one of the most disturbing, tailor-made-for-the-medium concepts in all of cinematic history. Please don’t you argue with me about this. Please don’t you make me erupt into a pile of centipedes on your ass. I’ll do it. I’ll be all “you’re not gonna like this” and you’ll be like “NOPE” and that just never ends well for anyone.
