THIS IS NOT A DREAM.
This has happened before. I remember it from my youth. The president of
the United States is rarely a good man; I don’t think there’s ever been a good
man as president in my lifetime. I don’t think people who become presidents are
ever good, let alone the ones who want to be president.
From my lifetime, the president has been defined by his desire to kill
and torture. I don’t remember Clinton, but I sure do remember Bush. I grew up
on his dreams: of 24 and NCIS and other shows about the necessity of Bush’s
world. I remember Katrina and his inability to react. I remember the parodies
that played him like a clown, a fool, harmless. I remember being taken out of
class at the age of six for reasons that would haunt the world forever. I don’t
remember the exact details of that day, but I still feel the implications of
that day rippling forwards and backwards through time. I remember one of those ripples;
years after Bush became a painter. I was riding in my grandmother’s car to go
to the dentist when I saw a man walk down the streets. I remember, for the
briefest of moments, being afraid. I was afraid of him. I knew, even a few
moments later, that I didn’t have to be afraid of him, and yet in that moment I
was. I thought he was going to kill me. I was afraid he was going to kill us
all. I know why I was afraid, I know how I was afraid, and I know my fear was
unjustified, piercing through me like the ghost of a long dead devil. And yet,
I still feared that man solely because he was a Muslim.
Hello Darkness, my old friend. |
Well, it’s not the worst John
Carpenter film. It’s certainly the weakest of his “Apocalypse Trilogy” and it’s
probably on the lower end of quality for Carpenter’s filmography, but Prince of
Darkness is by no means terrible. The characters are a bit flat, the scares,
while mostly effective, don’t quite work as well as other Carpenter scares
(there’s a moment in the climax where we cut away solely to show the deaths of
a minor character and then cut back as if nothing happened), and, given the Lovecraftian
overtones of the trilogy, the nature of the evil is explained to us completely
in a way that feels satisfactory rather than in a way that puts a hole in the
heart of the audience that can never be filled like all good Lovecraft stories
do.
But perhaps the biggest problem
with the film is where it lies structurally within the trilogy. Where this the
first part of the “Apocalypse Trilogy,” then one could see this as setting up
the themes and ideas the other two films would push further and further until
we end with the audience going completely mental in a relatively low budget
film. Indeed, the flatness of the characters could act as another thematic
concern of the films as the characters become more and more dimensioned until,
at long last, they become self aware of their existence and watch the movie
with us. Except this is the second film of the trilogy.
THIS IS NOT A DREAM. NOT A DREAM. WE ARE USING YOUR BRAIN’S ELETRICAL
SYSTEM AS A RECIEVER. WE ARE UNABLE TO TRANSMIT THROUGH CONCIOUS NEURAL
INTERFERRENCE. YOU ARE RECEVING THIS BROADCAST AS A DREAM. WE ARE TRANSMITTING
FROM THE YEAR 2. O.
I remember Obama. The narrative we told at the end, when our dreams of
a democratic savior turned out not to be shaped like him, was that of a broken
man who couldn’t help but be broken by the job of being the president, no
matter how hard he tried to be a good man, he could only succeed at being
decent. I remember walking down to the library, seeing nice old ladies, and
sometimes their sons, handing out pamphlets that said Obama was a Muslim Nazi,
bent on destroying all that we hold dear. They were part of my daily walk from
school, always there when the weather was nice and capable of containing such
fear of the unknown. I never talked to them about their politics or anything
for that matter. I was trying to be apolitical at the time and thus not even
look into any sort of politics. I believed that made me enlightened, or at
least allowed myself not to get into shouting matches like the ones I saw on
TV. There were some politics I did hold, though I called them common sense. Fox
News, despite the claims of my least favorite teacher, is not fair and balance,
Clint Eastwood talking to a chair is frankly ridiculous, and gay people in general
deserve to be treated like people. After I felt afraid about the Muslim man, I
never saw those ladies, or indeed any people at a table by the library, again.
I remember reading about Chelsea Manning. At first, it was just about
her Wikipedia page and how the system of Wikipedia allowed for members of the
military to edit her page to refuse her even her own name. I remember my
childhood bullies refusing to give me my name, though on a lesser scale than
she was refused hers (they called me “Seen” because bullies are rarely, if
ever, clever). I remember reading the article because it was about how shit
Wikipedia is, with little care for who Chelsea even was. I remember reading
articles about Chelsea years later and feeling guilty about my younger self’s desire
for apoliticality. I remember feeling happy when it was announced she would be
freed. I remember childhood friends refusing Chelsea her own name.
And yet, the film itself is an engaging watch. There was never a moment when I felt bored or uninterested in the events unfolding in the film. Carpenter is, after all, a competent technician, even when making a left-handed film. There are some genuinely amazing shots scattered around this middling film (one that caught my eye was a moment where we inexplicably focus upon a leaf, but then the focus shifts and we now see the moon behind it, but it looks as if there’s no leaf blocking it at all, the VHS camera used for the dreams adds to the unnatural nature of those scenes, and the final shot is brilliant). The actors do a thoroughly good job with what little they have, though none of them really stand out. The effects are obviously a highlight of the production, even though they’re sparsely used-- when Sophie (ironically the only character whose name I remember) looks in horror at the celling filling up with the ooze the antichrist uses to possess people, it almost looks as if it’s actually dripping onto the celling as opposed to the camera just being upside down; the mercury used to keep drowned Satan (Carpenter has said it’s not Satan, but come on) is mesmerizing, especially given the chilling fate of the love interest; and Alice Cooper looks even more like a zombie than his stage persona.
And yet, the film itself is an engaging watch. There was never a moment when I felt bored or uninterested in the events unfolding in the film. Carpenter is, after all, a competent technician, even when making a left-handed film. There are some genuinely amazing shots scattered around this middling film (one that caught my eye was a moment where we inexplicably focus upon a leaf, but then the focus shifts and we now see the moon behind it, but it looks as if there’s no leaf blocking it at all, the VHS camera used for the dreams adds to the unnatural nature of those scenes, and the final shot is brilliant). The actors do a thoroughly good job with what little they have, though none of them really stand out. The effects are obviously a highlight of the production, even though they’re sparsely used-- when Sophie (ironically the only character whose name I remember) looks in horror at the celling filling up with the ooze the antichrist uses to possess people, it almost looks as if it’s actually dripping onto the celling as opposed to the camera just being upside down; the mercury used to keep drowned Satan (Carpenter has said it’s not Satan, but come on) is mesmerizing, especially given the chilling fate of the love interest; and Alice Cooper looks even more like a zombie than his stage persona.
THIS IS NOT A DREAM. NOT A DREAM. WE ARE USING YOUR BRAIN’S ELETRICAL
SYSTEM AS A RECIEVER. WE ARE UNABLE TO TRANSMIT THROUGH CONCIOUS NEURAL
INTERFERRENCE. YOU ARE RECEVING THIS BROADCAST AS A DREAM. WE ARE TRANSMITTING
FROM THE YEAR 2.
I know TRUMP. I was there when the votes were tallied and it became
increasingly clear that HE would win, I became afraid. This was not the terror
of a ripple nor the terror of that those who thought Obama was going to somehow
lose in 2008 felt. Sure, I voted for Clinton, but that was because Stein wanted
me dead and the Libertarians were never going to be a good choice, despite what
the South Park guys say. But I didn’t feel afraid because Clinton lost. I was
reading books about the cause HE was courting. I knew what evil they wanted.
What their end goal was. They haven’t touched me, not yet. Maybe they never
will. I’m being naïve; they’ll get to me eventually. I felt numb and broken
when HE won. My brother told me I was overreacting and that this was just how
the Republicans reacted when Obama won. Because being afraid because a Black
Man is elected president because the last president made it so no Republican
could be elected as the next president is the same as being afraid of an open
racist, sexist, homophobic monster is elected president because HE was a
racist, sexist, homophobic. I screamed at people around me because I needed to
futilely scream at something. I apologized to my roommates who were trying to
sleep, but I didn’t feel like anyone else felt afraid. Months later, my brother
would make a joke about knowing what it’s like to be a Clinton voter on
election night. How I hated his willingness to brush aside the implications of
HIM being president for the sake of mocking the left.
I remember the marches. I never attended any of them, mostly because I
was nowhere near any of the big ones and I only learned about the small ones
after they occurred. I wish I could go to one of them, just one. I feel like
I’m not doing anything to help. I can help, but instead I’m going to movies,
reading books, and writing a blog about the 1980’s. I feel like I’m too much of
an introvert to do anything. I keep thinking about the nuclear bomb that’s
going to drop on New York City the moment I enter because HE wrote a tweet that
pissed off someone. I feel like I’m lying just to get brownie points for being
a good liberal who supports punching Nazis, yet would never actually do
anything about the injustices of the world.
I remember the other marches. The ones that killed people. The ones
that HE was fine with. The ones HE only complained about under duress. I
remember nothing changing when HE said literal, actual Nazis were just some
good working boys. I remember nothing changing when HE bragged about grabbing
women by their pussies. I remember nothing changing when HE let Puerto Rico
drown. I remember being told HE was a dove by my brother on Election Night in
comparison to Clinton’s hawk. I remember HIM declaring a willingness to drop
nuclear bombs on North Korea.
I remember reading about the Fourth Dimension; I read about it during
the Obama administration, and around the time HE won, but it keeps popping up
in my head when I don’t want it to. It claimed events have ripples that recur
again and again in new and different shapes, each getting worse and worse than
the last. The song remains the same, but the tune changes slightly, until at
last a new song kills us all in our endless state of wartime. I remember the
fear that crept up on me as I read that bit of science, of how its implications
disregarded the nature of any sort of free will. If the future is fixed, if
these events that will occur are known to occur, is there anything we can do to
change them? To stop the ripples in time in the first place? Or is history
doomed to be as it always will be, in its singular vision?
In short Prince of Darkness, a
movie about a group of scientists studying a religious artifact said to house
the antichrist and what follows in the wake of his escape and attempt to bring
his father (THE ANTI-GOD) out of the Darkseid, doesn’t really hold a candle to
stories within the genre like Nameless or Carpenter’s later Mouth of Madness
and it probably would have been improved if there was another half-hour added
to the film. In many ways, the explorations of the themes of identity and the
supernatural that the film toys with were done much better in The Ward. Still,
it’s an enjoyable watch that’s worth at least seeing once. Though, if I’m being
blunt, it’s not worth writing 2,000 words in any context outside of a project exploring
the interests of John Carpenter.
THIS IS NOT A DREAM. NOT A DREAM. WE ARE USING YOUR BRAIN’S ELETRICAL
SYSTEM AS A RECIEVER. WE ARE UNABLE TO TRANSMIT THROUGH CONCIOUS NEURAL
INTERFERRENCE. YOU ARE RECEVING THIS BROADCAST AS A DREAM. WE ARE TRANSMITTING
FROM THE YEAR 2. O. 1. 7. YOU ARE
RECEVING THIS BROADCAST IN ORDER TO ALTER THE EVENTS YOU ARE SEEING. OUR
TECHNOLOGY HAS NOT DEVELOPED A TRANSMITTER STRONG ENOUGH TO REACH YOUR CONCIOUS
STATE OF AWARENES. BUT THIS IS NOT A DREAM. YOU ARE SEEING WHAT IS AN ACTUAL
OCCURRING PHENOMENON FOR THE PURPOSE OF CAUSALITY VIOLATION.
I don’t remember Regan. I wasn’t there for that. But he was always
there for me.
(Next Time: We Have Such Sights To
Show You…)
[Photo: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus
Janson]
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