Prince of Darkness Dream Sequences

[tgvalentine]

At the end, he says "this is not a causality violation." The only way for it can't violate causality is if those events always happened. But that also means that it's all hopeless anyway. Very bleak future indeed. I agree with whoever commented about the fatalistic desperation of this as a last ditch effort.

[tgvalentine]

And while i'm at it, I'll put my two cents in as well. According to relativity, you can't change the past. The spacetime continuum exists as is, and we experience it as we perceive time to unfold. So the shadowy figure was always that chick, it was just hard to tell because of the poor audio/video. But as they got closer to the day she actually went into the mirror, thus cementing her fate, the transmission got clearer. The transmission was to a specific date and location of the earth in space.

[tgvalentine]

Wow. Creepiest movie EVER. Only movie to give me nightmares since I was a little kid. And I was like 15 when I saw it. Lol. Good job. Now i'm creeped out all over again.

[anangbhai]

It also may be that in the apocalyptic version of 1999 Lisa Blount's character is alive and that she had to sacrifice herself in order to prevent the creature from coming through otherwise the apocalyptic future comes true

[pickledtochus]

Long Live Satan! lol, xD

[livee89]

An awesome film - one of my faves by Carpenter - outstanding :x

[billkasperdotcom]

Starring Manos, The Hands of Fate

[PizzaBagelX]

The message is Brian's. It's his message from the future to prevent Catherine from sacrificing herself. He is the one who theorized about using Tachyons to send a message to a point in history. My theory is that he spends the next 12 years (from 1987, to the yeat 1-9-9-9) working on technology to send a message to the past.

[TheHyperFlash]

Looks like the bald priest was the original "host" in the original timeline for the anti God

[HitmontopFanatic]

Ha, I had always wondered where DJ Shadow got the sample heard in "What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 1".

[AlexKalicinski]

this bitch here

[sexen87]

Voldemort?

[Scoonertuna]

I think this ending, obviously, implies that the fight is not over. Everytime we see the, "Devil" he's in the church and then at the end we see Catherine coming out of the church. I think this means that the only way either of them can get released is in the church.

[Scoonertuna]

This is so great because of how creepy it is. What sucks is that they abused this style of film making for stuff like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project.

[Morrisonlk28]

This scary me when i was 13 i watched this movie and i think it's one of the greatest creepy scenes from horror movies i've seen before,an excellent job!!!

[xgbvs]

So in this movie is Satan the son of the Anti-God?

[Scoonertuna]

@xgbvs Pretty much. Apparently, only Satan's son can come to Earth and his son can set him free.

[jds1029]

Thanks for putting that together, those sequences always creeped me out. And I thought the premise of sending messages from the future in this manner was clever as hell by Carpenter.

[smithnya]

One of my top 5 horror films. Very original, scary and creepy. Nothing like this had been done before or since, and those dream sequences are so scary.

[IWannabeJew]

"Illuminati" prophecy of Obama? We must have pushed the date back by a decade.  "Prince" was slang for a young black man when this movie came out (a la "Fresh Prince of Bel Aire" or the Artist Formerly Known as "Prince"). Darkness being the White-Man's little joke about skin color. Notice the White House has turned into the Dark House in the dream?

watch?v=VjnygQ02aW4 (2009)

[smithnya]

@IWannabeJew Lol funny

[cofpaddy]

Critically a flop but some awesome scenes, this one spooked the hell out of me

[ajawofcopan]

So scary. We are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9

[mournblade1066]

Second half:

"You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing. Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness, but this is not a dream. You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation."

[janthony721]

@mournblade1066 thank you

[mournblade1066]

Here is the complete quote (in two parts, since the character space is limited):

"This is not a dream... not a dream. We are using your brain's electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year one, nine, nine, nine."

[mournblade1066]

This is arguably the scariest film of the 1980s. In fact, I think only _Poltergeist_ and John Carpenter's other masterpiece, _The Thing_, come close.

There is *something* about this film that is far more disturbing than anything I have ever seen before, and I think the "dream sequences" are what truly send it over the edge.

The true horror comes from not what you see, but rather from what you infer.

[asusnodvl]

I was in high school when this came out, and saw this as an afternoon matinee.  Even to this day, these scenes still freak my shit out.

[sweiland75]

Lisa Blount 1957-2010

[mournblade1066]

@sweiland75

Yeah, that's a true bummer. :-(

Three actors (that I know of) from this film are now deceased:

Lisa Blount

Donald Pleasance

Victor Wong

RIP all!

[grapefruitm00n]

This scene always gave me chills...such a great and overlooked movie

[EpicureMammon]

The very first time I saw this, I was sleeping on some friends' couch and I woke up to the first video. I was in a deep sleep so this was about the creepiest thing I'd ever seen. The movie has never been at that level of creepy again, but that experience might be the most unsettling one I've ever had with a movie :)

[lego398]

watching this be4 going to bed is a bad idea...........

[xxSpike1989xx]

so really the women going into the portal was the causation violation in which gives the devil a vessel to escape the prison itself like its son (the antichrist) did. after the son took a vessel its powers became stronger. and the woman who had an unseen dream just before most likely saw herself in the dream and thought she was chosen to stop it not become it!

what a biblical fuck up

[populvuh02]

saw this yesterday, i'll never hear that dj shadow track the same way again

[MrOphachew]

Well, I've seen the movie a few times on tv and I think the girl coming out at the end was an effort to communicate with the past that they did succeed and that's what she wanted to try to show the past. If Carpenter had softened the last clip; it would be easier to realize: like originally they had a softer ending to the original terminator movie but test viewers didn't like it so the studio came up with the more ambiguous ending instead. I like that they where all strung together.

[lockster81]

Makes the chills of Entroducing seem so much more real. Good edit man. What a mental film.

[tyronechonglu]

These scenes especially when watched on video are extremely disturbing. Like breaking the fifth wall it puts you right in the movie watching the same video as the charachters in the film. One of the best examples is when the rescuers play back the decent into insanity of the crew of the Event Horizon.

[arlobrubaker]

i like that you did this

[SOADafi]

I first heard this on the DJ Shadow album and it scared the shit out of me

[KingFossilFER]

Theres no pint for sequels, the end is inevitable.

thats the point of the apocalypse trilogy

[Manano09]

DJ SHADOW!!!

[LordCenobite]

Do you guys know that M.Manson took that from that movie and used it for a song? The song is Down In the Park. It only appears on his "Lunchbox" single. Also, I liked that movie and the dream does, in fact, freak me out.

[lego398]

im too pussy to watch it. lol

can sum1 tell me wat happans plz?!

[PitFiend2001]

i remembered seeing this a looonng ass time ago and it scared the crap outta me then i saw it again just recently as somehow any movie i cant remember is a john carpenter movie.

[godlikemalice]

always thought this was creepy as fuck.

[MrTEHCOMEDIAN]

@godlikemalice amen to that

[guthywoodry]

So Chilling, So Memorable......

-But then it turns from Glimpses of The Lord of Eternal Darkness, -Destroyer of All Things, -To a red-headed bird......

-Like some crap German TV Movie....

-Good Grief, What Bathos!

[Econniff]

I loved these parts of the movie. Incredibly memorable.

[darthnocuus]

scary baby... thats a weird scene thats been haunting me for years.

[PERSONIFICATIONOFYAY]

DJ Shadow, anyone?

[Fmontes]

It's playing on HBO tonight (10/13)!

[octo20]

We are now in the year 2 0 0 9, and yet we still can't haven't figured out how to transmit messages to the past!

[sweiland75]

@octo20 You have to move faster than the speed of light, but that would require using all of the energy in the universe.

[theoncomingstorm]

@sweiland75 not to mention relativity puts a stop to it, but as with all laws some can be bent others can be broken e.g. Cherenkov Effect, and Phase velocity, Though in order for any of the above to work a similar work around to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle would have to be found. In theory however it is possible. Reality, that's different.

[Artemistech]

so they changed the future but the beast did came to earth after all only in a different host...

The question is how was it set free?

did the blonde guy we see in the end reaching for the mirror set it free by accident?

or was the final trasmition just a dream caused by the traumatic experience of losing his beloved?

fanstastic film!

[theoncomingstorm]

or... was the movie the dream? A big retcon if you like.

I do think anybody who had been through a situation like that would be in therapy for good number of years. Or just lose it.

I don't think he could set it free without his physiology being altered somehow as with the girl.

My personal take, he did come through, and along came microsoft :p

[DAVEtheMAGICIAN]

Right, and Apple sucks at his bossom

[floatingcompassmedia]

@Artemistech it was open ended. He was just dreaming, or was he?

[Defenseman619]

@Artemistech why is this confusing. The movie is about quantum physics, and the dream sequence clearly states that through tachyons, they can "time travel" by broadcasting into the past. The original warning wasn't heeded, as the message is only read through the subconscious in dreams. But they managed to stop the "devil". Barely. The girl died, or did she? She seems to have survived somehow to send a message back in time. She's keeping the Brotherhood of Sleep alive. The cycle continues.

[blackgirllover1]

brilliant film

5/5

[Bateman666666]

such a great movie..

[JoyGrenade]

Mmm, DJ Shadow.

[eytim]

damn, thats right

[JoyGrenade]

Yep. It wasn't until I finally saw Prince of Darkness that I realized how brilliant it was that he spaced out the transmissions throughout the album, the same way that they'd been spaced out throughout the film.

[eytim]

dj shadow knows whats up with the horror movies or movies in general, on the UNKLE album on rabbit in your headlights he samples Jacobs Ladder, also a dope movie

[JoyGrenade]

I didn't realize that. That's super cool.

[AlemanQAC]

f*cking creepy!

[KellyLogan]

With everything else in the movie, this was always the part that scared the heck out of me as a kid.

[Ubanga33]

Hell, I'd do her.

Ubanga has spoken

[septembervirgin]

There is another version of these scenes (and in fact of the movie entire) that is either remastered or reshot. It is beautiful.

[theoncomingstorm]

There are two versions one is the edit that is on the dvd and the other is watered down tv version.

[Kethtgi]

..the last line is 'Causality Violation... ' perhaps referring to a way in which the people of the present can 'alter the events' of the future - as in cause and effect.

Thats the question the film leaves us with perhaps, the guys in the church.... what they did, did they cause the future to happen, or in what they did, prohibit it from happening. Damn! that there was never a sequel..... still, all sequels happen in the future...so perhaps is yet to come.

[theoncomingstorm]

I always thought of 'End of Days' as a sort of sequel to this.

[GreatGarloo876]

What are the last words? I can make out "You are seeing what is actually occuring.." and then it gets garbled.

[theoncomingstorm]

This is not a dream.

We are using your brain as a receiver.

We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference.

You are receiving this broadcast as a dream.

We are transmitting from the year 1, 9, 9, 9.

Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious mind.

This is not a dream.

What you are seeing is actually occurring.

[GreatGarloo876]

Yes, I can follow it up to that point. But what comes after "What you are seeing is actually occuring"? Something about "causality"?

[Aspect058]

"You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation."

Also before that: "You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing."

What it implies is that the big bad made it through in the future, the people of that time knew that they were screwed once that happened, and their last ditch attempt to stop it all was to send that message back to the past to prevent it from ever happening. That's the 'causality violation' bit.

[theoncomingstorm]

I always think they didn't actually change history, just became part of it, perhaps even made it happen.

As the doctor likes to say

Wibbly wobbly, Time-y wimey

[halpern6]

that's exactly what we tried to do.

[ONDERON101]

@Aspect058 surely they involuntarily changed the course of history, hence the message sent via Tachyon transmission and the causation violation. the laws of cause and effect have been violated by interference partly caused by the dream interfering upon their subconscious.

[smithnya]

@Aspect058 Ok, you seem to understand this. So do you know why that las dream message with the girl happened? Who sent it and why, if the group managed to change future events?

[Aspect058]

@smithnya They did manage to change the future, just not enough.

In the scene prior to that last dream message, the big bad was being pulled into our world through a portal created in a mirror by Kelly, the student who Satan had chosen to possess completely. Catherine (the girl in the last dream message) sacrificed herself to prevent this by pushing Kelly back through the portal into the dark side - but her momentum carried her through as well. (cont'd)

[Aspect058]

@smithnya Then the mirror was shattered before any of them had a chance to escape, trapping Catherine on the wrong side of the portal along with the Satan possessed Kelly and the big bad. It's a safe bet they weren't too happy with her at that point.

Also, this last dream sequence is experienced by Brian, Catherine's boyfriend. The final scene of the movie happens just after this dream, with Brian slowly stretching his hand out towards the mirror in his room... (cnt'd again)

[Aspect058]

@smithnya and the cut to the closing credits just before he touches it.

This pretty much implies that Brian will find some way to reopen the portal in an attempt to rescue Catherine, and inadvertently release Satan and Co. at the same time. So the end result is pretty much the same, but instead of the big bad being released as some shadowy robed figure, it comes out possessing Catherine.

[smithnya]

@Aspect058 Awesome. Thanks for the explanation!

[leopheard]

@Aspect058 Thanks for that explan. I love the bleakness of it all - their last ditch was sending back images of the anti-christ/devil showing it was one of the researchers, but by then, it was all too late. There's also something disturbing/haunting about the fuzzy/long shots from a distance, perhaps it's because something you can't quite make out is far more scary than a huge highly detailed CGI monster.

[jp7725]

this scene kept me up with the lights on for days when i was 10 years old.  thanks for posting!

[vcrm1]

agreed, such a creepy scene...i didn't want to turn off the lights for fear of seeing that figure slowly approacing my bed...

[joeblack112]

damn! it´s been probably more than 15 years since I saw this movie and have never seen it since.. I think I was about 8yrs old, this particular scene has stayed with me forever and I remember this movie as one of the creepiest strangest movie I have ever seen.. I just ordered the dvd and can´t wait to see it on my 50 lcd!

[demxod8]

joeblack112: so what did you think after all these yrs? I haven't seen in at least 8 yrs. Rented on VCR last time, no longer have one. I forgot all about Alice Cooper melting into cockroaches. "I've got a message for you and you're no going to like it... pray for death!"

Sweet!

[joeblack112]

it was good! I actually enjoyed the old fashioned special effects more than the computerized monsters you see today. I thought the movie was pretty interesting and creepy at the same time. It also made me jump out of my seat a couple of times. And yeah that particular scene is extremely eerie :S "Hello... Hello... I got a message for you and you're not goint to like it" gives me goosebumps lol, but actually alice cooper played a posessed homeless dude, the guy with the insects is a scientist

[demxod8]

you're right. it was the scientist guy. somebody posted the movie in segments and I managed to catch that part. I could have swore - would have bet $1000 - it was Alice Cooper... the mind is a crazy thing I guess.

Well, that's cool. makes me want to see it again.... in its entirety.

[rapado73]

probably no one's going to believe me but I have seen the doorway figure at the foot of my bed. This happened years before i saw the movie. It has happened 5 or 6 times since! Does anyone have an idea or opinion why?

[theoncomingstorm]

I suggest you read up on Shadow Psychology - as somebody trained in psychology, don't bother with dream dictionary's, different things have different meanings to different people. It's way beyond the limited space I have here to type in full but there are plenty of books on the subject.

[METALSTYGIAN]

Alice is in this movie

i thought i was the only Satan worshiper who saw this one!

My dog started barking when i turned this video on, spooky

[WildBill6942]

I think the movies back in the 70's & 80's (not all) with their somewhat cheesy appearance and special effects were far superior than those we see today. CGI ruined classic horror movies for me. Everything looks like a computerized game nowadays. If I were a filmmaker, I would bring back blood packets and latex makeup and use limited CGI - if at all. I feel cheated when I watch DVD extras and see that everything was shot on a green screen in a studio. Takes away from the art of it all.

[ClawWing]

Simple but totally awesome! Why didn´t they make a sequel? I mean the ending had a cliffhanger.

[theoncomingstorm]

I'm in two minds, one of which is I like the fact its open for the viewer to make their mind up minus a sequel. The other is that I would love to see a follow up, knowing they have not stopped it, just delayed it.

Carpenters The Thing also could have used a sequel, though there are some who say the game serves as that, I personally don't buy that.

[JetBeetle]

I take him downtown and show him the church where this was shot (it's now an arthouse or something). We stand in the doorway and recreate the whole Satan in the Door thing and he looks at me and says - you know that movie was full of shit. Why? I ask. He says, because if they were transmitting from this year (1999) we would have seen ourselves on screen back in 88.

[demxod8]

haha!! excellent, JetBeetle.

[LaPetiteMorte]

This is one of the most eerie things I have ever seen and heard. The radio broadcast from Riget has the same effect on me.

[theoncomingstorm]

Lars Von Trier is a director I have a lot of respect for, I'd put him up there with the likes of Lynch.

[siy01]

This is really weird, I like it alot, Dj Shadow sampled it on Endtroducing.

[spsmith1965]

I saw this years ago. I consider it the scariest movie ever made. The idea that a nightmare is a real message from the future still freaks me out. Someone needs to do a remake with modern effects.

[theoncomingstorm]

To be honest I like the lack of high tech effects and CGI, which in my mind has ruined many movies.

[staypuft27]

take the fog remake...dump...the original..amazing

[theoncomingstorm]

I called it dawsons creek with pirates lol

[djmrparker]

Consider me your new pal, StayPuft.

[aspetwhy]

soooooo  spooky! Guy from riptide!

[DoubleIvan]

Yeah, Bozinski or something like that. At least he dies in an interesting way. Bike-fucked by Alice Cooper.

[DoubleIvan]

Thanks for this. 20 years and it still gives me shivers.

[djslt]

Ditto. I'm 34 and I still get creeped out watching this footage.

[PatrickIngham21]

I swear at 0:26 it looks like the figure has a tail!!

[theoncomingstorm]

Nah, its a headphone set, he's clearly just listening to his ipod, and doing a bad Jazz Fingers!

[theoncomingstorm]

I've converted this into a wma and is now my ringtone, gets some very strange looks, though that's a good point to me. :)

[PatrickIngham21]

its definatly NOT catherine in the first 3 dreams!!! (some people say it is)

[theoncomingstorm]

A dream within a dream within a dream, that's how I look at it. At the end I get the idea the whole movie was a dream (not a retcon) but, was a dream of what was to come, or maybe the dreamer is the writer, (sounds like a VERY carpenter trait) either way it's one of the better horrors I've seen, the science is questionable but who cares!

[PatrickIngham21]

Yeh ive heard of that theory before, that the whole movie was a dream but i dont really buy it.

[theoncomingstorm]

I buy the dream theory about as much as I buy the writers real name is Martin Quatermass, he's obviously a massive fan of quatermass and the pitt and the quatermass series in general. You can spot bits of a few of the movies.

[PatrickIngham21]

whats quatermass? a film? a book?

[theoncomingstorm]

Best way for you to find out would be to run a google search its too much to cover in this space. But without a doubt this movie is a take on quatermass and the pit.

[djslt]

Quartermass is John Carpenter. He used it so the credits wouldn't say Everything by John Carpenter.

[grendelee]

hello

dam. i thought maybe the dream transmission thing WAS the quatermass reference, so i was interested. but it was just the name, so i find. but maybe ill check out quatermass anyway, he seems pretty cool.

[seekohler]

It's not Catherine in the first three dreams. It's the Prince's true form. Once they altered the future, the prince reveals himself in Catherine's body. Thus the message from the future has changed.

[MacKenzie]

I always interpreted it that this was the outcome they were trying to avoid. By acting to change it, they brought it about.

[ONDERON101]

that is exactly it. they created a causation violation. This is not a dream.

[db3ll]

Thank! This is great!