- Directed by John Carpenter
- Written by John Carpenter
- Stars Donald Pleasance, Lisa Blount, Jameson Parker
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq_j4DcypdA
Synopsis
We start off at a university, where Brian Marsh spots Catherine on campus and stares at her on the way to a lecture. A nun finds an old man dead in his bed with a strange box on his lap. The Priest wants to know what was up with the box and reads about it. “The sleeper awakens,” says the book; the box itself holds a big key. Professor Birack notices the sun and moon are really close together, as if an eclipse is imminent. Birack talks about the flow of time and how reality breaks down on the subatomic level. Brian watches Catherine at night with her boyfriend, and he seems to be a stalker. The priest writes a letter asking for assistance. A nun goes to see Birack and takes him to see the priest. The priest shows him the old dead man’s diary and asks for his help.
Meanwhile, credits roll.
The priest takes Birack to an old church in a run-down part of town. The old dead man lived in this church for thirty years and everyday he went down to the basement catacombs. Even the Vatican didn’t know about this place. On an altar is a glass cylinder filled with a strange, glowing, swirly liquid. The priest calls it “a secret that can no longer be kept.” They can feel the power of the thing, and it’s been growing for a month now.
Birak tells his students to cancel their plans for the weekend and work on a special project for him. The priest and Birack talk about quantum physics and philosophy. “No prison can hold him now,” says the priest. Brian and Catherine bond over numbers and have sex. We see that there are a lot of very strange homeless people in the neighborhood around the church.
The students, along with Dr. Leahy, arrive at the church, but none of them really knows why they are there. Still, they unpack and set up all their equipment. They spot the homeless people outside, just standing there staring at the building. The priest arrives, and he notices both the homeless people and the strange conjunction of the sun and moon. Finally, they all go down to the basement to look at the swirling stuff. They’re all creeped out just being near the stuff, and then they notice worms are appearing all over the building’s windows.
They examine the container and find that it can only be opened from the inside. One of the students who isn’t spending the night leaves and gets impaled by the homeless folks.
Brian explains that the stuff in the tube is becoming a life form. Nothing should be able to do what it’s doing. Lisa translates the book that was in the basement and it’s full of religious stuff that also involves an extraterrestrial visitor. Evil is a tangible substance. Brian and Cetherine come to the conclusion that the tube of liquid can influence things inv the outside world through telepathy and telekinesis.
Meanwhile, liquid from the tube shoots into the mouth of Susan, one of the students, who was down there alone. She starts walking around under the control of the liquid. Mullins goes looking for her, but she finds him first.
Birack and the priest talk about a “universe of mind” that we all take as God. There must also be an equal but opposite version of the same thing: an anti-life version of an evil God or Anti-God.
Frank goes outside for a break, and the homeless kill him too while Susan watches approvingly. Night falls, and everyone starts having the same dream, something about transmitting through dreams. The priest says this is a known thing for people too close to the container. Susan shoots Lisa full of goo, and it takes her over as well. The two of them kill Calder.
Frank’s body outside tells them all to “pray for death” as he is eaten by insects. Possessed-Calder kills himself in front of everyone. All the doors are barricaded shut from the outside, trapping them inside. The dead rise and start coming after the living. Kelly seems to have something growing in her belly, but she wasn’t pregnant earlier today.
The sun comes up, but even if they could get outside, the homeless are still out there. Walter is trapped in a closet, and he watches Kelly decompose as the thing in her belly develops. Kelly wakes up, and Walter panics.
Kelly goes to a big mirror and calls for her father. The mirror turns into a portal, and she reaches in. The priest cuts off her head with an ax, but she just picks it up and puts it back on. Kelly starts to pull out the claw of the Prince of Darkness, but Catherine tackles her from behind and the both fall through the portal, shutting everything down. All the dead fall down actually dead now.
The homeless people wander off, and the surviving humans leave. Birack, the priest, Brian, and Walter get away. “We’re safe, but he’s waiting on the other side,” explains Birack.
Commentary
John Carpenter has said that he was mostly aiming for a feeling of impending dread with this one. The pacing, soundtrack, and slow buildup make that happen.
Carpenter also specifically wanted to make a film incorporating the ideas of quantum mechanics and their relationship to religion, but that kind of thing is way too complex to really explain in a horror film, so most of the ideas presented just sound like nonsensical horror movie blather. The problem is, they try to explain it so hard, that there’s just a lot of talking, and most of it borders on incomprehensible. It might work on paper, or in a book, but it gets to be too much here.
It’s good, but the explanations are just too much. This one flopped at the box office but has become a bit of a cult hit in the following years. It tries hard, and there’s a lot to think about with it, but there’s a lot more suspense than action, and I suspect many will find it boring.