Ambiguity is everywhere in Prince of Darkness. The thing that the religious and scientific characters can agree on is that there are places where the common-sense, intuitive rules do not apply, whether that's the level of quantum physics, or within the human heart. While Carpenter does juxtapose the scientific and religious viewpoints, they are not at odds with one another. Victor Wong's physicist and Donald Pleasance's priest are friends, not opponents, trying to work together to puzzle out the mystery. There is debate between the two positions, but, crucially, both recognise that they don't hold all the answers, that there are points where their certainties break down. Instead, they are both attempts to explain the universe from a human perspective - attempts that, it is increasingly clear, fall woefully short. This is cosmic horror, expressed not through the vast, but the minuscule. Just as humanity is humbled when looking outwards, into the boundless universe, so too are we brought low by our inability to neatly sum up what is within - within atoms, and within ourselves. Why else would it be a mirror that holds such fascination for Jessie Lawrence Ferguson's possessed grad student? Why a mirror through which the prison of the ultimate evil can be reached? And a mirror in which, in the intense final shot, Brian, played by Jameson Parker, stares as he contemplates risking damnation for love? 'No easy answers' might seem trite, but the knowledge that the fundamentals of our existence are still beyond our understanding is fertile ground for horror and Carpenter makes good use of it. Even the film's own explanations for its events are picked apart. The evil presence is explained first as a demon or Satan himself; then as an alien entity, its spiritual character a deliberate obfuscation of its ancient wardens; it manifests as a glowing green liquid, with the obvious imagery of bubbling chemicals, but also as an eerie juxtaposition of sun and moon, swarms of insects, and possessed humans; the 'father of Satan' appears finally as a demonic clawed hand, yet is defeated - ambiguously - perhaps by divine power, perhaps by rational planning, but certainly by self-sacrifice. The trappings of the Catholic church and of scientific laboratories are invoked, juxtaposed, to create a vision of both moral and ontological complexity. At times the film feels too small for all the concepts it is trying to explore, which could maybe stand a bit more room to build; yet it's likely that no amount of room could allow a satisfactory resolution to these issues. Maybe that's the point.
A few weeks ago my partner and I finished playing Parasite Eve , a game close to her heart but one I'd never tried. I had a vague idea of what it was like - a survival horror game with RPG elements - and the basics of the plot - an outbreak of 'intelligent' mitochondria taking over the humans that carry them. I admit that the latter was a thing that had put me off the game previously; 'but that's just not how mitochondria work', I had scoffed, essentially. But that simplistic dismissal of the game had kept me from a horror experience that I'm still thinking about now. Parasite Eve is the story of Aya, a NYPD officer who, in the game's dramatic opening sequence, is attending the opera on a date. At the crescendo of the performance, a singer who calls herself 'Eve' - a reference to the famed mitochondrial Eve that the game later makes explicit - causes the spontaneous combustion first of the rest of the cast, and then nearly the entire au...
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