Prince of Darkness: You will not be saved by the god Plutonium

The thing I always liked most about John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness - apart from the obvious things like the bizarre message from the future and Alice Cooper as a demonic rough sleeper- is that it's got a very complicated deal that I still really couldn't follow.

It's almost the opposite of a high concept. Most horror films have an easy hook, and often have a simple, easy premise, but I've seen Prince of Darkness a dozen times over the years, and there is a fuzziness to the plot, and some strange over-complication - so much that I still find it difficult to follow.

Any other John Carpenter film I could explain in 25 words or less - New York is a prison, someone has to get the president; Michael Myers just wants to kill everybody; the Ghosts of Mars are very pissed off - but even now I struggle to explain what is going on in that weird church in the bad part of town.

I just don't understand why the green goo is actually the devil, and why it targets certain victims and leaves other heroes alone. I don't know what the deal is with the homeless zombies, or why Carpenter thought his hero should have a moustache like that.

I just find the whole thing befuddling, and I have to be absolutely clear that I think this is a good thing, and the main reason I've watched it so many times over the years. Sometimes I get a better picture of the plot, some times I'm as baffled by the end as I always have been. 

The whole film is like that message from the future, incomprehensible and vague, and only slightly in focus, but all the more terrifying for it.