Reception
Prince of Darkness was poorly received critically upon release. In his review for the Washington Post, Richard Harrington wrote, “At one point Pleasence vows that 'it's a secret that can no longer be kept.' Here's another: "The Prince of Darkness stinks." It too deserves to be shut up in a canister for 7 million years". Liam Lacey, in his review for the Globe and Mail, wrote, “There is no character really worth caring about, no sympathy to any of these characters. The principal romantic couple, Jameson Parker and Lisa Blount, are unpleasant enough to create an unfortunate ambivalence about their eternal destinies”. In his review for the New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film a "surprisingly cheesy horror film to come from Mr. Carpenter, a director whose work is usually far more efficient and inventive." The movie currently holds a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In Leonard Maltin's annual publication "TV Movie Guide," the film is given a "BOMB" rating. In 2004, Jim Emerson wrote that Prince of Darkness was an undervalued horror film: "What makes me goose-pimply about Prince of Darkness is its goofy-but-ingenious central conceit and its truly Surrealistic imagery, some of which could have sprouted out of Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou."
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