I’ve just finished watching the Apocalypse Trilogy and they’re all such fun films, each of them offering an interesting take on how humanity would react if we realized that everything we knew was a lie we told ourselves. The way I see it, each of the films has a simple genre structure with all the fun elements built around it: a murder mystery structure wrapped up in a creature feature, a slasher movie clothed in a supernatural thriller that borrows from science and religion, and a psychological thriller wrapped in a straight-up cosmic horror plot. The movies aren’t perfect, but John Carpenter having the appeal of B-movies down to a science, is what makes these movies so entertaining.

I thought of this theory that explains away the ambiguity of Prince of Darkness’ ending, because I, like the characters, cannot deal with something I can’t comprehend. The liquid embodiment of Satan, doesn’t merely change or influence things around him as he grows stronger, he slowly brings the church and everyone in it to the dark side with him. The scientists are the replacements in exchange for bringing Satan’s father out of the dark side and into our world, while they take his place. That’s why the homeless people are made to trap the scientists in the church. Towards the end, the two worlds are fully flipped, with Satan’s father in our world, and the scientists and Satan in the dark side. Satan tries to enter into our world to join his father, but the scientists, still thinking they are the ones in the normal world, trap themselves in there by pushing Satan into the mirror and into our world and destroying the mirror as well as dooming the rest of humanity.

Evidence: At the start of the movie, the sun and moon appear together, indicating our world is entering the dark side, and that when one world is in daytime, it is night in the other. Later on, what the characters think is the sun rising is actually them entering the dark side where it is daytime. Towards the end, Walter escapes the church and runs away and it is nighttime, indicating he escaped and entered the real world somehow. But when the paramedics come to rescue them, it is day, and Walter is still there outside the church despite running away. This is the dark side with Dark side-Walter standing there. There is also the imagery with the liquid flowing upwards into a reflective mirror pool, and the characters looking perplexed into mirrors as though they realise their images are flipped. Brian also gets the dream at the end as his location is still in the church in the real world, as that is where he crossed to the other side. Catherine is seen entering the normal world from the church in the dream, with Satan and his father probably behind her. The normal world is now ruled by Satan and father, while the dark side becomes peaceful, with the scientists who crossed into the dark side being none the wiser, living out their lives like in the matrix.