1987's Prince of Darkness marks another instance in John Carpenter's mastery of doom-and-gloom filmmaking. From the original Halloween onward, Carpenter's horror pictures have always carried an oppressive streak, yet not so much that viewers lost themselves in all the death and despair. His flicks, even the flawed ones, are at the very least interesting in some respect, be it The Thing's palpable paranoid plotting or They Live's social satire. Prince of Darkness is at its heart a siege movie, a twist on Carpenter's own Assault on Precinct 13 with a metaphysical makeover. Its ideas don't class up the material by a  staggering margin, but it's alright, for the film -- newly-released on Blu-ray and DVD by Scream Factory -- comes across as a goopy and gory good time regardless.

In the bowels of a derelict Los Angeles church, a force older than mankind is stirring. For millennia, people have envisioned Satan as a humanoid, preferrably cloven-hooved being. But the real source of all evil is what looks to be a massive cylinder of constantly-swirling Ecto Cooler, the chemical essence of what we know as Beelzebub. With this discovery, a lone priest (Donald Pleasence) has recruited Professor Birack (Victor Wong) and a team of researchers to scientifically validate what has for ages existed only in faith. But that vat has more in store for these eggheads than they think, putting into motion a plan to possess the lot of them and answer the scariest question ever: if Satan is the Prince of Darkness, then who's the King?

While watching Prince of Darkness and attempting to suppress your gag reflex, don't be surprised to be reminded of Carpenter's The Thing. Both movies deal with sequestered characters being taken over by an enemy from within, but while Kurt Russell had science and flamethrowers to combat a body-swapping alien, the poor suckers in Prince literally don't even have a prayer. The threat they face is one that neither the devout nor agnostic among them can comprehend, limiting their options to either becoming a possessed slave or being gored by the homeless masses encircling the church. At times, it sure seems like Prince of Darkness has the deck too stacked against its characters and doesn't give itself many directions to take. That's true to an extent (what siege movie doesn't spin its wheels a little bit?), but Carpenter compensates by building tension at a steady and addicting pace. He sets an eerie mood early on and proceeds to add a succession of bizarre extensions that don't make a whole lot of sense, but man, do they hook you in anyway.

Though the graphic violence says otherwise, Prince of Darkness is an old-fashioned flick at its core -- a loving throwback to those vintage sci-fi movies where foundation-rattling discoveries were made about our history, specifically Quatermass and the Pit (whose lead character's name inspired Carpenter's screenwriting pseudonym here). Carpenter's concept -- basing religion in hard science -- is ripe with potential, so much so that you sort of wish he hadn't spent it on a movie where some characters spray green gunk at other characters. That's not to say Prince of Darkness is some low-rent horror show, since the cast does an impressive job of selling some seriously silly ideas, while the special effects department handles the rest. Bodies crumble into piles of bugs, pizza-faced zombies plop their own decapitated heads back on, and vague horrors lurk in mirror dimensions, all of which are brought to life through crudely effective visual trickery that screams the '80s.

Prince of Darkness may be simple stuff when you get down to it, but its entertainment is all in the presentation. With a dirty old church and a big tube of goo, Carpenter cranked out a fast-paced creepshow whose intensity withstands whatever goofy plot twists it's required to relate to viewers. You could say most of Carpenter's resume qualifies as cult cinema, but Prince of Darkness end up as a treat that seems particularly unappreciated.

-Commentary with writer/director John Carpenter and frequent Carpenter cast member Peter Jason. It's an old track (Carpenter refers to Prince actor Victor Wong's 2001 death as "this year"), but it's fun listening to these guys swap stories about the good times they had on the set (not to mention hearing Carpenter confess that he has no explanation for the film's strangest elements).

-Four brand-new interviews, featuring Carpenter, rocker Alice Cooper (who played the ringleader of the movie's homicidal hobos), actor/effects supervisor Robert Grasmere, and co-composer Alan Howarth.

-An alternate opening from the movie's edited-for-TV version, which omits quite a bit of establishing material and rearranges the rest to suggest that the whole story is one long dream sequence.

-An episode of the web show "Horror's Hallowed Grounds," in which host Sean Clark revisits some of the movie's locations.

-The theatrical trailer (which straight-up spoils the big climax), two radio spots, and a gallery of production stills.

-An easy-to-find easter egg leading to a 12-minute Q&A session between Carpenter and critic/horror aficionado Brian Collins at Screamfest 2012.

(Released by Scream Factory and rated "R" by MPAA.)