Apocalypse Trilogy

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John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy are a thematic film trilogy, consisting of 1982's The Thing, 1987's Prince of Darkness and 1995's In the Mouth of Madness. While there are no recurring characters or official ties between the films, the director has explicitly stated on his DVD commentaries and in interviews that he considers them to be a collective body of work, referring to them as his Apocalypse Trilogy.

[edit] Original Works?

The Thing is a remake of The Thing From Another World, and a more faithful version of the original short story "Who Goes There?", retaining the story's shapeshifting alien, instead of the earlier film's half-man, half-vegetable creature. But Carpenter's film puts a bleaker spin on the events than either the story or the earlier film by refusing to give a happy ending. Unlike the other two films in the trilogy, The Thing is centred on a small number of individuals who are the first to come face to face with what will destroy life as we know it. They are isolated from civilization, but the alien is still a risk to all of civilization.

In the Mouth of Madness is heavily influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft but does not directly adapt any of his stories, focusing on the relationship between a horror author like Lovecraft (or Stephen King, another model for the film's Sutter Cane) and his audience.

Of the three films, Prince of Darkness is the only one Carpenter wrote. He used the pen name of "Martin Quatermass", in homage to Nigel Kneale and the BBC Quatermass TV series Kneale wrote.

[edit] Connections

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The three endings to the Apocalypse Trilogy contain many of the same elements.

The Thing ends on a bleak note, with the last two survivors lying in the freezing cold, now without food or housing, in complete distrust of each other with one, telling the other, "Let's just sit right here, see what happens." The ending is left completely open, not for a sequel, but for the audience to decide whether either character has been "infected" by the alien.

Prince of Darkness likewise ends on an uncertain note, with the hero of the film, Brian Marsh, approaching his bedroom mirror, his fingers moving toward it. Previously, at the climax of the film, Marsh's love interest, Catherine Danforth, pushed Satan's through a rippling portal to the "dark side," in the form of a large mirror. Danforth had overbalanced, however, and had accidentally fallen through the mirror herself. Before she (or Satan) could escape, the priest, played by Donald Pleasance threw an axe from across the room, shattering the portal, and trapping Satan, his minion, and Danforth in the other realm.

Following this episode, Marsh returns home, and experiences the recurring dream that is shown in progressive installments throughout the film, as different characters each fall asleep. In it, a distorted voice states that what he is seeing is "not a dream," but is rather a transmission from the year 1999 (the events of the film taking place in the late 1980's) that cannot be transmitted through more accessible media. The dream appears to be a grainy video of the front of the church in which the film is set. As the voice states that, "a causality violation," has taken place, and something must be done in the past to prevent the events shown in the video from taking place, the camera pans toward the front of the church, from which a silhoutted figure shrouded in smoke is emerging. While previous versions of the dream stopped here, implying that Satan would emerge, this final version shows the figure stepping through the threshold, revealing herself to be the figure of Danforth. Whether this truly is Danforth, or rather Satan in disguise, is left ambiguous.

After awakening, Marsh approaches his bedroom mirror, hand outstretched, perhaps believing that he can reach across the portal and either reclaim his love, or encounter Satan and his minion. The film fades to black just before his fingers touch the mirror.

In the Mouth of Madness ends with the hero, John Trent, fully driven to madness by the events of the film we have seen before, stepping into a movie theatre and watching the same film we, the audience, have just watched, albeit edited into a frenzied nonsensical mess. Trent, alone in the theatre, begins to laugh as the images unfold on the screen before him, until he begins to weep in realisation as the screen fades to black.

Both The Thing and Prince of Darkness contain variations of the same line. In The Thing, MacReady claims, "Trust is a hard thing to come by these days," while Prince of Darkness has Donald Pleasance's character claim, "Faith is a hard thing to come by these days."