I admire John Carpenter. No other horror director leaves as indelible a stamp on his work as does Carpenter. From the music, to shot composition to tone, when you see a Carpenter film, there is no mistaking who is behind the lens. With few exceptions, Carpenter has ventured into bold territory and found a lot of scares to mine from this dark exploration. But, it is his thematic apocalypse trilogy that Carpenter shows us the worst of it - the end of the whole sorry mess.

It began with 1982's The Thing, the best of this trilogy, a remake of the earlier Howard Hawks production, but far more loyal to the source material, John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" Carpenter's vision of an arctic installation's encounter with a shape-shifting alien is required viewing for any serious horror fan, and a great movie besides. Without digging too deeply, it is easy to find the source of Carpenter's terror - infection. As the AIDS virus began to creep into social consciousness, Uncle John throws on the screen the fear made flesh. This is a horror that is all too relatable, a virus that gets inside you and digests you from the inside. Scary enough, but then the accompanying paranoia takes center stage. Do you have it? Can I get it from you? And, the ultimate question, is this the thing that kills the whole world?

With In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter shows us a world where the agreed-upon reality shifts and asks how horrible would it be to be the last hold-out, the one who remembers the world as it was? Whether this is Carpenter's farewell to '60s idealism or the frequent feeling that the rest of the world has gone mad and we are the only ones who are sane is irrelevant. The premise is there and it is disturbing. It coaxes the last bit of paranoia from The Thing's premise - I am alone. I am all that is left. I, alone, recall when the world made sense.

In all three films, the threat is external - alien, Satanic alien, and author-turned-prophet encouraging an agreed upon reality. But, as with all good tales, the effects are personal. The paranoia, the denials, the ultimate realizations of the protagonists in these movies suggest that realization of evil is no defense. The world will end, we will be taken with it. It is the fear of death - not just our own, but the death of all we know and love. Reality has an unfortunate habit of breaking down completely in this trilogy, and it is a disturbing thing to witness, even if the execution is not perfect. Horror is often a coping mechanism, a way to morph a real fear into a metaphorical boogeyman. Carpenter doesn't let us off that easy. We may count our fears, see them for what they are, but this director doesn't allow us to defeat it. Instead, Carpenter forces us to watch as the whole thing unravels, leaving us laughing along madly with him, just as Sam Neill does at the conclusion of In the Mouth of Madness. It is a difficult journey to take with these three films, for various reasons, but I admire the boldness of Carpenter's vision, and the perverse joy of seeing the end of the world and walking away from it. This time.

The conclusion to the film leads us to believe that the virus may have been stopped, possibly even destroyed, but doubts linger. Where was Childs this whole time? Is he infected? It's the '80s mantra, the belief that some strange virus could come along and destroy us all. And Carpenter doesn't give us easy answers, ending the film on a wait-and-see note that drives the theme of the film home in grand style. We can't know what lurks in the bodies of those around us. But, we know we're okay. Right? It's riveting work, full of gore and thrills, sure, but at heart an excellent commentary about trusting one's neighbor. Carpenter suggests here that mistrust may be our downfall.

If The Thing is Carpenter's best, and I believe it is, Prince of Darkness is his most intriguing in this horror trifecta. Released in 1985, between Big Trouble in Little China and They Live, Prince of Darkness offers up the idea that the devil may be flesh, that, in fact, it may be a quantifiable essence that effects reality on a subatomic level, altering reality to fit its own desires. The Vatican has hidden from the world the truth that Satan fell to earth and is sleeping, awaiting such time that it can reach out and exert its influence on the world.

A research team of physicists, biochemists and translators descend upon an old church, where Satan has been hidden away from man's eyes for eons. Now, technology has reached a level where it can explore the secrets of this Satanic goo, unwittingly unleashing it on the world. The film operates within the microcosm of the church and the surrounding environs, but its conclusion leaves little doubt that the end of the world is nigh.

Carpenter said with The Thing that we can identify the effects of a disease or infection, but Prince of Darkness answers the lingering question - science may find the source of our destruction, but it can't do a damn thing about it. In an age of reason, an age of science, what

more terrifying premise can one conjure for the end of days? We can label it, catalog it, but it will come for us and there is no escape. There are many analogues to this... the terminal illness, global warming, freak storms that radar technology shows creeping ever closer to landfall, bringing with it devastation. Just because we understand a thing makes it no less dangerous.

do a damn thing about it. In an age of reason, an age of science, what more terrifying premise can one conjure for the end of days? We can label it, catalog it, but it will come for us and there is no escape. There are many analogues to this... the terminal illness, global warming, freak storms that radar technology shows creeping ever closer to landfall, bringing with it devastation. Just because we understand a thing makes it no less dangerous.

The film does not work on every level, but the ideas presented here are no less fascinating. Moreso, in fact, as debate still rages in the intense debate between faith and reason. Carpenter suggests both may be closer to one another than we think, but no less prophetic for it.

Carpenter concludes his dark set with a Lovecraftian take on the apocalypse in In the Mouth of Madness. This is the most frustrating of these films for me. I don't believe a better example of bringing Lovecraft to the screen so purely exists, but the result is unsatisfying. There are unsettling moments and some unforgettable imagery here, but this tale of an insurance investigator drawn into the world of the Old Gods seems too light, somehow. Thematically, however, it may be the most disturbing.