Prince of Darkness is a real tour de force, and a welcome return.

Those who don't go for horror films, period, won't go for this, but those who do will find this one of the more intelligent, better produced outings of late, with a good, continuing stream of sarcastic humor. [30 Oct 1987, p. E13]

It’s an endearingly odd, consistently creepy film that hearkens back to the director’s previous work.

Carpenter returns to his roots, which is to say he's gouging eyes and summoning demons. He's doing it in a wonderfully rough-hewn, low-budget style that fondly recalls Halloween, the granddaddy of slasher movies. [24 Oct 1987, p.1D]

To give the movie its due, it's been directed, at least on the visual level, with unusual elegance: filled with graceful, gliding tracking shots, and icily precise Hitchcockian setups of the bleak decor and scary effects.