The Church of the Prince of Darkness (Halloween Haunts 2010)

(GPS: N34° 03.050 W118° 14.415)

Nightmare #1

Okay, I think it is time to get moving on this one.

The Prince of Darkness Church (Youtube Version)

The Prince of Darkness Church (Vimeo Version)

In this blog I thought I would begin with the evil church used in the movie Prince of Darkness by John Carpenter. I do not recall seeing this in the theater the time it came out, but I must have seen it on cable some years later. I had been thinking of this one during the past few years as a possible spot to go to because it looked like it was not some movie street set, but somewhere in the city of Los Angeles. Well, all it took was a imdb search and I had my church. Here is my picture of the church that I took recently:
In the movie, a bunch of homeless people are possessed by the evil in the church. Here is Alice Cooper looking at the church.
Unfortunately, they are constructing something new where Alice Cooper was standing went I went there. The whole sidewalk was shutoff. So, the following picture was the closest I was going to get from across the street.
This was from my video cam in the street. If you saw the video then you know I did not spend much time here since the traffic was coming at me. I had one moment while it was clear, but it became obvious it was not a good idea to video or take pictures from there.
In the movie, the "Prince of Darkness" shows up as a dark figure in dream sequences...

He was coming out of the middle doors here:
This was the first Christian church in Little Tokyo. What happened to this church is the Northridge quake of 1994 damaged it. Eventually, it was repaired and turned into an art museum the public can go in. Go here if you want to see more: L.A. Artcore. It is a historical landmark and is preserved because of that.

I could have done a lot more on this one if I had come on a day they were open to the public. For example, Alice Cooper kills one of the graduate scientists just around the corner. But, I am not a real hardcore fan of Prince of Darkness. I just thought they had a few cool ideas with the use of this place that I wanted to show.

There actually are homeless and other vagrants running around this area. It is near the L.A. City Hall and there are lots of L.A. Police buildings around. In fact, in the third picture above, right behind me, I saw them escort a prisoner to a police van. There was guard entrance there. One of the friendly officers wished me a "good morning" as I was walking around.

BTW, as an interesting coincidence, today would have been Donald Pleasance's birthday; he plays the priest in the movie. In the video, I mimic the turn he made to see the possessed homeless people down the street. They actually were down there on that side of the sidewalk.

In one of the next blogs, I think I will show you a nearby area that I did not really figure out. I guess you could call it a "location fail", but I think it is worth posting. Maybe someone else can figure it out for me. :) Until then...