I always thought the dream transmission ...

If it were presented in any other way than Carpenter elected to do so, I would agree with you about the "shared dream" theory. However, I believe that the dream is far too specific, repetitive and clear to be anything other than what it claims to be, an unconsciusly-receivable message broadcast backward through time-space via faster-than-light particle beam.

The dream was theorized in the film to be a tachyon particle transmission, which would be the only way that the physicist-types like Birack, Brian and Catherine would interpret it, so I understand your thinking that maybe their rationalization of the dream was just a coping mechanism. Father Loomis called it a "shared dream" but that's exactly how his character WOULD describe it, not scientifically but more etherically.

I think harsh critics of this film don't give the writing enough credit. There may be some technobabble from the physicists that loses some of the audience but that is just representative of the rational, logical mind's way of coping with unspeakable evil and is a foil to the supernatural, religious thinking of Loomis.

-Rod

I mean, they're scientists trying to explain the actuality of the supernatural based on theoretical physics >>> If you listen to the details of the film presented in the dialogue, you'll discover that there is nothing supernatural about what is going on. Something unknown does not automatically make it supernatural. It is simply something yet to be discovered or understood at present time. According to the facts given in the film, religion is a lie and Jesus was actually an alien who banished an evil alien to another dimension. That is what is really fascinating about this plot for me. It all happened, but the activities of these advanced beings came across as supernatural by the less advanced humans of the time, resulting in the religious doctrines today that took on a life of their own as the real facts were buried in this old church and the secrets protected by this small group of priests. These ancient beings are different from us, thus they come across as monstrous and supernatural. In reality, they are life forms that adhere to the laws of physics (though laws that humans do not fully grasp yet) and who are viewed by mankind through the eyes of scary religion and myth.

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Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

It tells us what it is and means in the movie.

A dream from the far-off year of 1999. Quickly men, we must prepare for it!

About the scenery in the dream sequence...the building shown with the iron fence and the doorway that we eventually get to see a more straight-ahead angle of (with the statue) as the sequence gets repeated through the movie...I had a question about the scenery. It's about that black bush/tentacle thing in front of the fence. What is that?

It looks a little bit like black coral (if such coral even exists).

At first I kept thinking it was some kind of perhaps, fictitious, creature but eventually thought it's probably either a statue/sculpture or a plant.

It is a "warning from the future", Carpenter clearly says that several times on his audio commentary (on Prince of Darkness DVD). Of course, that doesn't mean you can't have your own theory, but "future warning" is official plot element.

oh yeah, and Carpenter refers to his monster as "Anti-God", not the Devil, because during the plot they explain that everything has it's "anti-matter" or "negative mirror image", so fallowing that, the creature is Anti-God (negative mirror image of God), not Satan. I kinda like this more, because it gives the movie bit of a Lovecraftian feel to it.

btw, this is way underrated movie.

It's obv. open to interpretation, but the fact that the voice over during the dream sequence says things like "this is not a dream" and calls it a broadcast "transmitting from the year one nine nine nine" always made me believe it was a message being sent from the future to warn the characters of what would eventually happen...

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