IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)
Sound formats: Dolby Stereo SR / DTS
Pointless, meandering homage to the Lovecraft mythos, replacing the virtues of a strong narrative drive with a succession of surreal set-pieces which go nowhere and add up to...well, nothing at all, really. Sam Neill (badly miscast) is the insurance investigator who's assigned to track down a world-famous horror writer who's gone missing with his latest manuscript, a (literally) mind-twisting book set in the town of Hobb's End. Having located this 'mythical' venue, Neill falls prey to a variety of monstrous visions conjured by the writer's imagination, at which point the plot becomes irrelevant and the casual viewer might just as well pack up and go home. To be fair, Carpenter still knows how to set up the kind of shocks and scares which made him famous, and he makes fascinating use of the wide Panavision frame, but the tissue-thin tale wasn't worth telling in the first place. And unless I've misconstrued the final sequence, the film concludes with an uncomfortable suggestion that Carpenter is laughing at his audience for taking such rubbish even remotely seriously. A waste of time and talent.
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)
Sound formats: Dolby Stereo SR / DTS
Pointless, meandering homage to the Lovecraft mythos, replacing the virtues of a strong narrative drive with a succession of surreal set-pieces which go nowhere and add up to...well, nothing at all, really. Sam Neill (badly miscast) is the insurance investigator who's assigned to track down a world-famous horror writer who's gone missing with his latest manuscript, a (literally) mind-twisting book set in the town of Hobb's End. Having located this 'mythical' venue, Neill falls prey to a variety of monstrous visions conjured by the writer's imagination, at which point the plot becomes irrelevant and the casual viewer might just as well pack up and go home. To be fair, Carpenter still knows how to set up the kind of shocks and scares which made him famous, and he makes fascinating use of the wide Panavision frame, but the tissue-thin tale wasn't worth telling in the first place. And unless I've misconstrued the final sequence, the film concludes with an uncomfortable suggestion that Carpenter is laughing at his audience for taking such rubbish even remotely seriously. A waste of time and talent.