In the Mouth of Madness

What a treat of a film this was. It is witty, intelligent, and scary. The basic plot premise is anything but basic as the line between reality and fantasy is almost indistinguishable through most of the film. What is going on? Who really knows...I'm not sure even director John Carpenter knows. But what we do get is a guessing game of what is real and un-real in a very stylish, sophisticated, almost bizarre fashion. The film opens in a mental asylum with protagonist Sam Neill being put in a padded cell whilst in a straight-jacket. The setting is larger than life. The characters around Neill are caricatures for the most part. John Glover plays a doctor(Doctor Saperstein...a possible homage to Rosemary's Baby) with complete camp. David Warner, another doctor, begins talking to Neill and asking him about what happened. The rest of the film then details what Neill did working with regards to a lost author named Sutter Cane. The plot is much more complicated than that and may take subsequent viewings to fully understand WHAT can be understood. The end result is at the very least a very gratifying one as Carpenter constructs a dream-like story that has obvious roots in both the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. The acting is good all around...Neill is excellent as John Trent. He makes a very believable presence in a sea of un-reality. Julie Carmen is also very good in her role. Look for Charlton Heston as a publisher and Bernie Casey in a cameo as well. Kudos to Mr. Carpenter for bringing his visions of horror to the silver screen once again. This may be his best film...certainly his most thought-provoking and sophisticated.

I found this film terrifying. Sure there is no man in a stripy jumper coming to 'stab you up' and no one is tied to a chair and worked on with an angle grinder.

This film makes excellent use of those iconic every day objects that become scary in the correct context. (E.G Clowns, mannequins, Victorian prams or a child's ball bouncing down a stair case.) People who have seen this will know what I mean when I say the word bicycle.

Rather than physical peril this film uses assaults on your grasp of reality. mine obviously isn't that great as I find this movie petrifying.

The production of the film isn't great and there are more exciting films out there. But if you have some imagination, are a little romantic and like being scared without having to sit through some poor soul forced to spectate live at their own autopsy, then this deserves every one of its eight stars.

As someone who has read all of Lovecrafts books I can assure you that this movie has a strong Lovecraftian vibe to it. And even the title seems to be some sort of homage to Lovecrafts work, I presume (In the mouth of madness -> Innsmouth ?) Or maybe I'm just over-interpreting things. Who knows?

With that being said I really enjoyed the movie. It was refreshing and different. Sometimes the prospect of "not knowing what's real or not" is even scarier than straight up gore or monsters. After all the fear of the unknown is the ultimate essence of true horror. This movie had plenty of it so I can't complain.

The stories of H.P. Lovecraft can be summarized in a simple equation: Mankind + Ancient, Inescapable Horrors = Utter Doom. With IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, Director John Carpenter uses the dread-filled atmospherics of Lovecraft, in order to pay homage to the writer.

Insurance fraud investigator, John Trent (Sam Neill) is sent to discover what happened to a pulp horror writer named Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow), who seems to have vanished without a trace. Trent, a normal, rational man, soon finds himself entangled in a web of incredible, unexplainable occurrences upon finding the mysterious town of Hobb's End. Here, his skeptical / logical mind is tested beyond its limit.

Like Lovecraft, Carpenter gives us small glimpses of immense things that defy description. Reality bends in on itself, until we, along with Trent, can no longer discern fact from fiction. From the ax-wielding, mutant maniacs, to the unspeakable black church, Hobb's End is a place existing only in nightmare. A very satisfying, apocalyptic horror film...

Insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) is hired by a publisher to find missing horror novelist Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow) before his new novel is released. Following clues hidden in the covers of Cane's books, Trent and editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) drive to a small town in New England. There they discover that Cane has unleashed a powerful evil on the world and it may be too late to stop it.

Considered by many to be John Carpenter's last great movie. I'm hard-pressed to disagree with that. I think it's the last one that really feels like a Carpenter film. Fans of his will probably know what I mean. Here he crafts a number of creepy images and scary moments that are very effective. If you are a fan of his previous horror films, I think you will like this one. Sam Neill starts out a little rough but he gets better as the film progresses. His American accent is strained at times but it's never too distracting. Jurgen Prochnow is perfectly cast and brings a presence to the role of Sutter Cane that the movie depends upon. Julie Carmen is the weak link in the cast. Neither the way her part is written nor how she acts it is impressive. She has a colorless personality and I just couldn't care what happened to her. It reminds me somewhat of some of the odd performances in Prince of Darkness, which was also part of Carpenter's so-called Apocalypse Trilogy, along with this movie and The Thing. It's an entertaining movie, particularly for Carpenter fans. Not perfect and far from his best but very good nonetheless.