In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Event Horizon, Dead Calm) stars as John Trent who is an insurance investigator tasked with finding a reknowned horror writer named Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow) who has apparently disappeared....and just as his latest best-selling novel named "In the Mouth of Madness" has hit bookshelves all over the world.  Also causing concern is a growing number of readers of this book who have suddenly gone violently mad.  So John embarks on this fact-finding mission with a book editor named Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) and once they arrive at a  mysterious town in New Hampshire where they suspect Sutter Cane might be hiding....let's just say that things start to go a bit....MAD. :o This supernatural horror thriller came out just over thirty years ago and was directed by the Master of Horror himself.....John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York) and it might even be one of his more underappreciated gems!  The supporting cast also includes John Glover, Bernie Casey, David Warner, and Charlton Heston. 

Host: Geoff Gershon
Edited By Ella Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon

Transcript

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS – 1995

Directed by John Carpenter

Starring Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Bernie Casey, Peter Jason, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg, and Charlton Heston

Genre: Supernatural Horror (Audio clip)

Filling in the remaining gaps I still have with the John Carpenter filmography, this was definitely a kick and MIGHT be his best film of the '90's? 🤔 (I don't know, I quite like 'Vampires....this is probably better) And it's funny how it kind of sneaks up on you about Sam Neill....I grew up really enjoying him playing stand-up good guys in stuff like 'Red October, Jurassic Park, and even Dead Calm where he DOES provide a nice upright contrast to Billy Zane. But now looking back, he's been JUST as good playing out-of-control lunatics too. 😆 Event Horizon, Omen 3, and this....hell he's chillier but also really good as proper villains in Memoirs Of An Invisible Man and The Piano. With or without eyes, Alan Grant apparently does crazy well too....

He's just going for it here as the initially dashing and smarmy John Trent, an insurance investigator delving into the disappearance of a renowned Stephen King-like blockbuster author Sutter Kane (Jurgen Prochnow) just as his most disturbing novel yet is about to be published AND many of his fans are starting to commit violent acts all over. :o Prochnow is also well-used for a change delivering both menace and charisma as the elusive author now finishing his latest tome (which shares a title with this movie) which apparently is his most disturbing book yet. And apparently Sutter is doing so while residing in a haunted fictitious remote New England town chronicled in this book which has become Ground Zero for the spread of violent behavior AND where John and the publisher's editor Linda (Julia Carmen) are able to visit and experience the horrors coming to fruition within this FICTITUOUS town. 🤪

Yeah you read that right....and yes reality gets bent in any number of crazy directions within this story in a brisk, matter-of-fact manor that you'll either go with or you won't!   The overall themes are never really compromised, we get a solid array of effective jump scares, there are several juicy little supporting turns from the likes of Charlton Heston David Warner, Bernie Casey, and John Glover's hair.

If I had a criticism, it was that I could have appreciated maybe another 10 to 15 minutes to explore this world a bit more to appreciate the stakes....to get just a BIT more context to the dramatic transition John goes through towards the end of this film. It just never feels as horrific as I would have thought as this tops out at barely 90 minutes...the note this film ends on works but we barrel towards it FAST! 🙄 Still overall, this is a very effective mind-bending journey into horror from a true master near the peak of his powers.

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

As he has before for many of his movies, Carpenter himself composed the score and …..it’s fine, honestly not one of his best seemingly more appropriate to the more relaxed tone of They Live, just funky and guitar-driven even as the world is apparently ending on-screen.  Disappointingly, it just doesn’t add much to the tension of the story.  That said, the actual MAIN theme for this movie in and of itself…..pure power-pop metal rock, kind of a banger when listened more separately from the movie.  But it still works pretty well over the opening credits…..over a montage of books being published, main guitar hook IS pretty catchy. (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film): 

Chalk this up to being yet ANOTHER John Carpenter opus which wasn’t fully appreciated until years after it came out – the film was released in ’95 and made about $8 million worldwide on a budget of about $14 million.  And not only was it a flop but it would end up being the THIRD in a series of EIGHT feature film flops to close out his career….now granted some WERE pretty bad movies especially the TRULY misguided Memoirs of an Invisible Man starring Chevy Chase which came out a couple of years prior.  Ironically, the only good thing about that movie in retrospect besides pretty strong visual effects was the performance by Sam Neill as its villain.  But there were also some genuinely entertaining films among this batch including Ghosts of Mars, Escape From LA, and….in my opinion….the pretty underrated Vampires which starred James Woods.  I blame myself too as I was pretty much seeing EVERYTHING in theaters back in the mid ‘90’s and I didn’t actually take the time to watch this until just a couple of years ago…..sorry John. 

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

Now even though as previously mentioned, I feel like we get to it JUST a bit too quickly……I absolutely LOVE the bat-shit ending!  On paper it shouldn’t work as it is VERY much a meta-commentary on the movie, a break of the fourth wall if you will….SOMETIMES it can even feel like a cop-out, as if the filmmaker wrote themselves into a corner to the point where they just decided to pull back the curtain instead.  I’m always a bit mixed on endings like this….Blazing Saddles, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, and for me THE most egregious example of this was Brian DePalma’s Body Double….love him as a filmmaker and there’s a LOT of good stuff in that movie but I always just disliked the ending sorry. (Audio clip) 

Well in this case, it works….it sneaks up on you, it’s keeping with the themes of the movie, you have a FANTASTIC go-for-broke performance by Neill truly selling it, and……a director who understands just how big of a leap this is so he doesn’t linger on it too long.  (Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

Carpenter IS the real star here and has crafted a dizzying apocalyptic tale of one man going mad as he discovers the world going increasingly mad all around him. There's clearcut inspiration throughout from HP Lovecraft including the title and especially the designs of several grisly tentacled creatures which John encounters....many of them apparently mutated from human hosts in a manner which is never really explored and barely glanced at. We see JUST enough to get the gist though. ;)  For delivering yet another genre gem and a willingness to TRULY go for it with a pretty bold ending, John Carpenter is the MVP. (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5 

Happy 3oth Anniversary to one of the more underappreciated horror gems of the 1990’s…and just in time for Halloween no less!

Streaming on crunchyroll

And that ends another LOVECRAFTIAN review!