{"id":2587,"date":"2024-08-20T04:32:34","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T04:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2587"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:44:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T18:44:55","slug":"in-the-mouth-of-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/20\/in-the-mouth-of-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Mouth of Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In the Mouth of Madness <\/strong>(1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (images of horror, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael De Luca\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Carpenter and Jim Lang\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gary B. Kibbe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 3, 1995 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Bernie Casey, Peter Jason, Charlton Heston, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg, Kevin Rushton, Gene Mack, Conrad Bergschneider.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $8.9M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

I used to dismiss John Carpenter\u2019s In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> as one of his lesser works. I\u2019ve since changed my position on that. What I wasn\u2019t aware of until recently is that it\u2019s the final part of a trilogy, Carpenter\u2019s \u201cApocalypse Trilogy\u201d to be exact. It follows The Thing and Prince of Darkness, two of the horror auteur\u2019s very best. I remember being utterly baffled by it when I saw it at the movies. I tried watching it a second time a week later on a bootleg videotape of surprisingly good quality to the same effect. After that, I gave up on it and didn\u2019t attempt a full rewatch until this past week. What a difference a quarter century makes. I finally get it and now I think it\u2019s positively brilliant.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I should really start by saying In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> is totally and completely bonkers! How else would you describe a tale told by a patient at a mental hospital? The patient in question is John Trent (Neill, The Final Conflict), a freelance insurance investigator who\u2019s hired by a New York publishing company to find their biggest client, popular horror author Sutter Cane (Prochnow, The Keep). It seems he\u2019s gone missing without turning over the manuscript to his latest novel entitled \u201cIn the Mouth of Madness\u201d. It\u2019s explained by editor Linda Styles (Carmen, Fright Night Part 2) that Cane\u2019s books have a strange effect on \u201cless stable readers\u201d. Namely, it drives them insane. That\u2019s certainly true of the crazed, axe-wielding lunatic that goes after Trent at a restaurant. He turns out to be Cane\u2019s agent, btw.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Initially, Trent believes Cane\u2019s disappearance to be a publicity stunt engineered by the publishing company. However, he\u2019s intrigued. \u00a0He buys a few of his books at notices red lines on the cover. When he puts them together, they point to the supposedly fictional city of Hobb\u2019s End, the setting for many of Cane\u2019s stories. He decides to look for it. He\u2019s joined by Styles at the behest of her boss Jackson Harglow (Heston, Planet of the Apes). It\u2019s a strange trip to say the least, but things get really weird once they arrive in Hobb\u2019s End where they eventually find Cane alive and well and plotting to bring about the end of humanity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> has been lurking in the shadows for over 25 years, I\u2019m loath to reveal what Trent finds out once he arrives at his destination and takes in his strange, surreal surroundings. I\u2019ll only say it puts a crazy slant on the proceedings. That should actually be crazier. In any event, Trent ends up in a padded room telling his wild story to a psychiatrist (Warner, The Omen).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Horror fans will note a couple of things about In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong>. Namely, it makes allusions to popular horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. The title is a play on Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cAt the Mountains of Madness\u201d. The idea of the story being told in flashback form by a patient in an asylum is a common technique of Lovecraft. Cane setting his books in a fictional New England town is a direct reference to King setting many of his stories in Castle Rock, ME.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That it took a few viewings to understand In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> speaks to the convoluted nature of Michael De Luca\u2019s (Freddy\u2019s Dead: The Final Nightmare) screenplay. It is confusing, especially in the middle section. It\u2019s herein the movie\u2019s brilliance lies. Once you put it all together, it\u2019s pretty cool. It\u2019s freaky too. When you think about it, In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> isn\u2019t a mainstream horror movie at all. It\u2019s a total mind f*** movie! I get why it failed at the box office. It\u2019s too arty for mass consumption. It fits in better with indie horror films (e.g. Nadja, Dead Alive) than the likes of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. I\u2019d even say it was ahead of its time. I think it would be better received today.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> hit theaters, it had been seven years since Carpenter made a good horror movie, 1988\u2019s They Live, a satirical sci-fi piece about the frightening cause of modern society\u2019s ills. In between, he made the lame Chevy Chase comedy Memoirs of an Invisible Man. In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> is a return to form for the director who redefined the horror genre with the 1978 classic Halloween. One of Carpenter\u2019s greatest strengths as a filmmaker is his willingness to take chances. Sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don\u2019t. I am now of the opinion that In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> is a case of the former rather than the latter. He deliberately chooses NOT to manufacture a generic scary movie that checks all the boxes. Instead, he does something wholly original and genuinely frightening in exploring the line between reality and fiction.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is another strong point. Neill is very good as Trent, a rational type who starts to unravel as he questions reality and his own existence. You really believe he\u2019s going mad. Prochnow hams it up mightily as Sutter Cane, a writer who might create more than words on a page. Carmen has some good scenes as Styles, a refreshing change in that she doesn\u2019t become Trent\u2019s love interest or sexual partner. The cast also includes Bernie Casey (Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde), John Glover (52 Pick-Up), Frances Bay (Happy Gilmore) and Carpenter regular Peter Jason (Prince of Darkness).<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> also boasts some great special effects. They\u2019re the combined work of Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman and Gregory Nicotero, all of whom worked on Wes Craven\u2019s New Nightmare. Okay, I\u2019ll reveal something else. Monsters figure into the story. They\u2019re a mix of animatronics and men in tentacled rubber suits. The wall of monsters, which took over 30 people to operate, is AWESOME! From a purely visual standpoint, In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> is pretty amazing. It has some truly frightening images like the shot of the axe-wielding maniac approaching the window next to the table where Trent and his lunch companion are sitting completely oblivious to the bedlam outside. The score by Carpenter and Jim Lang is good, but not as memorable as that of other Carpenter scores.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What ultimately makes In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> so effective is that it\u2019s intended only to frighten the viewer which it does. It frightens on both a physical and visceral level. Carpenter comes up with legitimately scary images and ideas. It\u2019s a very cerebral scary movie. You have to think about it. At the same time, it freaks you out with shots of a lone bicyclist riding along a dark highway. I never realized how remarkable it is until now. The final shot is one that will stay with you. If I may return to the vernacular of my teen years, In the Mouth of Madness<\/strong> is one f***ed up movie! I LOVE IT!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (images of horror, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael De Luca\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Carpenter and Jim Lang\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gary B. Kibbe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 3, 1995 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Bernie Casey, Peter Jason, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/In-the-Mouth-of-Madness-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3397,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions\/3397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}