1994 Directed by John Carpenter
With the disappearance of hack horror writer Sutter Cane, all Hell is breaking loose...literally! Author Cane, it seems, has a knack for description that really brings his evil creepy-crawlies to life. Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate Cane's mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb's End.
"I'm losing me!"
I can't even begin to tally up the amount of times I have seen In the Mouth of Madness over the past 20 years, but I can tell you that it's so much that I am actually a slimy, deformed, hideous monster transformed from the lurking evil within the mind of Sutter Cane, he's my god now.
The first few times I watched this movie was probably back in 1995-1996, making me no more than 12 or 13 years old at the time and it scared the living hell out of me (but not enough to keep me from coming back to it over and over again). From the early scenes of Sam Neill covered in drawn-on…
John Carpenter fuses lurking Lovecraftian madness with Stephen King psychological terror, resulting in this New England nightmare tentacle jam that’s, at least for me, totally perfect.
Equal parts cerebral and visceral with apocalyptic anxieties riding high, In the Mouth of Madness was a video store staple for me in my teens and very well may be my favorite horror picture of the 90’s, a dreamy ride into hellish paperback nightmare rhetoric—filled with goopy KNB effects, one of my favorite Carpenter scores, Sam Neill absolutely killing it as usual, and an ending for the ages as far as I’m concerned.
“Do you read Sutter Cane?”
Part fiction, part reality, all nightmare.
The new 4K scan on Scream Factory’s new blu looks damn fine, destroying the previous bare bones release by a country mile and reminding me how much I love the color blue. I couldn’t be happier this finally got the collectors edition treatment it deserves. Essential.
Sometimes it just seems a director is given one film in which all his unique talents come together. For Carpenter In the Mouth of Madness seems to be that film.
I feel that Carpenter is masterful at two things. Creating suspense and giving his viewer great physical gorey effects. He perfected the first in Halloween and the second in the Thing. In the Mouth of Madness is an almost perfect amalgamation of the two.
The story feels like the bizarre love child of Stephen King and Lovecraft. It deals with Lovecraftian madness and monsters, told in a narrative that seems to come straight out of a King novel. And weaving through this all is the deft hand of one of…
Sam Neill solid as a rock. Sutter Cane, the anti-Stephen King. Warped. Twisted. Demented. Trippy. A mind-fuck from the Horror Master John Carpenter.
Hooptober 4.0 - 2017 - Film #21
I still remember the first time I ever picked up a Stephen King novel. I was twelve years old and I was at my local library. I was scanning the shelves when I came across this title that glared out at me with a strange allure, Pet Semetery. My curiosity was piqued. I pulled it down and flipped it open. Right there in the middle of the page was the word, "Fuck". I was dumb struck, I quickly obscured the word by half closing the book. I then looked around surreptitiously to make sure no one was looking, as though it would be patently clear to everyone within a hundred metre radius that…
Daily Horror Scavenger Hunt - August 2018
20. based on the writing of h.p. lovecraft
Listen. This movie is about as 5 stars as it gets for me. It was that way the first time I watched it and every subsequent rewatch it just stays right at that spot because it never loses anything and it gains some serious nostalgia points for me. I was watching this in my room back in high school and my stepdad walked in and the man was a general complete waste of space, but he took one look at the tv screen and was entirely sucked into this movie so I guess for that I can say he’s not a total idiot?
I love…
The premise is the least weird part of this movie.
As a Lovecraft fan, I appreciate the monster designs. Some of the references are a bit superficial, but I loved how the movie really got the essence of Lovecraft's horror, and knew the only way to portray cosmic terror - to get meta.
However, I was unprepared for the slow pace of the movie, even though I should have expected it considering Lovecraft's the same way in his writing.
John Carpenter's last great film holds up well 24 years on. Its also an ahead of its time meta-narrative movie, alongside Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which similarly failed to find an audience in 1994.
Sam Neill gives a good, pulpy performance as an insurance fraud investigator assigned with looking for a missing horror author, way past his deadline. This sets him on a journey into nightmare as reality and fantasy appear to mesh.
In these times where pop culture has entirely dominated popular discourse and fans routinely threaten murder on anyone who trashes their obsessions, In the Mouth of Madness provides smart commentary.
The movie suffers slightly from the oddly flat cinematography that dominated early 90s US filmmaking, but an unsettling nighttime drive to a village where the elusive writer may be hiding is one of Carpenter's best realised sequences.
Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow and Charlton Heston ably lend classy support.
I like fiction to reality drama.. but it couldve been spookier! (and sam could’ve been cuter too)
One of the better takes at a classic Lovecraftian tale, and it manages to avoid the "race mixing is bad" metaphor endemic to almost all Lovecraft (and derivative) works.
It would be a lot easier to enjoy these kinds of movies if they didn't just come across as climate change analogies now.
Chris Vandenberg 650 films
The list was expertly made by reddit user ryno731
Here's the original thread, where you can access the source data:…
Hungkat 165 films
Forget 'em loud BOO-ing jump scares ‘cause these deliberate-cooked horrors/thrillers will burn you up.
Kiri Kiri Kiri Kiri 💉💉💉
Suggestions…
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Complete list of the films Guillermo del Toro has recommended on twitter. Click the 'Read notes' button to see his…
