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…
I freaking love this movie. John Carpenter does Lovecraftian eldritch horror filtered through some seriously bizarre meta-fiction. Chock full of bizarre visuals, and of course that sweet, sweet Carpenter score.
As beautiful as Carpenter's best work, but I don't know. It used to be one of my least favorite films, and it's far from that, but it felt too hollowly cynical I think? Watching Starman convinced me that Carpenter is an optimist at heart, and the despair and terror of his movies actually comes from the ways in which the real world has frustrated that hope. Madness feels a little too cruel in its bitterness or something.
(7/15)
Sam Neill in more Lovecraftian horror, with this film, 1981's POSSESSION, this film, and arguably 1997's EVENT HORIZON. This is probably the best film of Carpenter's of his 90s output, which isn't saying a lot considering this was the decade that included MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN, ESCAPE FROM L.A., and his remake of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED.
How this is not part of the mainstream John Carpenter lexicon is borderline criminal. This is easily among his greatest work, and arguably his best. Even though it's one of his 90s efforts, "...Mouth" channels the style and material you'd expect from his late 70s - early 80s run. It also doesn't hurt that it feels a lot like Carpenter's take on a "Wicker Man" style story, with Rod Serling as an editor.
The story is in essence one huge horror/fantasy in-joke : there's references to Stephen King,H.P.Lovecraft,Nigel Kneale and so on and on. It's knowing and self satisfied but not really that engaging.
The cast is too light for the film's subject - Sam Neill is too nice everyman to be a hard assed insurance investigator and struggles badly when called upon to portray his character's descent into madness. Bulging eyes and a haunted expression aren't really enough. Jurgen Prochnow is the least worrying servant of the Dark Lord you can imagine - he comes on more as a creative writing teacher, and Julie Carmen in the lead female role is just rotten.Chuck Heston pops up in a cameo - although I…
Happy birthday to one of the greatest filmmakers to have ever lived and despite what rotten tomatoes may think, he is in fact not dead.
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