In The Mouth Of Madness

In The Mouth Of Madness...1995...95 minutes...R...starring Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, and David Warner, with an appearance by Charlton Heston...written by Michael De Luca...directed by John Carpenter.

Insurance investigator John Trent has been called in by Arcane Books to locate their prize horror author, Sutter Cane. The writer is a sensation bigger than Stephen King, and his latest book is likely to be worth millions...but Cane has gone missing, and so has the manuscript. The only person to have read it is Cane's agent, who was gunned down in front of Trent to stop the agent's insane axe attack. Accompanied by Cane's editor, Linda Styles, Trent sets off to the town of Hobb's End...a fictional town in Cane's works that Trent believes was set up by Arcane to help publicize this "missing" book. Trent soon learns that the truth is far stranger...and deadlier...than fiction.

Anybody familiar with horror fiction will see the obvious link between Cane and early 20th century writer, H.P. Lovecraft. I am going to offend some Lovecraft purists when I say that Carpenter's film is one of the best...and arguably THE best...Lovecraftian movie out there. No, it doesn't specifically use the Cthulhu mythos that came out of HPL's work; but no other movie I've seen better conveys the idea of supernatural beings trying to invade, distort, and ultimately reshape our world. It's hard to depict something so terrible that it defies description, especially in such a visual medium as film, but by focusing on Trent's journey to truth and insanity the -sense- of what Lovecraft was writing about becomes clear.

That's not to say that the movie is perfect. In the interests of full disclosure, I really enjoy Carpenter's work. That said, some of the creature effects are fairly obvious as effects...and there are several "flash" sequences where a bunch of images are shown in rapid succession.  I find them effective at times, but I know people with eyesight issues who find such rapid flashing painful to watch. Carpenter also delights in having a lot of "jump" moments in the movie...which are fun but do add a bit of cheesiness that distracts somewhat from the sense of growing helplessness and alienation that Trent goes through.

I love the talent in this movie. Sam Neill really hits the mark as a man losing control in about every sense imaginable, and Jurgen Prochnow is very convincing as a creepy writer-turned-dark messiah. (His accent works for me in this role, but your mileage may vary.) You might notice a familiar looking young boy on a bicycle when Trent finally gets out of Hobb's End...this was one of Hayden Christiansen's first movie parts.

Like many films of the genre, I think "In The Mouth Of Madness" is one of those movies that either works for you or doesn't. I would also argue that a deciding factor may be how a potential viewer answers the questions: what if reality as we know it is not a fixed, static thing...but rather potentially fluid? What if the rules changed? Is such a thing possible?  I give this movie 3.5 black churches out of 5.