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I recently found a list of Cult Horror from the 90s, and browsing through it and found In the Mouth of Madness. Having not seen it in many years, so thought I would pop it on. I was then treated to a great, underrated horror from John Carpenter.
In the Mouth of Madness stars Sam Neill, Jurgen Prochnow, Julie Carmen, David Warner, John Glover, Bernie Casey, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg, Peter Jason and Charlton Heston.
John Carpenter directs and Michael De Luca was the writer. De Luca is now a producer, but his writing credits include Freddy’s Nightmares, The Lawnmower Man and Judge Dredd, the Stallone one.
The Story
The plot for In the Mouth of Madness is:
An insurance investigator begins discovering that the impact a horror writer’s books have on his fans is more than inspirational.
We open in a mental hospital, wait, can we call them that anymore? We open in a hospital for people who are coo-coo. John Trent (Neill) is claiming he’s not insane, which is a little cliché. Dr Wrenn (Warner) asks him what’s going on and Trent tells his story.
A New York publishing company is missing one of their authors, Sutter Cane (Prochnow). Trent is asked to investigate where he might be. As he’s thinking about it, he’s attacked by a madman with an axe, this turns out to be Cane’s agent.
The rest of the movie follows Trent as he tries to find Cane, only to slowly start to lose grip on reality and find that the newest Sutter Cane novel might be about him.
The story is good, in fact, it’s really good.
Lovecraft
There’s no mention that Sutter Cane is H. P. Lovecraft, but there is a lot of influence. There are quotes from Cane’s novel, which are actually direct quotes from Lovecraft’s short stories.
The imagery is the same, there are some truly twisted creatures in the movie. I knew I knew the name Robert Kurtzman somewhere. He’s a makeup artist who’s worked on movies like Evil Dead II, From Dusk till Dawn, Men in Black and franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the 13th.
The rest of the special effects are mostly practical. In fact, they reminded me a lot of The Thing. It looks real because it is real, there’s no fake CGI that actors are doing their best to interact with.
King
There is also mention that Sutter Cane is based on Stephen King. That can’t be true though, as all of Cane’s novels have good endings. One of the characters makes a joke that Sutter Cane outsells King 4-to-1.
It turns out that Carpenter and King are friends. Carpenter had directed Christine, which was one of King’s stories. De Luca, the writer, also penned The Lawnmower Man, another of King’s short stories.
In the Mouth of Madness, Trent ends up in Hobb’s End and it seems no one can leave. There is a King story called Crouch End, where a couple visit a small English village and are unable to leave. In Crouch End, the couple is tormented by deformed children, who later summon a Lovecraftian Old God. Hobb’s End and Crouch End share a lot of similarities.
Overall
In the Mouth of Madness is a 90-minute gem of a horror. Carpenter always turns out a good movie, with good characters and keeps you engaged. I had seen the movie before, but like I said, not for a long time. It was great to sit down with it again and enjoy it.
You can’t really go wrong with the cast, Neill is always great to watch. Prochnow, is really good as Cane. He has that slightly odd accent, originally coming from Berlin, Germany.
Some tidbits of trivia. The shot in the hotel, which was shot from overhead, was originally Neill’s idea. It was also the first screen role of Hayden Christensen, you know, pre-Darth Vader Darth Vader.
The movie has some twisted moments, and some great practical effects and is worth a watch if you haven’t seen it before or in a while.
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