After not having viewed it in 17 years I saw this film on it's excellent Blu-Ray yesterday. I remember liking it back then but watching now that my taste in film has gotten better I was really blown away by how good it was. It perfectly fits along with The Thing & Prince of Darkness (both great films) as an apocalyptic trilogy. Sadly, John Carpenter has not even come close to anything like this in the past 20 years.

Check it :

http://dorkshelf.com/tag/in-the-mouth-of-madness/

In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1994) – Like so many of John Carpenter’s movies, In The Mouth Of Madness was released to mixed reviews and box office failure, yet over the years has gone on to become a cult classic. Written by former New Line Cinema head honcho Michael De Luca, the film is a feature length homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and meta-storytelling. It’s also the conclusion to Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy after The Thing and Prince of Darkness and one of his finest efforts as a director. Typically speaking, Carpenter’s movies don’t have that much going on beyond their exquisite surfaces. The man is practically the Spielberg of horror, an expert craftsman and manipulator who wanted nothing more than to send his audience on one hell of a ride. In the Mouth of Madness is as close to a brainy departure from his usual spookhouse romps as Carpenter ever managed. It’s hardly an art film, but it is an intriguing and layered piece of work that can be picked apart and pontificated on like few Carpenter flicks can.

Sam Neill stars as an insurance investigator who is hired to go looking for a popular horror novelist who has mysteriously disappeared. The author is Sutter Cane, a sort of mix between the small town horror populism of Stephen King and the interdimensional brain melting of HP Lovecraft. In fact, not only has Kane gone missing, but so has the manuscript for his latest-soon-to-be-best-seller that has driven all who read it insane. After seeing some spooky shenanigans to set the scene, Neil figures out that all of Cane’s book covers can be rearranged into a map that when followed takes him to the fictional town where all the novels take place. Obviously, it’s a scary place, but gets even freakier when Neil’s arrival seems to unleash all of Cane’s creations into the outside world. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just driven crazy by the book. After all, that’s classic Lovecraft. Plus, it was none other than Charlton Heston who sent Neil on the quest and how crazy is that?!

As a work of meta-horror, In the Mouth of Madness probably isn’t as clever or witty as the two stabs at the subgenre Wes Craven made at the time (New Nightmare and Scream). But then, Craven was always the brainy member of his class of horror directors. Carpenter on the other hand, was the craftsman, and In the Mouth of Madness is certainly more frightening than either Craven effort. The film is filled with as many expertly mounted suspense sequences and jump scares as Carptenter’s finest work, but stands apart thanks to the brain tingling premise that messes with viewers’ minds as much as it does their weak hearts. It’s one of Carpenter’s most sustained and intelligent efforts that deserves to rank alongside Halloween, The Thing, and They Live as one of his finest pieces of work. Much of that is due to the script (sadly the only one he ever wrote other than Freddy’s Dead and Judge Dread…shudder), but it certainly helps that the cast is capped by Sam Neil, who adds class and gravity to what could have easily been a pulp yarn. Simply put, this is one of the most underrated horror flicks of Carpenter’s career and the 90s, one richly deserving of a little reevaluation in HD...

This is a very nice blu-ray, surprisingly nice.

Wish I liked the movie more, the middle section just goes on too long for my taste, and then it just gets corny. But there is definitely some good stuff mixed in there.

It was very okay. I lot of good ideas that never amounted to much. The fanatical fan aspect went nowhere. The build up to meeting the author of the novel, and then, nothing. Some demons are released, the carnage mainly off camera, and then it just ends. Like I said, a good premise with some decent scenes here and there, but overall a disjointed mess.

It was John Carpenter doing H.P. Lovecraft and it worked!

I've always felt this was a very underrated horror film. I saw it in the theater and was thoroughly entertained. As has been said, it was very Lovecraftian and did it successfully.

Saw it in the theater back in 1994 and liked it and over the years my fondness for it grows.

This was the last really good film Carpenter directed.

I saw this film recently at the New Beverly in 35 mm, with Sandy King-Carpenter doing a Q&A and then saw it as part of the "Apocalypse Trilogy" at the Aero, with John Carpenter in attendance to introduce the event. It was also presented in 35 mm and it was great!

Fun fact: the kid at the end is played by future super-thespian Hayden Christensen.

There is something off-putting about this movie to me. I find it too silly, in a cheesy way, not in a great Big Trouble In Little China way.

Love this movie. One of my favorite Carpenter films, and definitely his last great movie.

I adore this movie and must get the BD.

Bragger.

At least you didn't say that I've manned up or else I would have to report you for offending me.

Love the movie, however it seriously showed it's low budget.

Well, JC has always done great on a low and high budget, with the exception of Escape From L.A. Madness had KNB doing the practical make-up/creature work and ILM did the visual effects. Not too shabby.

Always loved this flick. Haven't seen it in years though.

I can't remember the reason for buying this on DVD and watching it. I think I watched it before I knew about H.P. Lovecraft and thought it was weird that they obviously based Sutter Cane on Stephen King and yet mentioned Stephen King in the film. Then I read Lovecraft and got all the many references to his work in the film.

Anyway, when I first saw it I was genuinely creeped out by the story. Had a lot of monster FX but the playing back and forth between reality and fiction was great.

Carpenter is interviewed in the book Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, and he said that he intended for Cane to basically be King, but as the story evolved he became more like Lovecraft. Carpenter had already adapted King officially (Christine) and Lovecraft unofficially (The Thing is the best At the Mountains of Madness movie we're ever likely to see), and it's as if the two influences later converged.

That is interesting. I figured out that Sutter Cane's influence and ability to sell was supposed to be based on King but I didn't know that he was intended to be a Stephen King analogue outright.

And damn, I didn't realize how much The Thing has in common with At The Mountains of Madness.

It's not a straight adaptation, obviously. The only plot element in common between the two is researchers in Antarctica discovering a strange and utterly alien amorphous creature. But it captures the tone and essence of Lovecraft perfectly. It's actually much more faithful, tonally speaking, to At the Mountains of Madness than the short story on which its plot is based, "Who Goes There?" The basics of the plot are there in the short story, but the tone is completely different, much more optimistic and closer to the 1951 film version of The Thing. Funny, if you think about it: the 1951 film is faithful to the story in tone but not plot, and the 1982 film is faithful in plot but not tone.

I've got some free time this week and all this talk of JC and Lovecraft make me want to fire up the "Apocalypse Trilogy" on Blu-ray!

I've read the original short story and enjoyed it but I'm going to have to re-read it to notice the differences and similarities between both film versions. If you haven't already read it already, Things by Peter Watts is a pretty good short story, from the alien's point-of-view.

Prince of Darkness is such a weird and unique horror film. Older than average college students in an old church with some kind of giant vat of slime in the basement and sporadic electronic dream messages. When I was in high school I caught in on one of the local TV stations late night and was like, "wtf am I watching?" Carpenter really is in a category of his own when it comes to creating atmosphere.

It is another underrated gem of the Carpenter catalogue.