In the Mouth of Madness

John Carpenter (1995)

Roadshow R4 DVD

New Line Cinema R1 DVD

In the Mouth of Madness opens as John Trent (Sam Neill) is being dragged kicking and screaming into a psychiatric institution. After Trent is locked in a padded cell, his requests a black crayon and then proceeds to cover the walls, his face and clothing with black crosses and other protective signs and symbols. He is visited by a specialist psychiatrist and begins to outline the events which have lead to his current condition. Most of the film is told via flashbacks.

Trent is an insurance investigator hired by publisher Jackson Harglow to explore the disappearance of his most famous author Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow). Cane is Harglow's multi million dollar horror novelist with a madly devoted cult following. Harglow desperately wants his latest manuscript, "In the Mouth of Madness." Trent, who had earlier been attacked by Cane's agent (with an axe, no less) smells a PR campaign but accepts the job anyway. Trent begins reading the novels and find himself experiencing various nightmares and hallucinations, which he is told are side effects of these high effective novels. He then discovers that the covers of the books hide a map and it is from there he gets his first clues to locate the missing author.

The story itself is what could be defined as self referencing horror, a novel which becomes reality and characters which are fiction made flesh. This is a tale strongly influenced by the mythos of H.P Lovecraft and divides Lovecraft fans nearly 50/50, it is equally loathed and loved.

The humour of In the Mouth of Madness is what divides people most. While there is clearly a lot of in jokes (quite a few made at Stephen King’s expense), references to horror fiction, fandom and the role of film, these at times take away from the essential “reality manipulation” at the centre of the film. Sure they are amusing, but after a while they seem to lessen the power of the experience and seem a little pretentious.

The plot is convoluted but the twists and turns make sense when you appreciate the way in which story is manipulating our views on reality, it has a strong philosophical orientation and is while some of the dialogue is a little forced, it is effective. The acting is convincing and the texture of the film creates a tense and paranoid mood.

The numerous make up effects are by K.N.B. Effects (consisting of makeup veterans Robert Kurtzman, Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero) while ILM is responsible for the Lovecraftian creatures and reality warping visuals. All of these effects are state-of-the-art. For a medium budget movie Carpenter has really done exceptionally well.

This is an intelligent film with an intriguing undercurrent which intertwines horror, madness and the art of fiction writing into a challenging and thought provoking experience. I would certainly agree with the many fans of this film that it is one of the most impressive of all of John Carpenters productions.

The R4 edition of this release includes the fullscreen release with Dolby Digital 2.00 Stereo track and no extras.

The R1 edition includes the fullscreen releases plus the superior 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced transfer for a 16x9 set. It also has a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and extras include a commentary, trailer and filmographies.