In the Mouth of Madness
theatrical poster
Directed by	John Carpenter
Produced by	Sandy King
Written by	Michael De Luca
Starring	Sam Neill Julie Carmen Jürgen Prochnow David Warner
Music by	John Carpenter Jim Lang
Cinematography	Gary B. Kibbe
Editing by	Edward A. Warschilka
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	February 3, 1995
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$14,000,000
Gross revenue	$8,946,600 (USA)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

In the Mouth of Madness (also known as John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness) is a 1995 horror film (originally intended for a 1994 release) directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael de Luca, who was at the time in charge of New Line Cinema.

The film is the third installment in what Carpenter calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy". It is preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness.

Plot

The story follows private investigator John Trent (Sam Neill), whose speciality is insurance fraud. He is called in by a publisher (Charlton Heston) to investigate the alleged disappearance of the phenomenally popular horror novelist, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). Having vanished with his most recent novel unfinished, Cane's publisher asks Trent to retrieve the work at stake. Trent thinks the whole thing is a publicity stunt but agrees to take the case.

Trent, accompanied by Cane's editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), eventually tracks the writer to the remote New England town of Hobbs End, previously thought only to exist in Cane's stories. There it soon becomes clear that the wall between fantasy and reality has blurred.

Themes

Central to the film's satirical theme is a focus on the relationship between writer and audience that comments ironically upon oft-stated fears that violent entertainment can produce psychological effects, causing an audience to lose touch with reality and develop violent behavior. Cane's fans are shown rioting in bookstores when unable to purchase his latest novel. By the end of the movie, society itself has collapsed under the weight of random acts of violence and mass hysteria.

The film also pays tribute to the work of seminal horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, with many references to his stories and themes. Its title is a play on one of Lovecraft's most famous tales, At the Mountains of Madness, and insanity plays as great a role in the film as it does in Lovecraft's fiction. The film's opening scene depicts Trent's confinement to an asylum with the bulk of the story told in flashback, a common technique of Lovecraft's. Quick reference is made to the Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as to Lovecraftian settings and characters (such as Mrs. Pickman). As read on-screen, Sutter Cane's writings even incorporate direct passages from his work.

Another thematic element of the film is the question of free will. In the opening scenes, the protagonist boasts of his status as a freelance insurance investigator: "I am my own man, no one pulls my strings but me. I'm happy." This statement later proves ironic in light of his provisional existence as a character written by Sutter Cane.

Reception

The film received mixed critical reaction, with 14 positive reviews out of 29 tallied by rottentomatoes.com for a score of 48% and certification as "rotten".[1]

Trivia

In every close up, the actors have blue eyes (wearing colored contacts if their natural eye color is not blue.) This reflects one of Sutter Kane's remarks late in the film that blue is his favorite color.

External links

• In the Mouth of Madness at the Internet Movie Database
• In The Mouth of Madness at theofficialjohncarpenter.com

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