"Do you read Sutter Cane?"
In the Mouth of Madness is a movie I have had a fondness of for a very long time. It was film that I and a group of my similarly horror obsessed friends greatly enjoyed for just how weird and creepy it is. Part apocalyptic horror, part noir mystery, part monster movie, it's a unique blend of a movie that has stuck with me.
As the film opens, John Trent (played by Sam Neill) is being brought into a a psychiatric hospital, frantic and raving mad. He meets with Dr. Wrenn (played by David Warner) and recounts his recent past. We move into an extended flashback as John explains he was an insurance investigator investigating the disappearance of bestselling author Sutter Cane (played by Jurgen Prochnow), who disappeared while completing his hotly anticipated new book. Upon meeting with Kane's publisher, Jackson Harglow (played by Charlton Heston), Trent begins his investigation with Kane's editor Linda Styles (played by Julie Carmen) accompanying him. He purchases copies of all of Cane's previous books in hopes of finding a clue of where to start his search. He notices a red line on each of the covers and combines the covers to find the pattern forms a map. Trent and Styles head out to follow the map and after a very strange drive from New York wind up in the thought to be fictional town of Hobb's End from Sutter Cane's novels. But things soon are revealed not to be what they seem as Trent and Styles find Cane and discover an ancient evil is preparing to be unleashed, bringing about the end of the known world as the line between fiction and reality begin to blur.
John Carpenter directed the film from a script by Michael De Luca. The film draws inspiration from the works of H.P Lovecraft dealing with both the nature of "reality" and also the themes of sanity and the impact that contemplating one's reality has on it. They also draw influence from Stephen King and his massive popularity as an author as part of the crafting of the Sutter Cane character (even though Cane outsells Stephen King, as Styles points out at one point). Carpenter and De Luca do a great job of unraveling the plot step by step along with Trent as he figures out what exactly is going all, all the while his sanity starting to slip. To bring the creatures of the other world to life, KNB Effects craft some impressive and imaginative monsters to terrorize Trent throughout the film. John Carpenter once again does the score for the film alongside Jim Lang and it's one of his more underrated ones.
The film has a strong cast, led by Sam Neill, who brings a great everyman quality to John Trent and is able to balance both sides of his character quite well, both the insane and crazed John we see at the beginning and end of the film and the more sane and in control John we see for the majority of the film. Jurgen Prochnow makes for an intriguing villain as Sutter Cane, a man who is gleefully welcoming the apocalypse and takes pleasure in writing about it in his books, taking the info fed to him from the soon to arrive monsters to craft his novels of horror. Julie Carmen is good as Sutter Cane's editor and does a great job with her character, especially as the film develops. John Glover makes an amusing appearance as Saperstein, one of the orderlies at the mental hospital Trent is taken to. Glover plays the role in such a way that it becomes clear that maybe Saperstein isn't exactly firing on all cylinders himself. Anyway, I just point it out because his performance cracks me up every time.
In the Mouth of Madness is one of John Carpenter's more underrated films, but is also one of his best, with a twisty plot that keeps the viewers guessing. It's a wild ride to be sure that may even leave a few viewers questioning what is real. That's what John Carpenter has always been good at, whether it was in The Thing, They Live, or here. But then again, isn't that the point? It's certainly a film that plays well, especially in this day and age.
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