In the Mouth of Madness

"It's not real from your point of view and right now reality shares your point of view. What scares me about Cane's work is what might happen if reality shared his point of view. A reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places if the insane were to become the majority. You would find yourself locked in a padded cell, wondering what happened to the world."

One hundred plus posts and I'm just now getting to the movie that was the inspiration for my blog's name. In the Mouth of Madness is a Lovecraftian horror film, directed by John Carpenter and starring Sam Neill, Julie Carmen and Jurgen Prochnow. (Honorable mention to David Warner, who seems to turn up in every movie ever made.) It's about an insurance investigator named John Trent (Sam Neill) who is hired to look into the disappearance of horror writer Sutter Cane. Cane's work is said to be the cause of mass hysteria among his readers, often resulting in extreme violence. Cane's fans begin to believe his work is real instead of fiction, something John Trent initially scoffs at, but as the movie goes on, he begins to question reality himself.

I have so many things to say about this movie, but I will be here forever, so I need to edit myself. One night when I was younger, I was flipping through channels at like, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and I saw Sam Neill and thought, "Hey, that's the guy from Jurassic Park." And because Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies, I decided to watch this film that I'd never heard of and knew nothing about. Several things happened after that. First of all, I loved the movie because it didn't have a clear ending, it was open to interpretation. I also became a huge fan of Sam Neill. And I went to the IMDB message board (back when they still existed) and found out that the movie was inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft, whom I had also never heard of before. I'm now a fan of his work (the parts of it that don't make me cringe, anyway) and a lifetime member of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. In the Mouth of Madness really shaped the kind of horror I ended up loving.

John Carpenter makes fantastic films. In the Mouth of Madness is my favorite horror movie ever. The Thing and The Fog are great as well. I know Halloween is Carpenter's most famous/loved film, but he's done so many other interesting things that deserve more attention. There are some really beautiful shots in this film of the fall foliage in Canada and it's incredible. The theme song is so different from anything else Carpenter has done, but it really works here. The rest of the soundtrack is subtle, yet effective. Everything about this movie works together beautifully (except Julie Carmen's acting, I'm sorry, but she's over the top, especially her "I'm losing me!" line). There are Lovecraft references scattered throughout the movie and you can even see some of his creations brought to life by Greg Nicotero (I really appreciate that they used practical FX instead of CGI). People seem very divided over this film, they either love it or hate, but I'll keep recommending it to anyone who will listen because I absolutely love it.

Just a quick aside, I wanted to show this canvas I bought from Whack Wam Bam on Etsy. They have some amazing artwork and this is one of the best things I own, so I wanted to quickly recommend their shop.