In the Mouth of Madness

In the Mouth of Madness

1994

Director- John Carpenter

Cast- Sam Neil, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner, Bernie Casey, John Glover, Charlton Heston, Peter Jason

            

    In the long trajectory of John Carpenter’s career, the 1970’s were his emergence and the 1980’s were the summit (has any director other than Spielberg created so many good movies in such a short period of time?). The 1990’s ,though, is the era of Carpenter’s decline, at least in terms of his popularity and cultural relevance. Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a largely forgotten film (unfortunately). Ghost of Mars was unfortunately a movie I can’t forget. Village of the Damned was a forgettable remake and Escape from LA revisited sacred territory unsuccessfully. Two movies from this era stand out as being worthy of mentioning alongside his earlier works.  Vampires, though not scary is fun. In the Mouth of Madness on the other hand is pure horror and as unsettling today as it was 25 years ago.

           

      Sam Neil plays John Trent, an insurance investigator who specializes in uncovering fraud. He is hired to investigate the disappearance of hit horror write, Sutter Cane (Prochnow). Accompanying Trent in his investigation is Linda (Julie Carmen), Cane’s editor. Cane’s work has developed a a loyal following and has a reputation for unhinging his psychologically delicate readers. Trent tracks down Cane in the town of Hobb’s End, a town that existed only in Cane’s novels. Trent discovers that a strange horror has overtaken the town. It  seems to be straight out of Cane’s novel, complete with mutating children an evil church and protean monsters.

       

    

     Cane seems to have become a kind of god, powered by the belief of his readers. The more people who read and believe his work, the more powerful he becomes and the more reality mirrors his writing. He is paving the way for the return of the Old Ones and when humanity finally loses its grip on reality, it will be time for them to arrive. Cane tells Trent that he will be his messenger, delivering his final message to the world in the form of his last novel, In the Mouth of Madness.

           

     The film has an obvious Lovecraft influence, not only with its strange creatures trying to break into our world, but also with the theme of insanity. Trent is a practical man, grounded in reality. But with each new horror his grip on that reality loosens and we wonder how long it will be before he is as insane as the rest of the world seems to be.

            

     Carpenter’s work from a decade earlier, The Thing, focused on the body horror of infection, having one’s body taken over and mutated by the introduction of a single cell. In the Mouth of Madness takes the same theme but transfers it from the biological to the psychological. Exposure to Sutter Cane’s novels introduces an infectious germ into the mind that inevitably changes the person until they lose themselves.

The movie, though it doesn’t hit you over the head with it, focuses on the power of belief. Is reality a concrete construct that exists independent of our perceptions of it or is reality only a matter of perception and has no more permanence than the changing weather. Psychology teaches us that our emotions are not based on what happens (reality) but on what we think happens (our perceptions). So if our perceptions change how we feel and how we act, is that not the same as changing reality itself?