Movies - In the Mouth of Madness

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	Movies - In the Mouth of Madness

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. Like Carpenter's earlier They Live
, Madness is also a black comedy.

Plot

Tagline: Lived any good books lately?

The story follows private investigator John Trent, played by Sam Neill, whose specialty is insurance fraud. He is called in by his client to investigate the disappearance of a phenomenally popular horror novelist named Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). Cane has supposedly vanished as his most recent novel is nearing its deadline, and his publisher (played by Charlton Heston) wants to retrieve his company's property. Trent, however, thinks the whole thing is merely a publicity stunt for the new novel.

Trent, along with Cane's editor Linda Styles (played by Julie Carmen), eventually track the writer down to the remote New England town of Hobbs End, which previously was thought to only exist in Cane's stories. There, it soon becomes clear that the wall between fantasy and reality is blurring.

This becomes central to the movie's satirical themes, which focus on the relationship between writer and audience in a way that comments ironically upon oft-stated fears that violent entertainment can have a psychological effect on its audience, causing them to lose touch with reality and develop violent behavior. Fans of Cane's are shown rioting in bookstores when they are unable to find his latest novel, and by the end of the movie we learn that society itself has collapsed due to random acts of violence and mass hysteria.

The film also serves as a tribute to the work of seminal horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, with many references to his stories and themes. The title is a play on one of Lovecraft's most famous tales, "At the Mountains of Madness", and insanity plays a large role in the film as it does in Lovecraft's fiction. (The film's opening scene shows Trent being hauled into an asylum, with the bulk of the story told in flashback, another common characteristic in Lovecraft's stories.) Also, there is a quick reference to the Old Ones of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and some locations and people (such as Mrs. Pickman) in the script are references to his stories as well. There is even use of direct quotes from his work in places when John Trent reads from Sutter Kanes works. And yet it would be a mistake to call In the Mouth of Madness a "Lovecraft film" in the strictest sense; it is a Lovecraft pastiche.

After a long dry spell in which it looked as if his career were in serious jeopardy, Carpenter enjoyed his first spate in years of mostly positive reviews for Madness. And yet its box office performance was only mediocre, grossing around $10 million total.

The film is the third installment in Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy".

References to Stephen King

The name "Sutter Cane" is similar to "Stephen King".
A dog, similar to Stephen King's Cujo
, features in several scenes.
A group of children, similar to Stephen King's Children of the Corn
feature in several scenes.
Some have asserted that Hobbs End is a reference to King's Castle Rock. However the idea of Castle Rock is actually not King's originally but is influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, who created a trio of reoccuring fictional small towns in New England called Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth. King has openly admitted being a great fan of Lovecraft, calling him the "20th century's dark and baroque prince". Most importantly the bridge that leads into Hobbs End fits the description of the one leading to Dunwich in "The Dunwich Horror". One of Sutter Cane's books is entitled "The Hobbs End Horror".

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