In the Mouth of Madness
If this book doesn’t scare you to death, you’re already dead
Directed by John Carpenter
USA & Canada, 1994
Right, this week we have Sam Neill (the Antichrist from The Omen), Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur himself, turned President of the National Rifle Association), and David Warner (last seen playing Henry VI in the RSC’s The War of the Roses), all appearing in an HP Lovecraft-inspired film directed by John Carpenter. What’s not to like?
So, is In the Mouth of Madness a trademark Carpenter schlock horror, or an eerily prescient foreshadowing of our times? Well, firstly it’s a gonzo mashup of pretty much every horror genre out there: village folk horror; cosmic horror featuring Cthulhu monsters; zombie apocalypse. All put through the spin cycle of the cinematic washing machine.
The film is bookended by scenes in a mental asylum. An off-the-shelf horror film asylum of course: Gothic building, cold grey walls, staff as deranged as the inmates – you know the drill. Here we meet a straitjacketed John Trent (Sam Neill) who has just decorated his padded cell as well as himself with crucifixes. He grabs the bars on his cell door and screams:
I’m not insane… Hear me!!
The other inmates join his chorus and to quell the noise a familiar pop song starts blaring over the hospital PA: We’ve Only Just Begun. Trent’s response?
“Oh, no, not The Carpenters too…”
Which may well be the best line in the film. Enter Dr Wrenn (David Warner), a psychiatrist with a suspicious government ID who claims to have been “monitoring all admissions through police and paramedic channels”. What on earth does he mean? I have no idea but Wrenn is here to hear Trent’s story. Hopefully we will get some answers.
Trent, a sceptical insurance fraud investigator, is hired by a publishing mogul Jackson Harglow – Charlton Heston, clearly fulfilling a lifetime ambition with this casting – to track down Sutter Kane, their bestselling author, who has mysteriously disappeared. Kane writes horror stories set in New England villages assailed by supernatural forces. They have a cult-like following and just as you start getting the meta-references, Kane’s editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) appears and tells us:
You can forget about Stephen King, Kane outsells them all.
But there’s a catch: reading Kane’s books seems to drive people mad. When Trent is attacked by an axe-wielding man who gasps, “Do you read Sutter Kane?” before being gunned down by the police, it becomes clear that Kane’s work is more than just fiction. It’s a contagion.
Trent: This book is going to drive people absolutely mad!
Jackson Harglow: Well, let's hope so. The movie comes out next month.
The deadline for publication of the latest Sutter Kane is fast approaching so Trent and Styles head off in search of the missing author. They wind up in a spooky hamlet, Hobbs End. It’s a town that doesn’t appear on any map but features in Kane’s latest book, and it is here that Carpenter’s film really does become unhinged – a horror fan’s dream, or perhaps nightmare.
Spending the night in a franchise outlet of the Bates Motel chain, Trent is witness to repeated jump scares, bloodied axe attacks, zombie children, spinning heads and bodily contortions that would make The Exorcist blush, and of course there is a monster in the basement. Fans of David Lynch will also spot Mrs Tremond moonlighting from Twin Peaks. Part way through this ordeal a town local tells Trent:
Take a hint Mister. Leave. This ain’t no tourist town.
Good advice, but of course Trent stays as he is convinced that the whole thing has been staged by the publishing house – a scam to generate publicity. By the time he realises he’s not just investigating Kane’s story but living it - as a character in one of the author’s novels - it’s too late. Like everyone who reads Kane’s work, Trent is driven mad, ending up right where we found him: in the asylum, screaming into the void.
So, In the Mouth of Madness: a ridiculous, raucous, rollercoaster ride of a movie. Shot in the 1990s but with production values and special effects from the 1970s it is entertaining certainly, but more than an entertainment? Perhaps not. Then again, what we have is a form of (social) media that appeals to a mass audience and over time infuses them with madness until they can’t separate fiction from reality. Authored by a narcissistic megalomaniac. In the Mouth of Madness ends with an apocalypse. Perhaps it’s time for us to batten down the hatches.
Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won't have a pretty time with it. In ten years, maybe less, the human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. A myth, nothing more - John Trent
And a reminder that you should always stick around for the closing credits…
Reids’ Results (out of 100)
C - 71
T - 73
N - 78
S - 70
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Coming next… Happiness(1998)
