In the Mouth of Madness

In the Mouth of Madness is a 1994 American supernatural horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca. It stars Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner and Charlton Heston. Neill stars as John Trent, an insurance investigator who visits a small town while looking into the disappearance of a successful author of horror novels, and begins to question his sanity as the lines between reality and fiction seem to blur. Informally, the film is the third installment in what Carpenter refers to as his "Apocalypse Trilogy", preceded by The Thing (1982) and Prince of Darkness (1987).
In the Mouth of Madness pays tribute to the works of author H. P. Lovecraft in its exploration of insanity, and its title is derived from the Lovecraft novella At the Mountains of Madness. Distributed by New Line Cinema, In the Mouth of Madness received mixed reviews upon release.
In New York City, insurance investigator John Trent narrowly survives an attack by an axe-wielding man with deformed pupils. John investigates a claim by book publisher Arcane regarding the disappearance of acclaimed horror author Sutter Cane, whose latest novel, In the Mouth of Madness, is due for release. Arcane's director, Jackson Harglow, assigns Sutter's editor, Linda Styles, to assist John, who believes their claim is an elaborate publicity stunt.
John realizes Sutter's book covers form a map to the fictional town of Hobb's End, New Hampshire, the setting of Sutter's stories. John and Linda set out to find the location. While he sleeps during the drive, Linda experiences surreal phenomena, including passing a young cyclist who later appears as an elderly man, and the road disappearing. After abruptly arriving in Hobb's End, the pair encounter landmarks from Sutter's novels, and check in at the local hotel run by Mrs. Pickner, one of his characters. John suspects the experience is staged, but Linda admits that while Sutter's disappearance was a hoax, the current events are not. The pair visit the church, which Sutter's books describe as built on a site of ancient evil predating humanity, filled with unimaginable pain and suffering. Linda seemingly predicts the arrival of enraged townspeople demanding the return of their missing children.
At the hotel, Linda claims that events are unfolding as described in Sutter's new novel, which depicts the end of everything. Linda returns to the church and confronts Sutter, who exposes her to his unfinished manuscript, which drives her insane. Sutter confesses that he believed his stories were fictional, but later realized "they" had been guiding him. Disoriented, Linda returns to the hotel, where she and Mrs. Pickner transform into monsters, forcing John to flee. Outside, he is confronted by a mob of mutated townsfolk and seeks refuge in a bar, where one of the residents commits suicide, stating he was written to do so. John attempts to escape Hobb's End, but is repeatedly teleported back to the town's center. After crashing his car in frustration, he awakens inside the church, where he is met by Linda and Sutter.
Sutter explains that the sheer number of people who believe in his work has made his narratives real, dissolving the boundaries between reality and fantasy and enabling the return of the "old ones". He claims to have written into existence both Hobb's End and John who is written to deliver the completed manuscript to Arcane. John rejects the idea that he is a fictional creation, but Sutter instructs him to follow a tunnel back to reality. Sutter then tears himself apart, creating a portal through which the old ones begin to emerge. Linda refuses to escape with John, explaining that she has already read the ending. John flees, pursued by monstrous entities, and suddenly finds himself waking up on a country road.
John destroys the manuscript and returns to Arcane, where Jackson denies any knowledge of Linda. To his horror, Jackson reveals that John delivered the manuscript months earlier, and In the Mouth of Madness has since been published, with a film adaptation in production. Sometime later, a disheveled John encounters a Sutter fan with mutated eyes and kills him with an axe, leading to John's confinement in a mental asylum.
After recounting his story to a doctor, John concludes that humanity will soon be reduced to a myth "they" will tell their children. That night, inhuman screams echo through the asylum before his cell door is torn open. John discovers the facility abandoned and overhears a radio broadcast reporting an epidemic of extreme violence and mutations spreading worldwide, with entire cities lost. Wandering into a cinema, he watches the film adaptation of In the Mouth of Madness. As scenes of his past actions unfold on screen—including his affirmation, "this is reality"—John breaks down laughing hysterically, consumed by the surreal realization.
In addition, Frances Bay plays Mrs. Pickman, while Wilhelm von Homburg appears as Simon. Hayden Christensen makes his film debut, briefly seen as a paper boy.
Michael De Luca wrote the script in the late 1980s and one of the first directors he offered it to was John Carpenter, who initially passed on the project. New Line Cinema later announced production in 1989 with director Tony Randel to direct. Later, Mary Lambert was also attached to direct. Finally, Carpenter signed on as director in December 1992, and filming took place from August to October 1993. The film had a budget of approximately $8 million.
The town scenes in Hobb's End were filmed on Main Street Unionville, and the exterior of the Black Church is actually the Cathedral of the Transfiguration. Both are located in Markham, Ontario. The rest of the film was shot on location in Toronto due to its unique mix of "New York skyscrapers and New England remoteness" according to Carpenter.
The visual effects for the film were done by Industrial Light & Magic, and the practical effects (including creature prosthetics and animatronics) were done by the KNB EFX Group. It took seven weeks for KNB to create all the practical effects for the film, the biggest of which was an "eighteen-foot Wall of Monsters" that was mounted on rollers and operated by a crew of twenty-five people. "We had under seven million [dollars] to spend on the picture", Carpenter said in 2001. "It was tough. The monsters had to be outrageous Lovecraftian demons, but in H.P. Lovecraft's novels, they are always so horrible that they are beyond description, that they are too terrifying to see. So how do you visualize something like that? Well, very, very quickly. They also had to be slightly cartoonish since Sam Neill spends most of the movie ridiculing horror only to discover it's all too real."
In the Mouth of Madness pays tribute to the work of seminal horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, with many references to his stories and themes. Its title is a play on Lovecraft's novella, At the Mountains of Madness, and insanity plays as great a role in the film as it does in Lovecraft's fiction. The opening scene depicts Trent's confinement in an asylum, with the bulk of the story told in flashback, a common technique of Lovecraft. Reference is made to Lovecraftian settings and details (such as a character who shares the name of Lovecraft's Pickman family). Sutter Cane's novels have similar titles to H.P. Lovecraft stories: The Whisperer of the Dark (The Whisperer in Darkness), The Thing in the Basement (The Thing on the Doorstep), Haunter out of Time (The Haunter of the Dark/The Shadow Out of Time), and The Hobbs End Horror (The Dunwich Horror), the latter also referencing Hobbs End underground station from Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit.
The film also can be seen as referencing Stephen King, who, like Lovecraft, writes horror fiction set in New England hamlets. In fact, the characters even directly compare King (unfavorably) to Sutter Cane within the film itself. Linda Styles tells Trent early in the film, "You can forget about Stephen King, Cane outsells them all!"
The film's main theme, heard during the opening credits, was inspired by the Metallica song "Enter Sandman". Carpenter had originally wanted to use the song, but was unable to secure the rights and instead composed his own theme, with the help of composer Jim Lang and guitarist Dave Davies of The Kinks.
In the Mouth of Madness premiered at Germany's Fantasy FilmFest on August 10, 1994 and was released in the United States on February 3, 1995. For its worldwide release, the film opened at the #4 spot and grossed $3,441,807 in 1,510 theaters in its first weekend. It fell to #7 in its second week before leaving the top 10 in week three. The film ended up grossing $8,924,549 on a budget ranging from $8 million to $14 million, making it a box-office failure.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, In the Mouth of Madness holds an approval rating of 60% based on 50 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "If it fails to make the most of its intriguing premise, In the Mouth of Madness remains a decent enough diversion for horror fans and John Carpenter completists." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Critics generally commended the film on its technical aspects, particularly its special effects, acting, and directing, but perceived it as being too complicated, confusing, pretentious, and underwhelming. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, saying that the film has an intriguing premise, but squanders it by relying on hackneyed jump scares and gore, taking the form of "a horror house movie, in which the protagonists creep along while creatures leap at them." Gene Siskel gave the film the same rating, as did James Berardinelli, who said the film "comes close to doing something interesting but gets cold feet" and is "confusing, weird, and not very involving", comparing the film to buying an exotic sports car only to drive it slowly. Lisa Schwarzbaum, writing in Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a C rating, remarking that "much of it [is] bloatedly self-indulgent and a small part wicked funny", with only a smattering of successful moments.
In fully positive reviews from the time period, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a thinking person's horror picture that dares to be as cerebral as it is visceral". John Hartl of the Seattle Times also gave the film a positive review, saying it's "a stylized collection of well-timed shockers, helped along by the contributions of its capable cast." The Chicago Reader gave it three stars, calling it "a must see". In a later review, Chris Stuckmann also awarded the film with an "A," noting its ambition, creativity, and originality alongside Carpenter's direction. Reel Film Reviews gave the film three out of four stars.
French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma listed the film as #10 on its 1995 Top 10 List.
Following the early VHS releases, a Blu-ray version of the film by New Line Cinema was released in 2013. In 2016, the film was re-released on DVD by Warner Archive Collection. In 2018, Shout! Factory re-released the film under its Scream Factory sub-label as a Collector's Edition Blu-ray.