In the Mouth of Madness is one of those films that in essence seems like a good idea, but later becomes strange and unwieldily to the point that you have to ask yourself “What am I watching, and why did I do so?”
Jumping right of of Memoirs of an Invisible Man, In the Mouth of Madness reunites Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) with Carpenter. Neill plays John Trent, an Insurance Investigator whose latest case deals with a horror writer named Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow). Cane’s novels have the strange ability to affect anyone who reads them. After Cane’s own agent/publicist falls his influence and is abruptly killed, Trent is sent to find Cane (who is missing) and help bring back his latest story , “In the Mouth of Madness” to the agency. When he sets off on his mission, he slowly finds his sense of reality unraveling.
If Neill’s character is the Scully, Julie Carmen (Fright Night Part II) plays the Mulder in this equation. Sent along with Trent, her character witnesses more of the horror than he does. She’s the audience witness for a while and proves Trent wrong when he’s ready to disbelieve what’s occurring. She good here, but her reactions, mixed with Trent’s had me slapping my forehead. I’ll get to that in a moment.
I’m told that the film is something of a homage to H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. While I’ve never read Lovecraft, I’m somewhat familiar with the Cthulhu myths and there does seem to be some tentacled beasts near the last third of the film. Overall, some of those references escape me. The movie’s fun in a Donnie Darko mind bending way and it’s that strangeness that actually helps the film a little.
I hate the fact that Sam Neill’s character simply won’t accept that what’s happening is real. I’m not a big fan of stuffing square pegs into round holes. If it doesn’t fit – you’re being told “This is how it goes”, and you’re seeing that’s how it’s happening – then why in the world are you still holding on to the same train of thought that isn’t working / fitting the situation? I found that extremely annoying. It’s almost the opposite of Slither, where it didn’t take long for the characters to recognize that:
1.) People were becoming zombies.
-And-
2.) It just wasn’t normal for the situation. Accept and adjust. Cover your mouth.
Overall, it was okay, but it really needed something. I’m just not sure what.
Through the Shattered Lens 
In the Mouth of Madness is a film that takes several viewings before one finally gets what Carpenter was going for. Like I told you on Twitter last night the maddening and frustrating character turn for Neill’s Trent character is going through his very own form of madness.
His inability to accept what’s been happening around him in Hobb’s End (Carpenter’s version of King’s Castle Rock and Lovecraft’s Dunwich/Innsmouth) is what I call the madness of logic. Trent’s world revolves around what he thinks is the laws of physics and reality as he knows it. In his mind there’s a scientific explanation to whats been happening and what he’s been seeing and it doesn’t involve the supernatural or some extra-reality.
When I first saw this film when it first came out I had the same reaction, but as I saw it several more times since then I’ve come to a conclusion that the whole film is John Trent’s own mind already gone mad after seeing the film adaptation of the book. His mind is just replaying the events leading up to the end of the film and continues to loop back to the beginning.
In essence, Trent’s mind is at war with itself. The part of his mind which still holds to the truth of logic and science still continues to fight against the influence of Crane’s words and images. In fact, I think Trent may have been one of the first people to go insane outside of Crane’s literary agent in the beginning of the film.
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That’s an interesting view to that. As Trent is a character in Cane’s story, it is possible that he’s designed to reject what he’s seeing. I’ll have to watch it again with that viewpoint, and see what’s up. 🙂 Thanks.
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It’s not even whether Trent is a character in Cane’s story. Trent’s mind may have done that on its own as a way to deny what he saw.
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I liked this film very much the first time I watched it, and a second viewing reinforced my initial reaction. I have had that “What I am I watching?” response to many films, but not in this case. I thought Carpenter did a good job of presenting convolution and paradox in a way with which the viewer could keep up (and I’m none too bright).
Picking up on the X-Files reference, I thought that Scully was often too reticent to “believe” what she had seen, sometimes ridiculously so. But I think Trent’s mindset was a result of the logic Arleigh described, along with a strong skeptical bent. I think such a person would conclude that he was being tricked, until it became absolutely impossible to hold onto that conclusion.
I would recommend this as a film that either a horror or non-horror fan could enjoy, by virtue of its intriguing concept and solid execution. I thought its flaws were relatively small and inconsequential (if annoying to some ). One of Carpenter’s top three. (BTW, that might be an interesting theme for one more of you guys to explore…)
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Thanks for your input here. 🙂 Saturday was the first time I saw the film in it’s entirety, so it’s possible that it may warrant a second viewing. I like the concept of Trent considering himself tricked (which he kind of hints at after coming into the bar at one point, I believe). Still, I think it took him quite a while to get to that point where he couldn’t hold on to that conclusion.
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Indeed. As you said, he is “the Scully”. But I loved me some X-Files.
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I review this film myself almost 6-8 months ago. So, it’s nice to see another’s viewpoint on the film.
Also, as a bit of Carpenter trivia…this film is the third in what will unofficially be called his “Apocalypse Trilogy”. The first being The Thing, the second being Prince of Darkness and then this film.
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The varying viewpoints are actually cool. Not everyone will see the same film in the same way. 🙂
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