Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner, Charlton Heston
31 Days of Horror continues with this review by Adam Truscott who is also involved in a big charity Twitter event. If you can help out it will be going to a very good cause. Click here for more details. In the Mouth of Madness is one of my favourite John Carpenter movies and is the final part of his Apocalypse Trilogy – The Thing and Prince of Darkness being the first two. It needs to have a Blu-Ray release. Send me your horror reviews.
In The Mouth Of Madness may be responsible for killing John Carpenters career for fifteen odd years. And that’s a curious thing. Because, it’s a great little film.
We should all agree that The Thing is an out and out classic. (We do agree on that right? Phil… that guy at the back says its rubbish. Bag and tag him!)
We’re also likely to agree that although he made some much loved films after that, most were cult classics at best. We love them because they are Carpenter films.
Don’t get me wrong, for me, that makes Big Trouble, Prince Of Darkness and Madness up there with the most underrated films around. But they are not in the class with The Thing. In The Mouth Of Madness didn’t even get a proper DVD release in the UK! So… why is that?
Well, it can’t be a reflection on the film. Christ, when you see some of the pap released on DVD, it just can’t be that.
It’s what I call, “a great little film”. What I mean by that is that budget, scale… it’s all a little bit small. And that’s fine. Because the idea is big.
Sutter Cane is a novelist. He writes great horror stories – remind you of anyone? He has disappeared. Strange things are happening in town. Sam Neill needs to find some answers, but he’s sceptical about the whole thing. He thinks it’s a set up – a publicity stunt. Canes new novel is due any day, now.
You get the impression that this might also be a bit autobiographical. Carpenter himself wishing. Hoping. Craving the power of Sutter Cane.
Cane, a clear tribute to Stephen King, has a power as a novelist, to influence his readers. Making them paranoid. And driving them to attack people in cafes with axes.
The demand for his new book is driving his fans crazy. Making them violent for more. Is that JC wanting to gain a bit more control over his art? Knowing that he was himself heading into the abyss? That he used to weave that same power?
Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe it’s a cool scene, that’s meant to ground things in reality. If someone was influenced by what they read, they may react like that. It’s an everyday café. But then we find out who the axe man is… Just don’t look into his blue eyes.
The bits in his book are starting to mirror real life, too. The whole film feels like its drawing towards a messy conclusion. Like Prince Of Darkness, the score is key. Carpenter has learnt to keep it humming along in the background. It’s no Escape From New York, sure. But it’s successful. Unnerving. It makes you feel uneasy through out.
Madness, as I mentioned, definitely falls into a sub section of Carpenter films. But crucially, if you’re a fan, you’ll agree that average Carpenter is better than most of anything else out there.
And this is top of that pack for me. It’s underrated in the way it’s been shunned. Wrongly put into the same box as Village Of The Damned. That’s just not fair. This is far superior to that. There is one scene with a group of kids, which tops all of Village.
The idea alone is worth sticking with. Not least because you start to think… what if? I’ll always defend Last Action Hero for trying that idea. That the film world enters our world. Here, it is books. What you write comes true. Imagine someone had that power? That we were policed by their imagination.
The film plays on this, and keeps ticking on. The momentum taking the lead characters, (I don’t normally like Sam Neill, but he’s class here), towards that messy end.
Carpenter plays on common themes. Ghostly figures in the night are nothing new. But what if they were riding a cycle bike? It’s just a clever mix of the everyday, and the damn right weird. If you saw that, late at night… you would be spooked wouldn’t you? I would. White haired ghostly figures. I’d rather meet them in the day, thanks.
So Carpenter keeps cranking it up, with a feeling of hypnosis. Flashing lights in a bridge. Dream like. As Linda opens her car door, and below, sees they are floating… well, she’s dreaming right?
You would hope so. Especially as the only other alternative is that they are driving towards the darkest part of Canes mind…
Hear that typewriter? Then why aren’t you running the other way??
