Even after
years of watching “Poltergeist”, “The Howling” and “The Exorcist” through my
fingers, there are still movies that do the job of scaring me when I watch
them. Now, it just borders on creeping
me out, but the old fear and wanting to bring my hands up still lingers. John Carpenter has already been sited here as
a master of horror, though his later films haven’t shown this as much, he did
have a film that hit most of the right horror notes. This was 1994’s “In the Mouth of Madness”.
Sam Neil
(Jurassic Park) is John Trent, an insurance investigator brought in to discover
the whereabouts of famed horror fiction writer Sutter Cane played by Jurgen
Prochnow who I always think of him as the bad guy from “Beverly Hills Cop II”. Trent hired by Cane’s publisher, a surprisingly
subdued performance by Charlton Heston and is sent to find the supposedly
fictional town of Hobb’s End where he thinks the writer is holding the manuscript
for his final book hostage. A book series
that has created rabid fans and an even more insane agent of Cane that has been
driven to axe wielding. When Trent and
Cane’s editor the mostly drab and boring Julie Carmen find Hobb’s End after a eerie
road trip, they stay at the local inn where paintings and old sweet ladies are
not what they seem. From here the movies
goes all over the place, from weird, creepy, funny, disturbing, scary, and even
delving into the meta, all leading up to a haunting and somewhat sad ending.
When I first
saw this movie, which was intended to be the last of Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”,
the first two being “The Thing” and “The Prince of Darkness” you can see the similarities
and the bleak tone of them all. This one,
though feels more like an unnerving piece of fiction mainly because of the meta
aspect of it. I had never seen a movie, where
it flash forwards and backwards, that discusses elements of true horror and has
moments that make you question reality. I
had read my share of Stephen King before seeing this movie, and I looked into
the H.P. Lovecraft stories after seeing it.
You will notice many nods to the Cthulhu mythos, and even some of the
creatures that look like it. As well as
the power of fiction, and how ideas can give birth to many horrible things if
enough people read and believe. The
standout great exchange between Trent and Dr. Wrenn played by the great David
Warner really sells what Carpenter is putting out there with the discussion of
a book that can drive you crazy: “What about people who don’t read?” “There’s a movie.”
Being a
classic horror film you get the typical gags and jump-scares that Carpenter is
famous for, but they still kinda work on some levels, even when you see them
coming. And Sam Neil really carries the
film throughout. His reactions and his
transformations seem genuine. The other great part that gives it that classic
feel, is that most of the effects are practical, this was when CGI was really
taking off, and while Carpenter uses some of it, mostly it’s real moving and
creepy, like the backwards hand-standing creature that still gives me chills. And did I mention the mutant children and
Hayden Christensen as the paperboy?
Chilling. That and more is what
makes this one of the great horror movies of 90’s.
--Robert L.
Castillo
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