I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Movies That Don't Suck


In The Mouth Of Madness (1995)


This is a movie to watch for the weird and the wonderful. It is NOT a movie to watch if you want a plausible storyline with logical progression and a definite conclusion. In other words, this is not a 'thinker' movie, this is just a 'sit back and enjoy the ride' movie.

I think I missed a spot.

John Trent (Sam Neill) is absolutely looney toons, bonkers, an out of his head whacko. The film opens with him being committed. A doctor tries to find out his story. John says 'It's spreading, isn't it?' We don't know what 'it' is and the doctor neither denies nor confirms it. John has taken a black crayon and drawn crosses all over himself and the padded cell he now resides in. After being given a cigarette he begins his narrative.

This is still better than being stuck with those damn dinosaurs.

John is an insurance investigator. He can sniff out a fraud from a mile away. He's an independent who doesn't want to be employed by any one company. While at a cafe telling a client of the latest scammer he's caught a man wielding an axe bursts through the window, asks him if he reads 'Sutter Cane', raises the axe, and John would have been in little pieces, but a passing cop shoots the attacker dead. He shrugs it off somehow.

You just don't get horror - it's too deep.

He then is asked by Arcane Publishing to find massively popular horror writer Sutter Cane. He's disappeared along with his latest novel 'In The Mouth Of Madness' and it's worth millions so understandably they want him and it (or just it) back. He says talk to the guy's agent. No go. That's the psycho that almost axed him in the cafe. They send with him Sutter's editor Linda (Julie Carmen who was great in Fright Night II). John thinks it's a bunch of bull, but then again, he doesn't read horror. Linda goads him saying he just wouldn't get it anyway. He takes the challenge, buys all of the paperbacks he can find. A boy watching him says 'He sees you.' His eyes look... split. Again John shrugs it off and goes home to read his new novels. He sees on his way home a Sutter Cane poster and peeling part of it, finds another poster is beneath but he can't tell of what. He begins to read - instantly he is subjected to nightmares, visions, stuff he can't explain so he just ignores it because he is a very pragmatic man. But he is getting a little nervous. Looking at all the covers of the novels he sees something (very perceptive, I didn't see anything) and he begins to cut up all the covers. The illustrations on them fit together to make a map (I guess). He figures out where the map fits and he and LInda set off to find the fictional town of Hobb's End, the title of one of Sutter's books.

Is this the psycho look you were talking about?

On the way Linda sees strange apparitions but doesn't tell John. They drive through a covered tunnel at night and boom, at the other end it's morning. And there is Hobb's End. They search the town which exactly matches the description in Sutter's book. Looks like he isn't so creative after all. Or is he?

I better be getting a check for this.

As I said if you're expecting logic and sense you're watching the wrong movie. Stuff starts to happen - the townspeople say that Sutter has taken their children and is holed up in the church - and creepy crawlies are about. John continues to scoff even though he too is seeing some weird stuff. He's too stuffy, too straight to be taken in. The church, called the Black Church in Sutter's novel is a source of unspeakable evil. That's movie talk for we don't have the budget to show you all the actual monsters. John's STILL not convinced, especially after Linda admits that initially this WAS a scam but now it's getting real. He tries to leave but Linda takes the keys (duh). She goes to the Black Church where we finally see Sutter (Jurgen Prochnow) as he is conveniently just now finishing his novel. He reveals that he hasn't been writing fiction, but the 'old ones' have been telling him stories, and the more people that read them, the easier it will be for the 'old ones' to escape into this world. She sees the ending and blood streams from her eyes. John shows up. Sutter tells him he's there because he was written there. And he will deliver the book to be published. John scoffs, but Sutter then tears his own face off as if it were paper and a huge gaping hole is revealed and monstrous sounds are coming closer. As John goes to peer into the darkness Linda is reading the manuscript which describes word for word exactly what John is doing and what he is going to do. A long tunnel appears - he runs down it, the unspeakable monsters chasing close behind but of course he is supposed to escape, it's in the book.

Look quick this is our entire budget.

He ends up on a highway, manuscript in hand. Getting to a motel, he burns it in the bathroom sink. The next morning, the same manuscript is delivered to him although no one could possibly know he's there. He tosses it and makes it back to Arcane Publishing. The person who sent him doesn't understand the story - there was never a Linda, Trent was sent to get the manuscript, but he had already delivered it to them months ago. It's been printed and on sale for weeks and a movie is soon to be released. John breaks. He sees that on the cover of the new novel is his likeness. He takes an axe to a Sutter Cane fan, hence the commitment to the asylum, the beginning of the movie. The doctor simply leaves. John sits for a few moments, then hears horrible sounds, breaking glass, screams, something pounding on his door. He cowers in the corner until it stops. His door swings open. He peers out to find an empty asylum, blood everywhere, and makes his escape to - well, basically a world gone mad. He walks down a city street to a theater. It's showing 'In The Mouth Of Madness'. He gets popcorn from... well for himself since the place is deserted. And yet the movie still begins... and we again visit the beginning of the movie. Completely out of his mind and never coming back all he can do is laugh and laugh as he stares up at himself on the screen.

I'm not in this scene, I just want the popcorn.