Obligatory 2016 Election Thinkpiece

In the Mouth of Madness

1994

D: John Carpenter

**********

Pros: Good Ideas, Good Cast, Some Good Atmosphere

Cons: Not as Much Focus as Carpenter’s Other Movies

NOTE: This was written before the election, and I was laboring under the assumption that there was no chance Trump could win.  I was also expecting the Left to not react so insanely.  In fact, the appeal of the movie is even greater in the light of their current behavior.  Especially with the part about people's turning into beasts and rampaging like crazy people.  As it stands, laughter still is the most sane response.

      This has been a frustrating year.  Both political parties have nominated their worst possible candidates, and as a result people feel helpless.  The world seems to have turned into some kind of surrealist joke, and there’s nothing we can do about it.  Trump’s rise is particularly frustrating, as he is literally running as a TV strawman of a Republican.  Many conservatives are now seeing a world in which every cartoonish stereotype concocted by their opponents is not only true but tacitly endorsed by their own party.  It’s like reality itself has been warped by some guy with bad hair.

He has risen to power by manipulating fear, and his constituency seems to prefer his clownish posturing to facts.  A movie that people are often invoking as a comparison to this insanity is Idiocracy.  I’d like to submit John Carpenter’s homage to H.P. Lovecraft for consideration.

     The third part of Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy” (after The Thing and Prince of Darkness), In the Mouth of Madness doesn’t seem to be one of his more popular movies, but that’s a rather unfair assessment.  It’s a movie that uses disturbing ideas for its fright, rather than straightforward thrills.  It also borrows many themes from Lovecraft’s work.  It has similar tropes, and the title is clearly based off that of At the Mountains of Madness (and possibly The Shadow over Innsmouth).  This film’s reality-warping plot, which questions the control we have over our own fates, lacks the simplicity of Carpenter’s other films, so his directorial style may not be shining as brightly here.  Some might call it a bit disjointed.  I think that’s why people did not take to this one as well.  On a side note, there is one pretentious line about religion, but it seems to be in line with Lovecraft’s themes.

      The movie’s protagonist is insurance investigator/professional skeptic John Trent (Sam Neill), who is commissioned by publisher Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston) to find his company’s bestselling horror author Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow).  Trent believes this to be a massive publicity stunt, as well as the rumors that Cane’s readers often go insane or transform into monsters.  Things begin to get strange when he is attacked by Cane’s agent, who has gone insane from reading one his books.  After solving a subtle puzzle in Cane’s book covers, Trent locates Hobb’s End, a fictional town featured in many of the author’s works.  Accompanied by Cane’s editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), he drives to the town. 

        They encounter numerous strange and frightening occurrences on their trip, including hallucinations of monsters and a time distortion.  Linda goes to the town’s menacing church to confront Cane, but is driven insane by his book.  Meanwhile, Trent, fleeing from hostile townsfolk, finds himself in a time loop which only ends when he wrecks his nice Cadillac and resigns to confronting Cane himself.  While I’m going off on a tangent, I like how the time loop represents just how helpless we can feel.  History seems to be cyclical, and sometimes I question how much a person can mean if we can’t really make a difference.  It doesn’t matter how much determination or integrity we have, nothing can change until the hive mind of humanity decides it’s good and ready for it.  Until then we’re doomed to spin our wheels until we wreck our nice Cadillacs.  I’m sorry, things are just getting to me.  I’d better relax and get back to the plot…

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

…Anyway, when Trent arrives at the church, he is informed by Cane that he is merely a character in his final book, a tool to ensure its publication.  He shows Trent a portal through which he can go back to the real world and tears open his own face to reveal a rift in reality through which his monstrous masters exit.  Trent is pursued by these Lovecraftian beasts through a corridor when he inexplicably finds himself in a seemingly normal environment.  Like a layered dream, Cane then toys with Trent’s perception of reality.  At one point, he tells Trent his favorite color is blue, and Trent finds himself in a completely blue world, much to his horror.  Just like in this wretched election cycle, even the silly moments are frightening simply because they demonstrate our own powerlessness.

John Carpenter tried to warn us about Hollywood's overdependence on digital color filtering, but we wouldn't listen.

      Trent finally finds himself in the real world and, after getting directions to town from a paperboy (Hayden Christensen), attempts to plead with Harglow not to publish the book.  Harglow informs him that the book has already been published and that a movie is coming out soon.  In addition to all this, he also tells Trent that he has no idea who Linda is.  Despairing, Trent attacks a reader who seems to be succumbing to the book’s power and is sent to a mental institution (where he scores a hit to one of the guards’ crotch) and is evaluated by Dr. Wrenn (David Warner).  Eventually, the apocalypse happens as planned, and Trent exits the unguarded asylum until he finds a theater playing In the Mouth of Madness.  The reality-bending nature of this film comes full circle when he watches previous scenes of himself in the movie and resigns to laughter.

      While In the Mouth of Madness has great atmosphere, it doesn’t quite demonstrate Carpenter’s stylistic strengths as well as some of his other movies.  Still, there are plenty of creepy moments.  Frightening images come at you in moderation, and there’s some nice restraint in their execution.  The chase down the corridor with the swarm of monsters provides only glimpses of the beings and one split second focused shot of them, making the scene effective on a more subliminal level.  The movie’s score, by Carpenter and Jim Lang, is not the most memorable in the former’s movies, but it fits the atmosphere well.  The main theme is a controversial use of rock, but unsurprisingly I like it and I think it’s oddly fitting.  The cast is very good and it includes John Glover, Bernie Casey, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg, and John Carpenter veteran Peter Jason. 

      Despite all the undeserved disdain, this is a great existential metahorror film from a master of the craft.  I think that Carpenter’s most underrated movie might just have a cathartic appeal to those of us who are frustrated by the reality-butchering absurdity of the 2016 election year (then again

Bernie/Trump supporters those of us to buy into populist delusion might prefer Carpenter’s most overrated movie).  At the very least, it should teach us that if we can’t control something for the time being, sometimes the best thing to do is to sit back and laugh. 

Like when I found out I couldn't find a Region 1 DVD of this movie on Amazon.

TRENT: You're waiting to hear about my 'them', aren't you?

DR. WREN: Your what?

TRENT: My 'them'. Every paranoid schizophrenic has one; a 'them', a 'they', an 'it'. And you want to hear about my 'them', don't you?

DR. WREN: I want to know how you got here.

TRENT: Things are turning to shit out there, aren't they?

TRENT: A word of advice. You want to pull a scam, don't make your wife a partner. And if you do, don't fuck around behind her back.

LINDA: A reality is just what we tell each other it is.

TRENT: God’s not supposed to be a hack horror writer.

CANE: Did I ever tell you my favorite color is blue?

TRENT: Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won't have a pretty time with it. In ten years, maybe less, the human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. A myth, nothing more.

CANE: I think therefore you are.

GUARD: Do you read Sutter Cane?

[Dr. Wrenn just glares at him]

TRENT: This book is going to drive everyone absolutely mad!

HARGLOW: Well, let’s hope so.  The movie comes out next month.

TRENT: Like the book?

READER: I love it.

TRENT: Good.  Then this shouldn’t come as a surprise. [attacks him with an axe]