The names are big, but the payoff is small.
In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:14
Rotten:15
Average Rating:5/10
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is John Carpenter's foray into the world of H.P. Lovecraft and surreal horror. An insurance investigator (Sam Neill) is sent to find a missing author, Sutter Cane (Jurgen... IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is John Carpenter's foray into the world of H.P. Lovecraft and surreal horror. An insurance investigator (Sam Neill) is sent to find a missing author, Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow). As he comes closer to finding the author, things start to change around him, and soon nothing is what it seems. Madness seems to be the normal state of things, while reason and sanity have no place in this new world created by the mind of Sutter Cane. Carpenter plays with changing perspective, making the audience aware thay they too are part of the story, and maybe, just maybe, this is not just make believe. The story is very ambitious in its attempt to put a whammy on the viewer's imagination, but the direction is steady and thoughtful enough to pull it off. Sam Neill is superb in the lead role of the only sane man left on Earth, incredulous to the destruction of reality as he knows it. It is his controlled performance that makes the bizarre events in the film threatening and scary. Jurgen Prochnow is deeply creepy as author and madman Sutter Cane, who's imagination is so vivid it is spilling out of his head into the real world. John Carpenter is known for his scary movies, and he does not fail to deliver with IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. [More]
Starring: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, John Glover
Starring: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, John Glover, Charlton Heston, Frances Bay
Director: John Carpenter
Director: John Carpenter
Reviews for In the Mouth of Madness
One wonders how In the Mouth of Madness might have turned out if the script had contained even a little more wit and ambition.
Great fun to watch, with even the requisite cheap shocks doling out a good jolt.
Eventually falls apart because of its erratic plot and gaps in logic.
A stylized collection of well-timed shockers, helped along by the contributions of its capable cast.
After awhile, the redundancies begin to hamper the narrative, and it becomes rather tiresome.
Horrormeister John Carpenter (of Halloween fame) is back in fine form as a master of suspense and ghoulish fantasy.
Cheesy horror celebrating the power of cheesy horror, while pretending to be appalled.
A fun, clever horror picture, full of creepy crawlies, things that go bump in the night, and references to everyone from H.P. Lovecraft to Dario Argento.
Carpenter can't establish the kind of welling dread that Lovecraft conjured, so he shifts to makeup and pyrotechnics.
A thinking person's horror picture that dares to be as cerebral as it is visceral.
Limp performances and ludicrous special effects remove this study of reality from any sense of it.
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