Starring: Sam Neil, Julie Carmen, Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Charlton Heston, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg.
Director: John Carpenter.
Well, made it to 150 movies, so...yay? I probably should have gotten here two months ago but, at least I'm getting my numbers up. To celebrate, I'm going to do one of my favorite horror flicks of all time: the incredibly meta love letter to H.P. Lovecraft In The Mouth Of Madness. Starring, of course, my main man Sam Neil and directed by (arguably) the greatest mind in genre film making John Carpenter. It's an incredibly strange movie in a lot of respects, nor is it a conventionally "good" movie, but it always remains one of my all-time favorites.
Gonna also state here again that this blog more or less assumes you've seen the flick, so if you haven't I highly recommend you stop here and go check this movie out. The blog will be here when you're done.
We have some great minor turns from excellent character actors John Glover and David Warner, too(I'm a huge David Warner fan). Glover plays the administrator of the mental hospital our hero, P.I. John Trent(Neil), is committed to, and Warner as the Psychatrist who is brought in to talk to him and act as confessor for Trent's crazy story. The film's sense of humor (almost certainly the product of screenwriter Mike Deluca, who also wrote the humorous but ultimately terrible Freddy's Dead) is apparent right away as Trent's fellow inmates protest their sanity in echo of his own, and sing along to "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters...likely a reference both to the whole "this is literally only the beginning of this story" and, well, Carpenter.
"This is not the end," a voice intones, "You haven't read it yet." This script is really well put together: if you play along and sort of narrate it in your head, you realize how literary it actually is. Then we get some vague references to "how bad it is out there" and Trent drawing crosses in black crayon...in an attempt to make sure his captors actually leave him inside. If I have one complaint about this movie, it's that there isn't more of Sam Neil and David Warner(in fact, we have no real idea what happens with Warner's character once he leaves the cell, which would make perfect sense if he wasn't played by an actor as fascinating as Warner).
Neil, once we get to him in flashback as "normal", rides a fantastic line between literary conventions of private detectives and self-seriousness to create a really excellent character...and some great metafictional storytelling, considering that Trent literally IS a literary convention come to life who is unaware of his fictional nature(if that applies here, which it might or might not depending on your read on what is real or not within the confines of this film). Also not sure anyone can turn a smile into something else as fast as Neil. When his joke falls flat in the office of Charlton Heston, his smile turns into...I can't really describe what it is. A bemused response.
The most amazing part about this thing is that some of the cliches and awkward conventions utilized in it could be argued as being a part of the book-within-the-film. It's not the movie, it's Sutter Cane's work, and that work is horror/mystery genre. It's just so intelligent. It's also a little hard to write about: I'm getting so sucked in all over again and, perhaps more importantly, it really is a film that defies description in many ways. It's an experience in itself, with a premise that is somewhat difficult to actually relate to someone else (as all postmodern metafiction usually is: try telling someone what House Of Leaves is about sometime, if you've read it and you should).
The dream sequence stuff is effective enough. It's there to establish mood and visual precedent, and it does it's job well. It's sort of a "calm before the storm" in terms of some of the weirdness the movie plans to throw at the audience. It's also a common convention of horror novels, which the film is very interested in playing with. It's all just set-up, anyway: the montage of nightmares and Trent reading the (really cool looking) novels of Sutter Cane ultimately lead him to discovering a strange map, and off he and lovely Julie Carmen(as editor Linda Styles) go to search for a presumably fictional town that he believes Cane has disappeared to: the town of Hobb's End, a focal point in Cane's novels. They have a nice conversation about consensus reality, and the possible encroachment of fiction on reality...some good postmodern philosophy there(well, not just postmodernist: what exactly is real and unreal dates WAY back to the Ancient Greeks). If everyone redefined sane and insane, those of us considered sane would end up locked away. Kind of like, y'know, intelligence and Donald Trump. Intelligent people know it's bad, but the definitions are changing out there and potentially someday those of us who know reality will, as Styles puts it, "find ourselves in a padded cell wondering what happened to the world."
Despite it being Trent's story, crucial story elements happen while he sleeps: Styles has spooky encounters that lead them into Hobb's End while he sleeps. Considering that, again, the movie is actually supposed to be a novel written by Sutter Cane that has lept into true existence, this is forgivable...mostly. Trent is still supposedly recounting these events to David Warner, after all. But it's an effective scene. Actually, almost all of the scary stuff primarily happens to Styles, really: she witnesses the menacing children chasing the dog while Trent sees nothing, she sees the painting in the inn move on it's own accord, she experiences Cane on her own first...but, then again, she is also the expert and it makes absolute sense that she would experience it. It's still a slightly odd narrative choice under the condition of Trent telling it to someone else (as in, if this were a book, it would likely be written in first person, so how would he be aware of what happened to Styles). Oh, well, nitpicking I suppose.
Neil does another excellent smile-to-nothing facial expression. He is an extraordinary actor.
I had forgotten about the appearance of Vigo The Carpathian! Well, his real name is Wilhelm von Homburg. He is among the mob that arrives at the black church and gets attacked by dogs, as well as inadvertently giving Trent his first view of Sutter Cane. Not sure why a mob with loaded shotguns would lose to a pack of Doberman Pinchers (they DO have guns after all) but, I guess we'd have to assume they weren't a particularly brave mob.
Also Frances Bay as Mrs.Pickman. Another excellent character actor in a very creepy role, what with her husband being handcuffed to her ankle. If she were young and hot, I'd probably find that scene kind of sexy but, y'know, Frances Bay. I mean, not that Frances Bay is a hideous monster or anything but...not my type.
The evil, monstrous kids are pretty terrifying: "You are my Mommy. You know what today is? Today is Mommies Day." says the weird little girl creature with mutated features outside the church. Also, the lead boy's "Give it" is actually pretty chilling, too. Once again, the metafictional nature of the movie allows it to supersede normal film conventions: as an audience member, we would be asking "why are you doing any of this" to Styles as she ignores mutant children and creeps around inside a location she knows to be the site of evil: but the nature of the film allows us to luxury of, at least eventually, realizing that she is bound by the laws of Cane's novel, a novel in which she is being controlled by Cane's novel.
I like that Trent more or less wanders in and out of subplots: his interactions with Wilhelm and the account of the poor guy getting attacked by his children(and killing himself: "I have to, he wrote me this way", and seeing Mrs.Pickman as a monster hacking up her husband. They don't really have any bearing on the full story, they're just freaky stuff that has to happen to make Trent a believer, and well as torment him for the sake of fiction.
The bit with the mob is a personal favorite: after losing the keys to the car (well, Styles eats them), he hotwires the car and proceeds to drive away...only to end up back where he started. "Never leave the city, why didn't I learn?!" he exclaims (a line I quote a lot). Styles manages to twist her body into horrible shapes, and then he once again runs right back into the mob. Eventually, he catches on, and speeds toward the mob with a smile on his face. It's a fantastic moment, and a great audience relation moment as well: it's the type of thing nearly every audience member would think of in his position. Screw it, I'll just drive through the bastards.
There's a nice wish fulfillment moment between Trent and Cane, too: Trent's confrontation and willful disdain for Cane's "godmoding" is a nice response to self-important and pretentious artists we meet: "God's not supposed to be a hack horror writer" Trent says. Also: "By the way: your books suck." Trent is one of the greatest horror heroes ever: resourceful and defiant, no matter what. Like all good Lovecraftian heroes he's obviously doomed, but he's still an enjoyable rebel against the nature of his reality.
Carpenter uses excellent techniques to keep the horrible, indescribable lovecraft beasties just visible enough to stir the imagination without attempting to fully show us their appearance. It's a good move by a veteran film maker who knows that sometimes less is more.
Trent returns to the "real world" only to discover that it's too late: Arcane Publishing already received the book, it's been published, and the epidemic of belief in Cane's work has already spread, transforming people into monsters (even if they don't read it, there's a movie). In response, Trent freaks out and murders someone to get himself locked away, and we're back to the beginning of the film. Trent believes himself safe, until his fellow inmates are slaughtered and he is freed to witness the chaos outside.
The ending to this film is one of my favorite film endings ever: seeing the chaos, Trent gives up and goes to see the movie. The movie is, of course, the very film we're watching at home. As he realizes this, he begins to laugh hysterically...until he begins to cry. It's a fantastic ending. "This is NOT REALITY NOT REALITY NOTREALITY...this. is. reality."
Final Thoughts: Such a clever and intelligent film. It's somewhat dated, a little bit goofy, but a very well made film. It was also ahead of its time in a lot of ways: meta didn't really become a thing for some time later, really. Sam Neil is excellent and definitely carries it over the finishing line. It's also a lot of fun for horror readers, too: the references to Lovecraft are numerous, but also in general there's a celebration of horror fiction tropes and conventions that are really a blast to watch. There is some awkwardness from those conventions here and there, probably from the crossing from prose to film (the film itself is not an adaptation, though). Still, a lot of fun.
Final Rating: Three and a Half Stars.
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