In the Mouth of Madness
Directed by	John Carpenter
Produced by	Sandy King
Written by	Michael De Luca
Starring	Sam Neill Julie Carmen Jürgen Prochnow
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	February 3, 1995 (USA)
Running time	95 min.
Language	English
Budget	~ US$14,000,000
IMDb profile

In the Mouth of Madness (also known as John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness) is a 1995 horror film (originally intended for a 1994 release) directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael de Luca, who was at the time in charge of New Line Cinema. Image File history File links In_the_Mouth_of_Madness_film. ... John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, film score composer and occasional actor. ... Sam Neill (born Nigel John Dermot Neill), DCNZM, OBE (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand-Australian film and television actor, and owner of the Two Paddocks winery in Central Otago. ... Julie Carmen (born 4 April 1954) is an American actor who achieved moderate success as an actress in the 1980s. ... Bold textItalic text Jürgen Prochnow as Duke Leto Atreides in David Lynchs Dune Jürgen Prochnow [IPA: jʏrgɛn prɔxnɔv] (June 10, 1941 in Berlin) is a German actor. ... New Line Cinema, founded in 1967, is one of the major American film studios. ... February 3 is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... // March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation November - After a six-year hiatus, the James Bond film series resumes with the successful GoldenEye. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, film score composer and occasional actor. ... New Line Cinema, founded in 1967, is one of the major American film studios. ...

The film is the third installment in what Carpenter calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy". It is preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness. John Carpenters Apocalypse Trilogy are a thematic film trilogy. ... This article is about the 1982 film. ... Prince of Darkness (also known as John Carpenters Prince of Darkness) is a 1987 American horror film directed, written and scored by John Carpenter, starring Donald Pleasence, Victor Wong and Jameson Parker. ...

Plot

The story follows private investigator John Trent, played by Sam Neill, whose speciality is insurance fraud. He is called in by his client to investigate the disappearance of a phenomenally popular horror novelist named Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). Cane has supposedly vanished as his most recent novel is nearing its deadline and his publisher (played by Charlton Heston) wants to retrieve his company's property. Trent thinks the whole thing is a publicity stunt for the new novel. A private investigator, private detective, PI, or private eye, is a person who undertakes investigations, usually for a private citizen or some other entity not involved with a government or police organization. ... Sam Neill (born Nigel John Dermot Neill), DCNZM, OBE (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand-Australian film and television actor, and owner of the Two Paddocks winery in Central Otago. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the reader. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... Bold textItalic text Jürgen Prochnow as Duke Leto Atreides in David Lynchs Dune Jürgen Prochnow [IPA: jʏrgÉ›n prÉ”xnÉ”v] (June 10, 1941 in Berlin) is a German actor. ... Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1924) is an iconic Academy Award-winning American film actor, best known for playing larger-than-life heroic roles such as Moses in The Ten Commandments and Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur. ...

Trent, along with Cane's editor Linda Styles (played by Julie Carmen), eventually tracks the writer down to the remote New England town of Hobbs End which previously was thought to only exist in Cane's stories. There it soon becomes clear that the wall between fantasy and reality is blurring. Julie Carmen (born 4 April 1954) is an American actor who achieved moderate success as an actress in the 1980s. ... This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... Hobbs End is the name of a fictional location used in several works of speculative fiction. ...

This becomes central to the movie's satirical themes, which focus on the relationship between writer and audience in a way that comments ironically upon oft-stated fears that violent entertainment can have a psychological effect on its audience, causing them to lose touch with reality and develop violent behavior. Fans of Cane's are shown rioting in bookstores when they are unable to find his latest novel and by the end of the movie we learn that society itself has collapsed due to random acts of violence and mass hysteria. 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... Irony, from the Greek εἴρων (iron), is a literary or rhetorical device made of iron, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Mass hysteria, or collective hysteria, is the sociopsychological phenomenon of the manifestation of the same hysterical symptoms by more than one person. ...

The film also serves as a tribute to the work of seminal horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, with many references to his stories and themes. The title is a play on one of Lovecraft's most famous tales, "At the Mountains of Madness" and insanity plays a large role in the film as it does in Lovecraft's fiction. (The film's opening scene shows Trent being hauled into an asylum with the bulk of the story told in flashback, another common characteristic in Lovecraft's stories.) Also, there is a quick reference to the Old Ones of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and some locations and people (such as Mrs. Pickman) in the script are quotes as well. There is even use of direct quotes from his work in places when John Trent reads from Sutter Cane's works. It would be a mistake to call In the Mouth of Madness a "Lovecraft film" in the strictest sense; it is a Lovecraft pastiche. A tribute (from Latin tribulum, contribution) is wealth one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. ... Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction. ... At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. ... Inmates at Bedlam Asylum, as portrayed by William Hogarth Insanity, or madness, is a general term for a semi-permanent, severe mental disorder. ... A psychiatric hospital (also called at various places and times, mental hospital, mental ward, sanitarium or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ... In literature and film, a flashback (also called analepsis) takes the narrative back in time from the point the story has reached, to recount events that happened before and give the back-story. ... Cthulhu and Rlyeh Cthulhu Mythos is the term coined by the writer August Derleth to describe the shared elements, characters, settings, and themes in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and associated horror fiction writers. ... Pickmans Model is a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, written in 1926. ... The word pastiche describes a literary or other artistic genre. ...

A large theme of the film is the question of free will. The main character John Trent boasts in the opening scenes of his own status as a free-lance insurance investigator: "I am my own man, no one pulls my strings but me, I'm happy." This later proves to be an ironic statement in light of his questionable existence as only a character written by Sutter Cane.

After a long dry spell in which it looked as if his career was over, Carpenter enjoyed his first spate in years of mostly positive reviews for Madness. Its box office performance was only mediocre, grossing around $10 million total.

External links

• In the Mouth of Madness at the Internet Movie Database
• In The Mouth of Madness at theofficialjohncarpenter.com
• "In The Mouth Of Madness: The John Trent Collective" (Mirrored Website)