**SPOILERS for this one...sorry.
‘God’s not supposed to be a hack horror writer.’
Dr Saperstein - where have we heard that name before, damn I love a horror movie Easter egg! (John Glover) - prepares for a new patient in-take at an unnamed asylum. Dragged in by two porters is insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill), screaming that he’s very definitely NOT MAD. Except Trent’s decorating his padded cell, asylum issue Pjs and face with black crayon crosses. So, he might be a bit mad. Or is he?
It seems there’s a madness spreading across the city, and on the request of Saperstein, Dr. Wrenn (David Warner) is called on to assess Trent to confirm if he’s ‘one of them’.
Trent has an incredible story to tell Dr Wrenn, that begins when he’s hired by the publisher of missing ‘bigger than Stephen King’ horror writer Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). Cane’s gone missing with an unfinished manuscript and the head of his publishing house, Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston), wants it.
Cane’s books are so popular, fans will kill to get their hands on them, and his agent has gone on a axe-murdering spree.
Trent hasn’t even heard of Cane, which is kind of weird for an author that’s more famous than Stephen King – even people that aren’t fans have heard of him. Trent’s also dismissive of what he considers low-grade shit only morons would like, but when he reads them himself he has to grudgingly admit that they’re at least page-turners.
Trent’s investigations lead him to take a road trip with Cane’s editor Linda (Julie Carmen) to find Cane’s fictional town, Hobbs End. Strange things begin to happen - a painting changes when you turn your back, kids roam the otherwise empty streets of Hobbs End in menacing packs - which Trent dismisses as a publicity stunt created to hype the new book. Linda admits that this was supposed to be a stunt, but now Cane really is missing and they appear to be characters in the new book, which she’s only read part of.
As things get stranger, Trent desperately tries to escape Hobbs End, but Cane has other plans for him, Linda and….the whole world.
That sums up the plot very basically, but In the Mouth of Madness is a wild ride that’s covering a lot of themes in classic John Carpenter style. It’s a film that needs more than one watch to fully appreciate. It has moments that are supremely creepy (a cyclist looming out of the dark on a stretch of isolated road) and moments that are laugh out loud funny (a horrified Trent trying to prise Linda off when she attempts to seduce him ‘for the plot’).
This movie metas hard. As it progresses, you’re going to question what’s really happening. Is Trent trapped in a book within a book within a film? Is he just a character in Cane’s book, a creation of the author that only exists within the pages? Trent, of course, only exists within the confines of the film itself, a fact he becomes aware of in the final scene of the film; a hysterical Trent sitting in an empty cinema watching a film called In the Mouth of Madness starring himself.
Sam Neill is, as always, great. He does unhinged nerdy pompousness so well, and his comic timing is golden. His delivery of the line ‘never throw chips at a driver!’ is worth the streaming cost alone.
The rest of the cast are great, too, with Julie Carmen playing it straight compared to Sam Neill having the time of his life walking around banging things, rolling his eyes and declaring ‘this is REALITY!’
Content warning: I’m pleased to say this is pretty safe. There’s no dead dogs, no suicides and no sexual assault unless you count Linda lunging at Trent and trying to snog him. It’s a good starter / introduction to the genre, either for people that don’t like slashers / realistic violence or for younger audiences. There’s some jump scares, some gooey creatures, a head-on-backwards spider walk, but nothing to give you nightmares. Oh...I almost forgot that Trent punches Linda in the face, but she sort of deserves it. And it shouldn’t be funny, but it is.
Final thoughts: Do you read Sutter Cane?
