John Carpenter's: Last Attempt To Film Something Half Decent (In the Mouth of Madness (DVD))

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	In the Mouth of Madness (DVD)
Date:	09/01/03 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: above average, somewhat intelligent and thought provoking US horror fare

Disadvantages: It ain't in the sightest bit scary and some of the beasties look like Jim Henson's worst nightmare

I'm not really a fan of John Carpenter's movies although I do tend to watch most of them in the hope that one day he may stop spinning out trash for cash and return to the times when he gave us Halloween and the excellent remake of the sci-fi classic The Thing. In reality though, it doesn't look like he is going to and is more content to give us nonsense with his name attached and as many references to himself as possible within the running length. Shame, but there ya go, Wes Craven has taken a mooch down the same road of course leaving the horror genre somewhat devoid of decent directorial talent. If you take a wander back into the back catalogues of either director however you can find a few real gems, In The Mouth Of Madness being one of them in Carpenter's and arguably the very last decent movie he directed...and that is almost 10 years ago. It was also on tele the other night so if you missed it, ya boo sucks and no, don't blame me for reviewing it late, y'all are just as capable of reading the TV guide as I am. :oP~

Anyhoo, in the John Carpenter tradition of recycling trash for cash, I thought I'd review it. It's an interesting movie because it is one of the few movies which are quite definitely firmly ensconsed within the horror genre which are actually also rather thought provoling and, dare I say it, actualy quite clever at times. Usually you're stuck with a plotless farcical nonsense which lurches to a ludicrous conclusion whilst tossing in as much blood and gore as possible in getting there, but not so here. Oh, erm, yes there's blood and gore, but it's not the focus of the movie at all as there is also a proper plot as well and an interesting, non-cliched one too! There are also several self-referential jibes and nods towards Carpenter being the director as well in the annoying recent tradition of horror flicks. Sigh.

The plot is difficult to describe without giving things away but it certainl
y keeps you guessing. At the end of it all you really end up with 3 or more possibilities as to what you actually watched transpire - the delusional fantasies of a madman, the omnipotence scribblings of a horror writer turned God, a fictional character living out his fictional world or a combination of all three wrapped up in a blanket of something else entirely. Separating the fact from the fiction is impossible as delusions and realities collide and become as one or neither or perhaps existing as both at the same time. The idea of watching a movie which references itself as reality at some stage is certainly nothing new, but watching it reference itself as an unreality inside its own reality of delusionality is erm...interesting! Confused? Yeah me too and it's easy to argue that Carpenter tries to be far too clever and creates a mess but I'm not in the mood to be uncharitable. It *is* messy and often more confusing than clever but it's also enormous fun and intelligent horror, no matter how messily crafted, is infinitely preferable to all the slasher junk we're usually served with these post-Scream days!!

On the base level the story follows insurance investigator John Trent(Sam Neill) as he tries to find out whether the disappearance of best selling horror novelist Sutter Cane is real or a stunt to sell more books or claim on the insurance for lost revenue(the publishers have already paid for his unfinished manuscript). Cane's novels have been known to provoke extremely violent reactions in some of his readers and the frenzy to read his newest is reaching riotous proportions. Teaming up with Cane's editor Linda Stiles(Julie Carmen), Trent narrows the trail down to a town called Hobb's End in New Hampshire, a town not on the maps and which no one has heard of...but one which is the focus of an increasingly bizarre, nightmarish trail to find the author.

Some of the usual gripes about horror movies apply here as ever. The
acting isn't always up to much, although the main player in it all is of course a respected Hollywood star and his performance here is as good as ever. Charlton Heston gets to have his mug in front of the camera too and (whilst I don't care for the man at all) you can't fault his performance either, nor that of Carmen for the most part, although in some scenes she suddenly becomes quite dire as if she has been body snatched! Maybe she has an evil, untrained twin or something. Erm, anyway the main characters are in the main good enough whilst the usual problems of iffy performances come from the rest...you watch horror movies, you know what I mean! You don't? Well think any bloke or blokette dragged off the street and asked to die or act evil and you've got the level of their contribution...

Special effects are another make or break feature for horror movies, usually dire again('tis true, as a genre fan you have to learn how to suspend disbelief to postgrad level to cope) there are actually not too bad here. One thing - no CGI - hurrah! I like the digital fiddling on modern flicks but one area they often don't work is in horror movies. My favourite example being the difference between the two "An American Werewolf in..." movies: Filmed almost 20 years apart, Rick Baker's "...London" beast is still 100 times better than the hilariously bad CGI creations which dogged "...Paris". Blood and gore simply doesn't look very good unless it's sticky and gooey and in 'Madness' it's very sticky and gooey indeed. The zombie type effects here are great, a little 80s cheesy in style perhaps but still great and things like a pulsing, throbbing wooden gate holding back 'slimy things. as they are described really does glisten and ooze in a tactile kinda way. Sometimes however, some of the beasties on display look like they've escaped from Jim Henson's worst nightmare but as a trade
off for really tactile gore, it's a small price to pay...and remember, you're meant to be earning your diploma in suspension of disbelief so run with it!

Carpenter is intelligent enough to realise most audiences aren't going to be scared by a simple movie anymore unless it is something special so doesn't try to in the traditional, over-used sensed of cats jumping out of the cupboard to jolting orchestral strings kind of way. Instead, he weaves an ominous, thought-provoking tale in the very best traditions of a Stephen King on top form(i.e. at least 15 years ago!), whilst tossing in a fair amount of blacker than black humour. Don't expect to be scared because I doubt you will be(maybe I'm just immune to it, but it did nothing for me in this sense) but do expect a fair few guilty pleasures as you watch...little old ladies turning into smiling, axe-weilding psychopaths...y'know the kind of thing, shouldn't be fun, but it is. The humour is often hit and miss and depends on your outlook on things. The self-referential stuff does nothing for me these days(all new horror movies seemingly include such things as standard since Wes Craven's 'Elm Street' movies decided to do so, it became dull!) and Carpenter referencing himself just bugs me now because he does it so often it feels like one big stoopid ego trip but it'll all raise a smirk in other quarters. Of course many won't see some of the blacker elements as humorous at all...it's a matter of taste, or lack of, innit? ;o)

Would I recommend it? Oh yes, certainly...if you like horror movies, Stephen King style novels or general Tales From The Crypt style storytelling with a little extra nouse behind it all. It's certainly not going to be to all tastes, but rest assured it's not one of those gory splatter movies which have absolutely no story and go nowhere either, it's a lot more intelligent than that. It's not perfect by any stretch
of the imagination and the dream within a dream within a dream thing goes a little too deep sometimes and you lose which iteration you're on so it becomes confusing very easily but in some ways I kinda liked that. Yes it would have been preferable to have been kept guessing by a supremely intelligent screenplay but in the hackneyed horror genre I'll take weird and confusing over obvious and boring any day!! This certainly doesn't fall foul of the latter tag although it is a little less clever than it thinks and there is, as ever, room for improvement. It's still one of the better horror movies(just remember it's more campy than scary) of recent times though and comes recommended from someone who has watched too many of the bad ones not to appreciate an above average one!

Summary: