How much does art affect our reality? That’s the question proposed by today’s film. And while parents’ groups have long argued that different forms of art can inspire violence, John Carpenter laughs in the face of that idea. In fact, he found it so ridiculous that he wanted to lampoon the very concept. He’d do it with the cosmic flavorings of author H.P. Lovecraft. But did you know that the movie almost didn’t happen because of Chevy Chase and his bad behavior? What about the fact that Carpenter had so little money that he had to strategically use his big-name actors based on how quickly he could shoot them? And which future Jedi made his big-screen debut in the movie? Let’s look into all this and more as we find out what the happened to John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness.
While hindsight is 20/20, John Carpenter had a pretty volatile career in the 1980s. The Thing may be considered a classic these days, but it was a box office bomb when it was released in 1982. Carpenter would find success with Christine, only to disappoint with Starman. Hell, Big Trouble in Little China is a favorite here on the channel, and it only grossed around $11 million off a $25 million budget.
But Carpenter’s biggest bomb came with Memoirs of an Invisible Man. The Chevy Chase vehicle grossed only $14 million on a $40 million budget. Not only that, but making the movie was an absolutely miserable experience for Carpenter. It got so bad that he nearly quit filmmaking.
Memoirs of an Invisible Man starred Chevy Chase and Daryl Hannah, and according to Carpenter, both were difficult to work with. Carpenter had taken the job as a director for hire after Ivan Reitman and Chase had leftover disagreements. At one point, Carpenter reportedly broke his director’s clipboard over his own knee after Chase became irritated and wiped a bunch of blue special-effects makeup off, ruining hours of setup.
Chase and Hannah would often have hissy fits, knowing that the studio would never punish them. Sadly, they were right. Carpenter and Chase also disagreed about the movie’s tone. Chase wanted it to be darker so he could show audiences a different side of himself. I guess it was a bit of karma, because this was the last time in Chase’s career that he would be able to demand a high salary from a studio. So I guess being an unapologetic ass doesn’t pay most of the time.
Around this time, Carpenter finally married his longtime girlfriend, Sandy King. The two would start Storm King Productions, although their first feature film wouldn’t be made for several years. Carpenter found himself in the midst of a bit of a self-imposed hiatus while he and Sandy figured out what their first Storm King project would be.
However, the promise of getting to play around with special-effects makeup brought him back for a smaller project that was originally supposed to be an anthology series for Showtime. The project would also give Sandy a chance to try her hand at producing. Showtime pulled the plug on the potential series shortly after filming started, so it was transformed into the television movie Body Bags.
But what would truly get Carpenter back into feature filmmaking?
Long before Michael De Luca was a big-time Hollywood executive, he was simply a writer. As a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and metafiction, De Luca started working on a spec script that would combine all three elements. The screenplay was inspired by Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness. De Luca titled his script In the Mouth of Madness as a way of paying homage.
Lovecraft’s original novella follows a disastrous expedition to Antarctica, where explorers discover evidence of an ancient civilization older than mankind. They encounter all manner of terrifying, ethereal beings, and the story ultimately serves as a warning about going where humanity doesn’t belong.
De Luca’s story wouldn’t focus primarily on cosmic monsters, although they would certainly feature. Instead, it would be a psychological teardown of a man’s mind. He combined his love of Lovecraft with experiences he’d had while living in New York City.
De Luca had started working for New Line after working on the TV series Freddy’s Nightmares. On his walks to and from the New Line building, he’d pass so many homeless people that he started wondering: “What if everyone wandering around me is part of some otherworldly conspiracy to replace the human race?”
That became the launching point for In the Mouth of Madness.
The script wound up on John Carpenter’s desk around the time of They Live’s release in 1988, but he wasn’t interested in making it. Instead, in 1989, New Line announced Tony Randel as director. He had recently directed Hellbound: Hellraiser II, so he was a hot commodity. Unfortunately, Randel dropped out, and Pet Sematary director Mary Lambert took his place. That partnership wasn’t meant to be, either.
It wasn’t until 1992 that the project came back around to Carpenter, and he finally signed on to make the film. John took it as a good sign that the script had come from one of the studio executives. He figured it must be a passion project for De Luca, making it more likely to actually get made.
According to Sandy King, though, the script needed a lot of work. Carpenter chipped away at it with Michael De Luca, feeling that the story simply went over people’s heads and needed to be dumbed down a little. As great as unspeakable and unknowable horror might sound on the page, it can be difficult to imagine what that actually looks like on screen.
Carpenter also had to pare down some of the larger effects because they simply didn’t have the money to pull them off. New Line Cinema could offer an $8 million budget, but that wasn’t nearly enough for the extensive special effects, period set pieces, and creature designs Carpenter wanted.
So Carpenter had to get very creative.
When it came to casting the movie, Carpenter knew he needed a solid group of actors who could sell the strange world of In the Mouth of Madness. Madness was a key element, but if it was played too broadly, the movie could easily become campy.
Sam Neill was Carpenter’s only choice for the lead role of insurance investigator John Trent. The origin of Neill’s casting actually goes back to that little Chevy Chase comedy we talked about earlier. Carpenter had such a miserable time making Memoirs of an Invisible Man that he nearly quit the business altogether. Thankfully, he was able to confide in Sam Neill, who had a bit part in the movie. The two struck up a lasting friendship, so it made sense that Carpenter would want to work with him again.
The studio wasn’t entirely convinced, though. Thankfully, Neill had recently wrapped a little dinosaur movie with Steven Spielberg called Jurassic Park. Carpenter was able to leverage the upcoming release and its likely success to get Neill into the role of John Trent.
Hilariously, Jurassic Park opened the weekend that Neill arrived in Canada to shoot In the Mouth of Madness. He had no idea the movie was becoming a massive box office phenomenon and simply thought it was strange that Sandy King had arranged for a security service to escort him from the airport. The man had no idea his life had just changed forever.
For Sutter Kane’s editor and Trent’s road companion, Linda Styles, Julie Carmen earned the role through auditions. Carpenter’s main inspiration for the dialogue scenes between Neill and Carmen was Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday, which features famously fast, snappy dialogue. He had the actors watch it during rehearsals.
For Sutter Kane himself, Carpenter wanted to avoid simply casting a Stephen King stand-in. He also wanted to avoid an American actor entirely. Jürgen Prochnow took on the role because Carpenter wanted someone with an imposing physical presence and a commanding voice who could make an impact the moment he appeared on screen.
David Warner was cast as Dr. Wrenn, the doctor treating Trent after his breakdown. Carpenter wanted someone who was instantly recognizable to audiences.
Carpenter didn’t think he could get Charlton Heston, but he put in the request anyway for the role of Arcane Publishing director Jackson Harglow. Despite not having done much horror, Heston said yes to the project. Carpenter described him as easy to work with.
Neill later joked about how Heston would tell the same stories over and over about how much he loved making westerns because he enjoyed waking up and having coffee with the horse wranglers. So Neill would ask him what it was like making those old westerns almost every day just to get him to tell the story again.
The role of Dr. Saperstein, the doctor who treats Trent when he’s initially admitted, went to character actor John Glover. Saperstein was actually named after the obstetrician in Rosemary’s Baby. So if you catch the reference, you’ll know he can’t be trusted.
Carpenter regular Peter Jason also appears in a brief role as Mr. Paul, the fraudster Trent exposes during the first act. Ah, you’ve got to love Carpenter’s loyalty to his friends.
The movie also features the big-screen debut of future Darth Vader Hayden Christensen, who appears as a paperboy riding a bicycle.
And I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention an appearance by Wilhelm von Homburg as one of the townsfolk. Because Vigo, the scourge of Carpathia, the sorrow of Moldavia, commanded me.
Usually, I like to keep these sections relatively brief, but In the Mouth of Madness is a very complex and confusing movie. So let’s break it down to make sure we’re all on the same page.
We follow John Trent, an insurance investigator who takes a certain amount of pride in exposing fraudsters. The movie gives viewers a bit of whiplash right from the beginning. The opening credits show the printing process for Sutter Kane’s latest novel, The Hobb’s End Horror. It’s mesmerizing to watch the book being manufactured, but it’s also much more important than that. We’re witnessing the birth of the object that drives the narrative.
Then, appropriately, we head to the madhouse. John Trent is brought to his room in a straightjacket while proclaiming his sanity. At this point, most viewers are probably thinking: “What the hell did I get myself into?”
It becomes pretty evident that John absolutely belongs in that padded cell. But how the hell did he get there?
Trent tells his story to Dr. Wrenn, and the rest of the film is mostly presented as a flashback. We see Trent hard at work taking down Mr. Paul, a fraudster who is incredibly sloppy at his job. You can really feel how much Trent enjoys his work as he relishes taking the man down. But as Trent brags to his employer about a job well done, a homeless man approaches him with an axe. At the same time, Trent is informed about his next assignment.
The author Sutter Kane has disappeared, and Trent needs to find him… or, more importantly, find his missing manuscript. To make matters even crazier, the homeless man asks: “Do you read Sutter Kane?” Then he gets shot to death.
This is not going to be a typical tale.
The homeless man is just one of several encounters Trent has with Kane’s followers, who all have a very meth-head-like appearance. A news report reveals that Sutter Kane has disappeared and that his following is intensely loyal. These people are rioting because bookstores don’t have enough advance copies of Kane’s new book. That’s one intense fan base.
Sutter Kane is very clearly based on Stephen King, right down to the style of the author’s name and book covers. Jackson Harglow is the head of Kane’s publisher, so he has a considerable interest in getting Kane found and getting him writing again.
To research the author, Trent buys all of Kane’s books and starts reading them. This results in some pretty bizarre dreams.
He also notices a strange design on all the book covers, which Kane designed himself. Trent cuts the covers apart and reassembles them, discovering that the pieces form the shape of New Hampshire with a red dot pointing toward the fictional town of Hobb’s End. This gives him a location, but it also makes him suspicious that the publisher could be orchestrating the whole thing as a publicity stunt.
Trent partners with Kane’s editor, Linda Styles, and they head out based on his map theory.
One of the film’s biggest jump scares comes when Linda is driving and sees a boy on a bicycle. The boy seemingly passes them, only to suddenly appear ahead of them as an old man wearing the exact same clothes. They crash into him. Then the man is suddenly up and gone.
There are a series of bizarre circumstances like this, and they make you start wondering: Is any of this real?
Regardless of what you think, Trent is convinced that they aren’t living inside a Sutter Kane story. Spoiler alert: They are, in fact, living inside a Sutter Kane novel.
Styles considers herself the more open-minded one, especially after witnessing their apparent teleportation into Hobb’s End. Trent simply believes he fell asleep and missed the trip. He has been established as someone who needs to see something to believe it. But even that worldview is challenged by the increasingly illogical events happening around him, including the bizarre time loop that he and Linda experience.
For a man who sees the world logically, his mind begins breaking down with every unexplained event. Linda becomes convinced that they need to find the manuscript so they can skip to the ending and find their way out. Eventually, Trent finds Sutter Kane holding the final pages of his novel.
We’re presented with the idea that Sutter Kane has become a cult figure whose writing is treated like gospel. Kane has convinced his followers that his words are the new reality, and because they believe in them, the reality becomes true. That brings the return of the Old Ones, which is where the Lovecraftian elements really come into play. The followers Trent encountered earlier are mutations, and they’re taking over the human race.
The entire third act is one mind-f*ck after another.
Sutter Kane tears himself apart, unveiling a monstrous form that Trent has to flee. These beings are preparing to take over Earth.
Trent finally makes his way out of Hobb’s End, but Linda won’t be joining him. She claims that she already knows the ending.
Once outside, Trent finds the manuscript and destroys it. Then Jackson Harglow tells him that he had already turned it in months earlier.
When Trent and Harglow finally meet to settle everything, Trent discovers that the book has already been released. There’s even a movie adaptation on the way.
Trent completely loses it when he sees that a Sutter Kane fan has mutated eyes and kills him with an axe. And now we know how John Trent ended up in an asylum. Yep. Killing someone with an axe will do it.
Trent finishes telling his story to Dr. Wrenn, explaining that the mutations and madness will spread through Kane’s book and the movie adaptation. Within the next decade, humanity will be wiped out.
That night, the world descends into chaos as mutations and mass violence spread from city to city. Trent leaves his cell and wanders into a movie theater. The movie ends with him sitting in the audience with a bucket of popcorn, laughing maniacally as In the Mouth of Madness plays on the big screen.
And that’s the final joke. The movie Trent just spent the entire story warning everyone about is the movie we’ve been watching.
Filming took place from August to October 1993 in the greater Toronto area of Canada. The location was ultimately chosen for financial reasons. Toronto could provide skyscrapers that looked like New York while also offering rural areas that could pass for New England.
The town of Hobb’s End was filmed on Main Street in Unionville. The black church exterior is actually the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, which remains in use today.
Gary B. Kibbe had become Carpenter’s regular cinematographer starting with Prince of Darkness and would shoot the rest of Carpenter’s career, aside from The Ward. He and Carpenter already had an excellent working relationship. Kibbe shot In the Mouth of Madness in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, giving the movie a visual style that fits comfortably alongside the rest of Carpenter’s filmography.
Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park had revolutionized special effects in the early 1990s, setting a new standard for what audiences expected from major studio films. Carpenter had little interest in following that trend. He remained dedicated to practical effects and, in this case, he didn’t exactly have the budget for anything else.
Carpenter contacted KNB Effects Group, consisting of Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger, and hired them for the project. A team of roughly 20 people created the movie’s various monsters using hundreds of pounds of urethane foam and latex. It took around 12 weeks to complete the work, with the giant monster mask being one of the most intensive creations.
The massive prosthetic was operated by multiple people and placed on a rolling cart. The puppeteers had to coordinate their movements to make it appear as one enormous creature. The effect is pretty impressive. Even if you can tell that it’s something being pushed toward the camera on wheels, it’s still a memorable monstrosity.
The effects team also designed two memorable creatures for the finale: the Crab Monster and the Meatball Eater. And they look great.
Carpenter had established a working relationship with Industrial Light & Magic through Memoirs of an Invisible Man, so he contacted them about contributing to In the Mouth of Madness. However, because of the movie’s limited budget, their contributions were minimal.
One of my favorite effects is the possessed Linda, which was accomplished using a contortionist wearing a mask. It’s creepy as hell.
The editing process was one of the most arduous of Carpenter’s career, lasting more than a year. Carpenter and editor Edward A. Warshilka worked tirelessly to make sure every scene had the intended weight. They experimented with the structure, creating a fast-then-slow-and-back-again rhythm.
Given the movie’s style, Carpenter also used editing techniques that weren’t particularly common in his earlier work. He incorporated flash cuts and slow motion to give the movie a different flavor.
He also chose to cut a sex scene between Neill and Carmen, preferring to let the sexual tension remain beneath the surface rather than making it too overt. That feels more like Carpenter, too.
For the music, Carpenter collaborated with composer Jim Lang to create the movie’s heavy-metal-inspired score. Carpenter originally intended to use Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” over the opening credits, but he couldn’t secure the rights. Yet another area where the movie’s limited budget came into play. Instead, Carpenter partnered with longtime friend Dave Davies of the Kinks and Lang to create something with a similar feel that was different enough to avoid getting sued.
Hilariously, there’s also a fun gag hidden in the credits. We often see disclaimers letting us know that no animals were harmed during the making of a movie. In the Mouth of Madness includes a very different one: “Human interaction was monitored by the Interplanetary Psychiatric Association.”
The body count was high. The casualties were heavy.
In the Mouth of Madness was released in the United States on February 3, 1995. It opened to approximately $3.4 million and ultimately grossed just $8.9 million worldwide. That marked yet another box office disappointment for Carpenter.
Critics were divided. Some called the movie overly convoluted and melodramatic, while others considered it a masterpiece of modern existential horror.
The movie is also widely regarded as the final installment of Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, following The Thing and Prince of Darkness.
Sadly, Carpenter would continue a string of box office disappointments, with none of his subsequent films matching their budgets theatrically. As someone who considers Carpenter one of the greatest directors of all time, it’s unfortunate how often the box office failed to match his talent.
To this day, In the Mouth of Madness remains one of John Carpenter’s finest outings. The movie examines the influence fictional worlds can have on the reality of the people who consume them. What happens when people believe fiction so completely that it becomes reality? And what happens when the creator of that fiction realizes he can control the world simply by writing it?
Sam Neill’s performance is truly wonderful. He can switch from bewildered everyman to completely batshit insane in the blink of an eye. He’s enough of an everyman to serve as the audience’s conduit while being such a damn good character actor that he can get lost in the movie’s craziness and still immediately find his way back.
Sure, In the Mouth of Madness can be confusing at times. That’s part of the fun. It results in an experience like no other.
And that, my friends, is what the happened to In the Mouth of Madness.
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