Movie Review: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
Despite a promising start, this one honestly didn’t do much for me.
The bright spot: The opening title sequence freaking rocks. Aside from Halloween, it’s probably my favorite Carpenter intro.
I truly liked the main idea of jumping into a fictional world of a horror writer. I just started reading Stephen King, so the thought of jumping into one of his books was pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the execution missed the mark for my anticipation.
The movie has all the things that make Carpenter movies great. The wide angle shots and things coming out of nowhere visually. The plot twists you definitely don’t see coming. My issue is that they didn’t feel as climactic as they do in his other movies. They seemed lackluster, and things just sort of happened with no explanation or viable consequence.
Once Styles was “possessed” is where it pretty much completely lost me. From there it just felt discombobulated plot-wise.
The final straw that docked this movie down the list for me: Near the end, Trent is supposed to go back to the real world. He runs through the portal with all of these creatures chasing him, he trips, and they are about to pounce. Then suddenly he’s back in the real world. That felt anticlimactic and honestly like a letdown. The tension built and there is no real payoff. He didn’t actually do any kind of heroic escape, but he still escaped. Stuff like that just made it fall flat for me.
The creatures and special effects are cool and have shades of The Thing, but that’s not my favorite trope in a horror movie, so it didn’t do a lot for me personally.
Like most Carpenter movies, the ending is open and unresolved, and I’m fine with that. I’m able to read it as a movie about what’s real to Trent, not what’s happening in reality. Perhaps I’m just watching someone descend into madness from their point of view. Like I said, the overall execution just didn’t hold my attention.
This lands near the bottom of my Carpenter list, but I’m glad I watched it. I probably will not watch it again, though.