Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: In the Mouth of Madness (1994) - Carpenter in a Lovecraftian house of mirrors

8/13/2024

In the Mouth of Madness (1994) - Carpenter in a Lovecraftian house of mirrors

♥♥

A fantastic tagline ('Lived any good books lately?') and a well-made, chilling composited effect image of horrific elements springing from a book's pages make up this poster for John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness

Our protagonist is an insurance company investigator, who gets locked up in a padded cell, seemingly insane. What made him so? He was on a mission to locate the world's best-selling horror author, but said author's disturbing fiction led to a town that doesn't exist ...

In the Mouth of Madness is written by Michael De Luca (Dark Justice (1991-93)) and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker John Carpenter (Dark Star (1974)), whose 13th feature it is.

Winding, dark and strange, In the Mouth of Madness has good monster effects but also becomes involuntarily funny along the way. Julie Carmen (Killer Snake (2004, short)) is really bad as the character Linda Styles, and Sam Neill (Rams (2020)) fails to carry this post-modernist-enthused deconstructionist invention.

John Carpenter: Cigarette Burns (2005, TV movie) - Carpenter burns out in weird, tiresome TV movie

Dario Argento: An Eye For Horror (2000, TV documentary) - Great bio-doc of master filmmaker Dario Argento (interview subject)

Escape from L.A./John Carpenter's Escape from L.A./Escape from Los Angeles (1996) or, Snake Plissken in Crazy-World!
Christine (1983) or, Bad Plymouth!

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - Evil masks ravage in Wallace's under-appreciated horror (uncredited writing)

Top 10: Best future-set movies
Escape from New York (1981) - Carpenter introduces Kurt Russell as action star in dystopic dream

Top 10: Best first-of-franchise movies

Halloween (1978) - Carpenter's haunting slasher classic
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - Solid action guerilla film-making

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: 8 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 8.9 mil. $ (North America alone)

= Uncertain but likely a big flop (projected return of 1.87 times its cost)

[In the Mouth of Madness premiered 10 August (Fantasy FilmFest, Germany) and runs 95 minutes. De Luca wrote the script in the late 1980s. Carpenter has himself stated that it was given a 7 mil. $ budget, but as it is listed as 8 in several places, it must have gone over budget by a million. Shooting took place from August - October 1993 in Ontario, including in Toronto. The film opened #4, behind holdover hit Legends of the Fall and fellow new releases Boys on the Side and Jerky Boys, to a 3.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 8.9 mil. $. The film's international gross numbers are regrettably not reported. If it had a subdued reception internationally, a 15 mil. $ final gross is likely, which would rank the film a big flop. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Carpenter returned with Village of the Damned (1995). Neill returned in Country Life (1994). In the Mouth of Madness is fresh at 60 % with a 5.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of In the Mouth of Madness?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

8/13/2024

In the Mouth of Madness (1994) - Carpenter in a Lovecraftian house of mirrors

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