1994 - IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, disappointing John Carpenter film

A private investigator played by Sam Neill is searching for a reclusive horror story writer who is supposed to be based on H.P. Lovecraft a writer from the 1930's but could just as easily be horror novelist Steven King.  As Neill delves into the whereabouts of the writer,  Sutter Cane played by creepy German actor Jurgen Prochnow.  Neill begins to suspect that his stories are actually becoming true.

This is a decent enough premise but unfortunately the execution of the idea is kind of a muddled mess.  The story confusingly jumps around with frenzied editing tricks, jump scares and yucky monsters that are reminiscent of Carpenter's The Thing which was a much better film.  

 

If I step back and objectively think about this film, Carpenter's direction is actually pretty good.  He stages the scenes well and the actors all give fairly decent performances.  The problem is the mess of a screenplay by the writer Michael De Luca who was also the executive producer.  De Luca was also responsible for the horrible Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone which is not to be confused with the good Judge Dredd film simply called Dredd.  

 

Unfortunately towards the end of his career, Carpenter struggled with finding stories that appealed to the film going audience. The running time is 95 minutes.