"Lovecraftian" and "mind-bending" are two words that go together as beautifully as "John" and "Carpenter," which is why John Carpenter's bizarre - and underrated - Lovecraftian horror flick is primed to melt the brains of all those who dare to look upon it. In the Mouth of Madness's title is clearly supposed to evoke H.P. Lovecraft's monster-based novel, "At the Mountains of Madness," and in doing so the film is rendered as a strange, winding mess of paranoia and insanity as Sam Neill's John Trent, a patient at a mental hospital, recounts his sad story to a psychiatrist. Prepare for things to get really weird. There's one thing about In the Mouth of Madness that you have to forgive in order to appreciate its finer points: the soundtrack, courtesy of Carpenter himself, is near unbearable. The plot is nuts, too, of course, but that's what makes the movie great. It's a nightmarish journey down a very dark rabbit hole, scattered with truly horrifying moments. There's also the possibility that it makes no sense, but why let that ruin all the fun, huh?
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
