10 Movies Where It Didn't Matter That The Hero Lost
3. It Was Just Fiction - In The Mouth Of Madness
Though not enjoying the same popularity levels as the likes of The Thing or Halloween, In The Mouth of Madness may be one of John Carpenter's most underrated efforts. Starring Sam Neill, the movie tackles heavy and intense themes of religion and reality, and has a devastatingly good ending that will stay in the audience's head for a long while later.
While looking into the disappearance of horror author Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), insurance investigator John Trent (Neill) discovered that what Cane wrote became reality. It was said that the author's writing could have an effect on certain people, but the initially skeptical Trent found himself at the centre of Cane's next piece.
Knowing what was to come, Sam Neill's character did everything he could to try and prevent the new book, In the Mouth of Madness, from being published, but couldn't. Simply put, that's not how the book was written. Cane was essentially god, and everything he put on that page happened in reality, including both the book and a movie adaptation being released, leading to mass hysteria, a genocidal epidemic, and basically the end of the world.
The final scene is a haunting image of Trent wandering into a cinema to watch the film adaptation, only to find himself as the main character, following his journey investigating Cane's writing. He lost and the world fell apart, but there was nothing he ever could have done. Upon the realisation that he was merely a fictional character, all he could do was embrace his defeat, sit back and laugh.