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IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
Director: John Carpenter
This was my 5th attempt at watching this. My first time was in the theaters back in 1994, and I hated it then. On home video, over the course of two decades, I'd tried watching it multiple times each time turning it off or growing bored and frustrated with it.
Finally something snapped in me. I stopped wishing for The Thing or Escape from New York, and I started lowering my guns a bit. What I got was a pretty OK movie. The writing was solid enough. I didn't find many, if any, plot holes big enough to ruin the experience and the atmosphere was good and plenty for my taste. I enjoyed Carpenter's hard rock intro and outro themes. There was funny dialog along the way. I appreciated the long takes of just meandering the ghost town or the over night drive. I wasn't bothered by the occasional jump scare that didn't make me jump.
I believe when I first saw In the Mouth of Madness I had just come off of a string of disappointments; Virtuosity, The Mangler. This film by Carpenter was amidst those failures, and the experiences of seeing all of them were very close together. I suspect I lumped this film into the overall sour time for seeing horrors, and built a leather covered prejudice. I also think my resistance was my frame of mind. I wasn't ready to accept that John Carpenter had switched gears. That he had gotten older and that he wasn't trying to do what he did before. He wasn't making Big Trouble in Little China or Christine. The characters were way more subdued in this one.
Before I write anymore, I have to remind myself that I didn't think this was a great movie. I thought it was pretty OK. I enjoyed it. I'd watch it again before I die. It's really not that bad. But it's also really not that good, either.
This was the decline of Carpenter. There were hints of his downward appeal to me with They Live, which I feel is a mediocre movie with a great premise. This was more of the same. This should have been part 3 to Prince of Darkness, with They Live as the sequel. I really don't equate this at all with having any of the same elements as The Thing aside from an ambiguous ending. The mood and almost blandish direction in this film fit right in with those other two.
I found one very creepy scene with a snake woman octopus in a very dim greenhouse outside at night. I also enjoyed some of the effect work, namely the torn page that Sam Neill's character almost walks through before turning back to run into daylight. It's hard to talk about plot because the story is a story of a story and unless this script dropped the ball and warranted dissection, there's nothing that can be said that the movie doesn't wrap up fine on its own. That was a relief. The writing was tight enough to make me finish it and feel confident at the end that it didn't completely stink. I almost want to say this film was clever.
Director: John Carpenter
This was my 5th attempt at watching this. My first time was in the theaters back in 1994, and I hated it then. On home video, over the course of two decades, I'd tried watching it multiple times each time turning it off or growing bored and frustrated with it.
Finally something snapped in me. I stopped wishing for The Thing or Escape from New York, and I started lowering my guns a bit. What I got was a pretty OK movie. The writing was solid enough. I didn't find many, if any, plot holes big enough to ruin the experience and the atmosphere was good and plenty for my taste. I enjoyed Carpenter's hard rock intro and outro themes. There was funny dialog along the way. I appreciated the long takes of just meandering the ghost town or the over night drive. I wasn't bothered by the occasional jump scare that didn't make me jump.
I believe when I first saw In the Mouth of Madness I had just come off of a string of disappointments; Virtuosity, The Mangler. This film by Carpenter was amidst those failures, and the experiences of seeing all of them were very close together. I suspect I lumped this film into the overall sour time for seeing horrors, and built a leather covered prejudice. I also think my resistance was my frame of mind. I wasn't ready to accept that John Carpenter had switched gears. That he had gotten older and that he wasn't trying to do what he did before. He wasn't making Big Trouble in Little China or Christine. The characters were way more subdued in this one.
Before I write anymore, I have to remind myself that I didn't think this was a great movie. I thought it was pretty OK. I enjoyed it. I'd watch it again before I die. It's really not that bad. But it's also really not that good, either.
This was the decline of Carpenter. There were hints of his downward appeal to me with They Live, which I feel is a mediocre movie with a great premise. This was more of the same. This should have been part 3 to Prince of Darkness, with They Live as the sequel. I really don't equate this at all with having any of the same elements as The Thing aside from an ambiguous ending. The mood and almost blandish direction in this film fit right in with those other two.
I found one very creepy scene with a snake woman octopus in a very dim greenhouse outside at night. I also enjoyed some of the effect work, namely the torn page that Sam Neill's character almost walks through before turning back to run into daylight. It's hard to talk about plot because the story is a story of a story and unless this script dropped the ball and warranted dissection, there's nothing that can be said that the movie doesn't wrap up fine on its own. That was a relief. The writing was tight enough to make me finish it and feel confident at the end that it didn't completely stink. I almost want to say this film was clever.