In the Mouth of Madness - re:View

well Colin previously we talked about John Carpenter's The Thing yes today we're talking about John Carpenter's in the mouth of madness which means next time we get together we have to discuss the other film in his Apocalypse trilogy princess at Mars what so I heard this movie was shot in Toronto it was the only reason we're talking about it and pretty much themed anytime we come on we have to just talk about films that are shot in Toronto in and around Toronto I think yeah so yeah the mouth of madness this was 1994 this was when John Carpenter was coming out of the you know the 70s and 80s and his his mystical 70s and 80s powers where everyone talks about that the eighties run every movie was amazing every movie was great and he hit the 90s and hit a wall which I don't necessarily agree with wasn't as sudden as everybody likes to say no not at all I think it was kind of like know you still had some like good movies like the one we're gonna talk about but then he had like you know memoir ISM and visible men it's okay it's watchable it's sam neill was in it yeah for sure I wonder if that's like you know the first time they were together that's yeah that's what introduced him and OH or John Carpenter saw Jurassic Park he's like I want that guy I said John I worked with him before he's like I did what makes planes video games but now I think out of the 90 stuff this is definitely his best movie I would say so yeah I would say it's it's it's just a hair under being one of his great movies yeah I would say the same because I think the the first half of it is like perfect John Carpenter stuff right and then it kind of loses a bit in the second half in my opinion no I would I would totally agree but I don't want it's a it's a lesser carpenter film but I think it's it's very very good and I really really like it so I I don't know why people say that you know he's sort of got some I don't know if people have a love for escape from LA I still get it I still get a kick out of it but that and ghosts of Mars both of them I can't even enjoy in like a campy way go some bars is the worst that is I would say borderline unwatchable yeah and there are some people that had yeah but it's campy it's got no it's damn agree or an ice cube it's fun yeah that don't mean it's yeah so many dissolves flash find nothing but dissolves when I think of that movie I just think of dissolves zoobi starts with a flashback and then there was a flashback and then within that flashback there's another flashback yes it's layers so this one yeah this story came out I didn't see in the theater I saw it much later yeah I saw them video after the fact I didn't really think much of it I didn't had really heard anything about it do you want to talk about the general plot yeah um it's the most one of the best Lovecraft movies ever made even though it's not based on Lovecraft also you don't have to feel bad about enjoying something written by a horrible racist yeah which is helpful it's Lovecraftian it's Lovecraftian as the kids like to say yeah the monsters are always the [ __ ] are always indescribable yes you know sometimes they take Bakke take place in flashbacks so like this movie kind of starts out you know sam neill is being dragged into the insane asylum and then the whole sort of story takes place in a flashback he's a he's a private detective I was like a private insurance investigator yeah they'll being seen with him interrogating Jason what's that actor's name I don't know I recognized him he's in a bunch of John Carpenter movies you can't Peter Jason is his name-o guess what he used to roll today that's her ex is very kind of like filmed wash because the movie isn't film noir but that scene feels very film noir yeah the AC is turned off you get hot would you like a smoke yeah that sort of thing him and Bernie Casey for some reason yeah that's right yeah it's a lot of people who are just like have kind of smaller roles show up for David Warner's in this movie yeah yeah for not a very big role John Glover shows up Glover of course clamp and gremlins to the new batch the best film ever made it's rape and he was that weird like Tim Burton looking doctor and Batman and Robin [Music] so the insane asylum so this is this is interesting like I we said this whole movie is like shot in and around Toronto the insane asylum is like the RC Harris water filtration plant in Toronto and it's required by law that any movie that is shot in Toronto you have to shoot a scene there as an insane aside an insane asylum we saw previously in strange brew as the insane asylum it's getting to the point where he's like you just really can't shoot there anymore but it's a beautiful building it's like Art Deco is built in like the 1930s I think is it is are the interiors and those are actually shot there yeah I had to look that up I didn't think they would allow anybody inside but I found it on Google and yeah it's like the interior so they must have just sort of dressed it to look like the individual rooms Oh God but yeah we the movie starts Sam Neill is being dragged into the insane asylum Sam Neill yeah don't you love him as I've gotten older when as a kid I just knew miss the guy from Jurassic Park right point is you are alive exactly then when I saw this movie I guess it was a year after Jurassic Park that's all it was one year later is 94 yeah but obviously he's in it because you know he met John Carpenter and memoirs a more visible man but ya know a later in life seen him in like possession is one of my favorite movies and he's amazing in that he's really good he's really great in this movie because he's so he's a skeptic through the whole movie he constantly well I guess we should explain the plot he gets right hired by this publishing company to find a chaplain hissed Charlton Heston is the head of this company I need time with mr. Trent have Sylvia longer calls and you get Linda in here it was great I almost left myself but they're their best-selling authors Sutter cane who is essentially it's kind of weird because he's essentially like a Stephen King / HP Lovecraft kind of hybrid character right but his name is Sutter cane which sounds like Stephen King yeah then they mentioned Stephen King in the movie you can forget about Stephen King okay now it sells them all you don't need to met like the name sounds so similar that's clearly who you're revoking it's bizarre that they both exist in this world well it's funny I did like carpenter is probably like good friends of Stephen King and it was kind of like a jokey thing this is a Sutter cane has gone missing right they hire Sam the elta to figure out where he went they have they need his unfinished latest manuscripts is the situation so they want to they want to investigate it see if it's some sort of scam and they sent Samuel off with I guess an employee editor she's an editor she's the editor yes she's editor we meet his agent later yeah yes we do they outfit so they go off to sam neill kind of puts the pieces together of all the the covers of all of his books and these red lines around them yeah cut some out realizes that it's an actual map of is it New Hampshire they've they follow the map to the what is thought to be the fictional town of Hobbs and which is where all of Sutter Kings like want to keep saying Sutter cane Sutter Krang Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles makes a great contest isn't it put the pieces together find the town win a set of cane less books center canes books take place there it's not supposed to be a real place or a go to investigate it and discover it is a real town and everything that Sutter cane is written about is real and coming to be true and it's the next book is about monsters taking over in the world ending right it's so it's kind of about our kind of perception of reality completely switching right that's the basic setup and then it kind of goes into John Carpenter unusually surreal territories it does yeah there's lots of like repeating imagery and yeah dreams that you know you like walk by that alley and see the cop kind of beating up the guy and then that'll be sort of repeated you know later things like mutate you can almost like see the the books influence sort of like infecting his vision yeah well that's that's the whole idea is that these books they say for the kind of simpler folk that read his books it kind of affects their brain and and has a little bit of a power over them and I think that the idea is that the more people read and in these books it's giving these sort of ancient beings more power yeah so they can expand their influence yeah the more people believe the more it kind of does become reality right whoa whoa we're not talking about reality we're talking about fiction that's different yeah Oh reality it's just what we tell each other it is sane and insane could easily switch places at the insane would have become the majority you would find yourself locked in a padded cell wouldn't happen to me that's the whole thing is he completely skeptic the whole way through which is great until almost the end of the movie yes like all these things you've seen are you crazy well early on it's he's treating the whole thing as a joke yes so like he's great I love Sam Neill this might be my famous sorry yeah he's kind of awesome he's kind of like a dick and sleazy you know well his skepticism is is it's a he's almost like the the John Carpenter surrogate yeah very kind of cynical man if that's what you saw then yeah I guess it would be a little unsettling I'd be a little and myself but regardless of what you saw or regardless of what you think we are not living inside a static Kane story but yeah he's so he's constantly like this isn't real this isn't real this is a Blissett II stunt you guys are putting me up to it but I'm getting paid so I'm gonna go along with it and then yeah the more the the kind of Horrors start to creep in there's a certain point I think it's the scene where he goes to the bar and ends up talking to Viggo from Ghostbusters to the Carpathian but where he's almost saying like this isn't reality but he's almost saying it at that point he's still trying to be skeptical but he say it's to convince himself special effects hidden speakers you people are professionals the thing I can't remember as what came first us the book we go there carpathian let's talk about this guy for a second he was born to play Vigo the Carpathian sacked Lea he sticks out of this movie it's so odd it's like one of the town's folk yeah he just has this look about him that is otherworldly he looks like an ancient being he does and it's like you know they they come upon this church in Hobbs end and this is the church where they believe a Sutter cane sort of hold up and pull up and Vigo the Carpathian I want to say his name sorry hold his name is Vigo the Carpathian [Music] Johnny boy Johnny boy what is that accent where's that guy from at least German he's like Verlander soccer coach he's a command Jenny Johnny Buddha this guy end up in small town I don't know it's all sound like New England yeah boy from New England see we really go over all he feel like it looks like what is he an old-timey farmer's yeah I don't know building this log cabin is Vigo Vigo with his son Jenny Bowie little ones first and pass it on to us I buy you a beer Johnny Johnny boy earlier in the movie so Sam Neal's not not convinced he's gonna actually take this job first isn't believing it he's like a whatever so he kind of goes out with his buddy I think the guy that you'd mentioned earlier to a diner and reduce like a really great scene so yes like you know them in the foreground kind of sitting at this booth and it's by a window and you just see this guy sort of come out in the background across the street yeah but that scene is executed and that's when people talk about like later John Carpenter and he kind of lost his mojo or whatever like this movie and that scene in particular or like like as far as the way he kind of shoots and edits the scene yeah it's it's it's up there with the best of his stuff yeah it's really cool because it's yeah you seem slowly coming across the traffic and then even when he smashes the window with his axe we get all these inserts of like coffee cup spilling to the ground yeah all these is kind of my new show of what would happen in that scene that I think a lot of people would kind of go over everyone's reaction but yeah but like the pacing of it and the way it's edited yeah those inserts it's like this is classic John Carpenter's yeah it's really good just seeing that guy kind of come across you know and like I kind of longshot in between the two of them is really really good you hear the traffic and stuff like that do you read Sutter cane and that's I think even people that don't really care about this movie or remember it too well that's this is the part they remember is do you read Sutter cane yeah okay it's like these weird double iris yeah he's looking to be an eye is there some yeah it's like the The Mummy you know the new mummy movie you're like the I split new mommy movie yeah then Tom Cruise did I see that is that real what are you talking about so this is a funny scene for me in particular because when I first started out in VFX I used to work around the corner from that restaurant and we used to eat there all the time it was like a Greek restaurant and years later it turned into a video store and that's the first video store where I actually rented in the mouth of madness not knowing I'm assuming that at all and then the the clerk says oh yeah like watch out for the restaurant scene no that's what I kind of like all right whatever I went home like oh my god well that's interesting because the the we find out later in the movie that this is Sutter cane his age his agent yeah it's gone crazy from reading his latest book right that hasn't been published yet in that scene he comes out of a video store so what is across the street is 1899 there used to be and then there's not a chain place it used to be a chain in it now shut down video stores don't exist anymore and then Rogers video moved into the the restaurant okay and now it turned into a bulk barn what bulk burn what the [ __ ] is a bulk barn well thorns here this doesn't exist you're making these words like bulk foods okay like a Costco that's in the US it's Santa like lubbers like hey I want some corn nuts and then you go and there's a big bucket of corn nuts just scoop out until plastic bag and they weigh it and blah blah blah or I want some some cheese powder for like Kraft Dinner macaroni and cheese so you get a big scoop of it the Bullock barn is where John Carpenter goes to buy his cigarette give me your biggest bag of cigarettes candy oh just a carpenter it's like the room you're my favorite customer oh yeah okay so then they begin the the kind of journey and this is like anything I remember from this movie is just like the repeated imagery and yeah things that really stuck with me over the years the the road trip to Hobbs on is the best part is pretty kind of the movie yeah yeah still genuinely creepy because it's really like if you've ever had to drive through the middle of nowhere in the middle of night and it's just pure black and all you're seeing is the the lines in the road it's like a Lost Highway yeah yeah it feels very David Lynch so yeah repeated shots of roads going by I mean there's lots of creepy imagery in the scene and it has that kind of feeling of when you're driving late at night and you kind of get delirious or get tired [Music] this is one part I think when she is driving and she's seen nothing it's just pure blackness and just the lines in the road and then at one point they just vanish and it's just pure blackness that's that is the scariest [ __ ] thing I know it's amazing yeah but then like one of them is it she looks over the side of the car [Music] and then they kind of cross over in table zen but well before that we have the bicycle man yeah the bicycle in which that is bizarre and scary and recurring and and yeah I'm more of a kind of repetitive imagery first time it's just a kid on a bike and that's a great shot too when she looks into the mirror it's he's just illuminated by the taillights right so he's pure red and then it's again just nothing but darkness but then later yeah he shows up and it not the best old-age makeup but it's so surreal that it works pretty creepy any kind of goes by yeah a little in that context it works get out let me out that old man face but with this child voice coming out and it's so bizarre acetylene but just I can't get out I can't get out he won't let me leave he keeps repeating these things right and it's almost like he's been in this loop like since he was a kid just stuck trying to get that kind of because that's a recurring thing too is that it kind of comes into play later the passage of time yeah yeah not realizing how much time has gone by he's been just like stuck in this eternity yeah just like growing old but he's still dis kid yeah that's creepy I will say once they get to Hobbs n that's when the movie kind of loses me for a little bit okay as far as like the the pacing goes right cuz up until this point I I think like I said the first half I think is just about perfect and then once they get there you know we have the Johnny boy like a scene in front of the church yeah and and she they go back to the there's a lot of like they go back to the hotel they're staying at and they go somewhere else yeah and it doesn't feel like we've talked about the repetition it doesn't feel like that's the case it just feels like maybe sloppy writing or we just intimate to do and but there yeah but there's when they go back and she's like no you don't understand this was supposed to be a publicity stunt but we weren't supposed to find anything this was a hoax we did send Caine away on a publicity stunt only he never showed up horror glow sent me with you to make it look good only we weren't supposed to find anything but we did and she's very concerned about all this but then after that scene she's basically out of the movie she goes to the church she finds on Akane yet she's she's not concerned or surprised and I don't know if it's supposed to be like she's kind of under the spell of him I think that was that was the thing because like but if that's the case it's not really execute in a way where you get that because it just cuts from her being really concerned into the Haute in the hotel room - then just she's just like a blank slate right so it feels like it's missing something there with her character some sort of connecting tissue or scene that was like cut out or but once he gets out of the town that's where it kind of picks up again for me okay there is that like repetition where he's trying to get out he's leaving many kind of resets yeah the time keeps resetting itself well so he keeps trying to change the narrative it doesn't work hands up back at the church talking to the the writer of this whole story it's Sutter cane it's like a like a causality loop kind of thing where it's like the madness that's happening gets spread by him leaving the town and getting the manuscript out there it's in the manuscript he's like I've just finished it I want you to take it out into the world yeah it's gonna be like the biggest thing is actually called in the mouth of madness right it's very it's almost like sci-fi hallway yeah hallway with these shafts of light coming in and it cool because he kind of peels himself sundered canes like rips himself open like a book you get some very 90s digital effects yeah done by ILM is that true yeah that was Iowa that was ILM I think it was just that one shot as far as I know they did that over a weekend they did that their spare time well they worked with John Carpenter and memoirs I'm an invisible man okay then we get some really cool practical effects I think Greg Nicotero it's--it's Kant wrote arrow can be effects which I don't know if they're technically still around anymore as can be but it was Greg Nicotero Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman Robert Kurtzman kind of left to do his own stuff but those guys all kind of met working on like Evil Dead 2 okay as individual effects artists yeah form their own company and then around the time this movie came out the mid-90s that was like the height of practical creature effects the Fangoria stuff you read on Fangoria magazine these are really good and I'm it's it's good that they're kind of used sparingly like they're kind of shown it's like getting there again with the thing where exactly you shoot it with just yeah lots of shadows lots of shafts of light they're out of focus in the background the camera will be focused on Sam Neill you to see him blurred out in the background they're never like the kind of main focus of the shot because I feel like if you had held on you know some of them I've kind of seen like shots for Fangoria and it's like alright cool they're not meant to be seen that way they're sort of meant to represent these like old ones that are that are coming through into our world in dancing him okay again the the Lovecraft influence of the sin of unseen horror yeah exactly just like little Lovecraft things here and there like they go to that hotel the pikmin Hotel which is like named after a short story pickman's model and which is really creepy they have the the old lady oh you mean the pretty young thing you came in here with I don't know her at all oh yeah we got tired water or Francis Bay they're creepy enough well it's great talking about this kind of dipping into the surreal a little bit that's it borders on like we mentioned the the road scene the road at night it borders on some sort of Lynch David Lynch influences yeah and Francis Bay was in a lot of David Lynch's stuff she's likes and she was in blue velvet [Music] never a book most people know where is happy gillmore's grandma I think that's how everybody knows her and then later on seer is this crazy monster thing hacking up her husband but oh yeah again with the creatures though where it's like you see Sam you'll run into his car and she's way in the distance right we get a couple like quick shots of it and stuff but it's still mostly in shadow in silhouette and then he sort of ends up back in our worlds a kid and who shall ride up on a bicycle accident oh hi it's Anakin Skywalker it's Hayden Christensen Christensen is a tiny boy he's got to be like 12 he doesn't like anything like the kid from Phantom Menace but this is the other section of the movie like I said the the second half of the Hobbes end stuff is where it feels unintentionally like repetitive right no not like it's supposed to be the time loop stuff but I'm just like yeah I could say if they go to the hotel they go investigate to go back to the hotel and there's not really much happening story wise there's not a lot of progression but then his like desperate attempt to get back to the city leads to some great moments on the bus especially bus this is the best thing did I ever tell you my favorite color was Britain there's a lot of like kind of dream within a dream like there's some like fake out wake up's yes [Music] so that shot of him screaming on the all blue bus but one of my favorite images from any Jane carpenter movie like a great scream no amazing then he eventually makes it back to two Charlton Heston well this is where I want to point out that this movie was written by head of New Line Cinema at the time Michael De Luca the only is he has a couple story credits the only is to screenwriting credits which is this and Freddy's dead the final nightmare not only the worst nightmare on elm street movie but one of the worst horror sequels of all time in the studio though and you write these movies yeah he was Eden Onan Rabab che owned New Line Cinema he was a disaster or some pain I don't know his exactly this terrible movie directed yeah I don't know why he wrote these two movies but Samuels like yeah you know you sent me with Stiles to go investigate this whole Hobbs and Sutter cane things style go that's the girl you say I said with you did it but I know I sent you off alone the exact same scene is in Freddy's dead really with yeah the main character that movie who turns out spoilers to be Freddy's daughter she works at like this home for troubled youth takes a group of the troubled youth to Springwood Ohio where Freddy's from they all get killed off and then she goes back to the group home and says to her boss like I all the kids you know they vanished in Elm Street I don't know what happened to him so the exact same see running gag that he has three movies that or he's just worldly I'm creative which is why he only wrote two scripts and one of them is Freddy's dead we kind of like end the movie we're sort of like finishes up where we started off so something sort of happening outside you don't really know well that's yeah they they they established that early in the movie then it comes back to it and it's good to point out it's like really great atmospheric stuff where you just it's just all like you're with him in the in his room in his padded room yeah which he's drawn with a crayon cross like crosses everywhere faced with a crayon yeah it's fine it's fine it's a great image visually but uh but yeah so much of that where you're just like you know it there's a storm going on so there's like thunder and lightning everywhere but just see how you you you get the sense that the world is falling apart without us actually seen any of it and even when he's being brought in at the beginning there's kind of just hints of like dialog if things must be getting pretty bad out there to bring you fellas in one of the creepiest shots in the movie this is from the early part is when he's in his selling you see that hand with just it looks like a normal hand just like slightly the longer fingernails like something feels just slightly off about it it's really creepy yeah there's a lot of good stuff in this movie yeah from a visual standpoint that really remember and like really sticks with me after yeah would you say it sticks with you as much as like a lot of the the creative imagery and like john carpenter's vampires all the the creepy close-ups of james woods his face james woods where he's walking away he's wearing these like the old people pants no he's cool in that movie yeah he's trying to be cool that he's like yeah I'm a tough guy and he's like I don't know 70 years old he's good tight jeans pulled up to his chest and this is the third part of it's not even really a trilogy but people call it like the apocalypse trilogy they're all sort of movies that are like right on the brink of the world falling apart right some of the stuff earlier like when he sees the cop in the alley later when he when the repetition of it where all the homeless people are behind him and right he started taking an axe to him that looks really similar visually to some of the stuff in Prince of Darkness with like Ellis County roads ray all the other homeless people but this is the first time we've seen the world has fallen apart yeah we seen the abbey the asylum and it's it's great too cuz it's very economical it's not we're not seeing like you know cities on fire it's just like a turned over van and a bunch of paper lady look it's it's effective it's a yeah I mean it's like I like Escape from New York stuff for sure we don't need to see too much of it oh and that's then then the movie ends with the same music it opens with we didn't talk about that John Turner did the score one of his least memorable scores for the most part I thought so it's all very you know just kind of atmospheric tones and that kind of stuff the opening credit music he wanted to get Metallica he wanted I think Enter Sandman that makes sense he couldn't get it so then he just made his corny generic version of the hotel odd spooky metal [Music] I never thought much of it I didn't remember it really it sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the music in the movie for sure but when I went to see him play and I you saw him twice right no just once oh just the one time okay well he played in Toronto and we went to see him and this is the soundtrack that I thought the least of them like oh there's the Halloween one there's you know escape from New York and when this played this like blew the roof off the place it was insane because it's John Carpenter trying to be Metallica well this is sort of on a keyboard kind of going bad yeah it's the rest of the band and it's just the guitars because this is all guitar riffs and amazing like spooky rock yeah or rock it opens the movie it ends the movie yeah the whole but that's it's worth pointing out they have those opening credits are kind of great too because the whole movie is about you know Sutter cane is sort of creating this world and we're seeing the creation of the book so the printing press and I'm a sucker for stuff like that oh yeah I've got a movie that opens up with a printing press and showing like things being made yeah what's similar to the opening of Christine - it shows the creation of the car but yeah if you wrote John Carpenter off because you saw escape from LA on cable once and said I'm never watching anything this man ever makes again I saw that twice in the theater oh my god twice I went once and then I took did you see it again that maybe it gets better on second viewing no I I've got a complicated relationship with that movie Kurt Russell is great in it he's great yeah it's pretty much the same movie but just shitty but terrible yeah that's really rad scene Oh Mike this a mini review of escape from LA cuz you never do it but the effects are awful even for the time even for the time they were really really bad yeah it's like what kind of budget did this movie have it was so awful the one scene I like is the Bangkok rule scene [Music] they showed it in the trailer that's true they ruined they spoiled it that's cuz they're like this is all we got it's the one good scene I like how you going to the theaters like wow like Snake Plissken is back and then it's like him playing basketball for 20 minutes and surfing in front of a green screen this is it looks like it like a sitcom like wow it's like something they'd have in those old like 50s movies like 10 yeah like a beach blanket bingo in the mouth of madness check it out yeah [Music]

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 925,734

Rating: 4.887188 out of 5

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans

Id: e6VNAcd1Dgs

Length: 33min 8sec (1988 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 10 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Poseur117]

You can see the sadness in Colin’s eye when Jay misses his Hayden Christianson joke

[u/blamtucky]

JERNY BOUI

[u/Supermunch2000]

American Colin and Canadian Jay!

Two movie weirdos talking about a movie, Woot!

[u/Glass_Cannon_Build]

Stunts by rlm legend Randy Butcher

[u/FreeThrowsAintFree]

Sam Neill screaming on the bus should be a gif.

[u/[deleted]]

oh fuck yes, I love this movie. One of the best Lovecraftian films around imo, hosted by the two RLM guys whose taste most often aligns to mine.

Can't wait to sit down and watch this!

[u/RJ_Dub]

I like how John Carpenter makes a lovecraftian movie, wants to use a Metallica song, and instead of using either of the two Lovecraft-based songs Metallica had released at the time ("Call Of Ktulu" and "Thing That Should Not Be") he instead wants to go with "Enter Sandman". Hell, "Call Of Ktulu" is a pretty creepy sounding song, seems like it would have fit right in

[u/Pete_Venkman]

Was trying to secretly watch this at work, but Colin's JHENNY BHOYI had me cackling so hard it turned heads.

[u/GGGilman87]

One of the details I liked were the mock covers for Cane's novels

https://marvel1980s.tumblr.com/post/133075740835/sutter-cane-book-covers-from-john-carpenters-in