The later films of John Carpenter have been dismissed by many as a lost cause. His earlier body of work is already so diverse and profuse that fans understandably feel comfortable in knowing that they can either take or leave his more contemporary efforts. And yet In the Mouth of Madness (1994), a cynical Lovecraft pastiche whose ironic tone is reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven's American films, should not be written off as just a good later work for Carpenter.
As in Halloween, Carpenter here is toying around with the very concept of how we visualize horror. The film's mutilated humans and slimy monsters are all presented to the viewer through the lens of its protagonist, John Trent's (Sam Neill), skepticism. Trent is "always looking for the con," as one character puts it and hence refuses to believe in the power of genre fiction. The closer he comes to the world of horror writer super-star Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow), the more powerful/sincerely frightening Carpenter's depictions of violence become. Carpenter uses Trent's POV to playfully show us the steps of acceptance readers of horror fiction go through before they can suspend their disbelief. The violence here is preposterous and frightening, equally sincere and knowingly over-the-top, because eventually, to the viewer and to Trent, even the most absurd monsters in the film can become terrifying.
Neill's performance at Trent is commendably broad but never too hammy. He effortlessly transitions from rolling his eyes as far back into his head as he can to gibbering with his mouth agape about things that we're never really shown directly. He anticipates the end of the world because he's read the end of Cane's latest book and has subsequently given up. Resistance is futile, for so is it written.
