In the Mouth of Madness Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.5

In the Mouth of Madness Blu-ray Movie Review

"Trent...what if Cane's work isn't fiction? What if he has been a reporter all along?" -Linda Styles

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson July 29, 2018

In 1992 the über movie executive and producer Michael De Luca penned a script that would evolve into a perfect vehicle for John Carpenter. In the Mouth of Madness concerns an insurance investigator whose admitted into a state hospital after his hellish journey into the cosmic world of an apotheosized horror novelist. As a connoisseur of Carpenter's oeuvre, I've read De Luca's ITMOM screenplay and can vouch that Carpenter's screen version is largely faithful. In the movie and script, book manuscript editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) tells the main protagonist, 34-year-old John Trent (Sam Neill), that her publishing company Arcane has a writer with not only the biggest legion of readers but also one whose more profitable than all the others: "Sutter Cane happens to be this century's most widely read author. You can forget Stephen King, Cane outsells them all." King is cited elsewhere in the script, including a prefatory epigram by King that's not in ITMOM's pre-credits: "It is the tale, not he who tells it." This quote is particularly significant to the crux of ITMOM. It isn't so much the story events in the novels that fascinate readers, although this is intrinsic to how the meta-narratives of ITMOM function. Rather, it's the cult of the author/creator and the mythological construction of that figure that drives the actions of the readers, who spring to life off the pages and into an alternative reality that transcends the novel's fictive discourse. De Luca and Carpenter seem most interested in the religious and obsessive phenomenon that transforms from the work itself to a malignant form of deification. Copies of Cane's novels are flying off shelves so quickly that society is turning into an anarchic state. The fictional universe of Cane is breeding or morphing into a world of its own. It's certainly apropos that in the early nineties, Robert Shaye, the then-CEO of New Line Cinema, presided over Carpenter's film and Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Both directors share some common semi-autobiographical aspects and thematic affinities in each work.

When I first saw ITMOM, everything moved so quickly for me that I wasn't sure what to make it. But after subsequent viewings, I can more clearly place the form and content within its artist's labyrinthine maze. One quibble that I share with Carpenter scholar Robert C. Cumbow is that we the audience don't get to glean or participate in the connections that Trent forges between the various paperback covers of Cane's. Trent notices the traced outlines on the covers which he clips out and pieces together to form a transparent map, which eventually leads to Hobb's End. But what lead Trent to complete this puzzle? Carpenter employs the dream-with-a-dream device three or four times across an extended segment that made it difficult to derive parallels between the elliptical moments in Trent's mind and the domain residing outside. But the special trait of ITMOM is that these little layers become more revelatory after each viewing.

In the Mouth of Madness Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I first watched In the Mouth of Madness on a Netflix stream in 2010. That transfer looked like an upconvert of the DVD with plenty of video noise present. The Venetian blinds in the office of Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston) showed aliasing. New Line finally released the film on Blu-ray in 2013, which my colleague Michael Reuben covered here. The transfer on this BD-50 is even more impressive from Shout! Factory, who did a 4K scan of the original film elements. ITMOM is presented in its original 2.35:1 Panavision aspect ratio. Authoring and compression is better than New Line. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer sports a mean bitrate of 35000 kbps while the full disc averages 45.68 Mbps. The print looks clean with a thin layer of grain visible. There is no mosquito noise and the aliasing is gone. I want to point out an apparent contradiction that Carpenter makes between his two commentaries. In the new track that Shout! recently recorded, he says that Harlow's office in the scene occurring in Screenshot #23 appears "darkened" compared to what's in the original master print. However, in the old track he recorded with cinematographer Gary Kibbe in the mid-nineties, he states that Trent and Harglow's figures were intentionally lit dark in an almost silhouette. Kibbe corroborates him and makes note that he wanted to give the office interior some fill light, which the shot does show. It may be a case in which Carpenter had a memory lapse and couldn't recall exactly how it was initially lit.

Shout! give viewers access to twelve scene selections. (The LD had twenty-nine stops; the DVD and New Line BD offered twenty-eight.)

In the Mouth of Madness Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! Factory supplies a stunning rendition of the movie's 1994 DTS sound with an often ear-splitting DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround mix (4134 kbps, 24-bit). This track does full justice to the sound department's outstanding work. Carpenter and his crew create highly noticeable variances in pitch between quieter moments and cuts to a rapid montage, which are quite loud in their deployment of different f/x (e.g., thunder, sirens, glass shattering et al.). Discreteness, separation, and pitch levels are handled with perfection. Dialogue is clearly enunciated and bass levels sound fantastic. The score is composed by Carpenter and Jim Lang, who collaborated on Body Bags the previous year. The music features the two composers performing on synths, Carpenter on solo guitar, and Mike Baird on drums. The big standout on this 5.1 track is Dennis Belfield on bass guitar. Some of the big guitar twangs distinguishes this score from other horror scores.

The optional English SDH look complete and are free of spelling errors.

In the Mouth of Madness Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All of the Warner BDs available in North America, Europe, and Asia contain an audio commentary with Carpenter and his director of photography Gary B. Kibbe and the film's trailer. Shout! Factory has recorded several new substantive extras.

• NEW Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Producer Sandy King Carpenter - Carpenter and his wife were very recently recorded by Shout! to deliver this track (they speak up until the end credits). It had been a while since both had watched In the Mouth of Madness but the couple have plenty of anecdotes to share about filming in Toronto. In English, not subtitled.

• Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe - this archival commentary track was originally recorded for the New Line/Image Entertainment's 1995 Widescreen Special Edition LaserDisc. It was retained on New Line's 2000 DVD and one Warner's 2013 Blu-ray. While Carpenter acts as both a moderator and narrator, he offers good information on the sets and shooting locations. Director of photography Kibbe is invaluable for the technical expertise he lends on lenses, lights, and gels. It remains a great discussion between the two filmmakers and is the best commentary of the two. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Horror's Hallowed Grounds A Look at the Film's Locations Today (11:30, 1080p) - host Sean Clark travels to Toronto where he visits most of the original filming sites. This is one of the better episodes of Horror's Hallowed Grounds and is well worth watching. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW The Whisperer of the Dark – An Interview with Actress Julie Carman (9:46, 1080p) - Carman tells of how Carpenter wanted her to play Linda Styles and what it was like acting alongside Sam Neill, Charlton Heston, and Jürgen Prochnow. Carman is also a psychotherapist so she lends her expertise to the movie's Lovecraftian themes. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Greg Nicotero's Things in the Basement: Monsters, Make-up, and Mayhem of In the Mouth of Madness – A New Interview with Special Effects Artist Greg Nicotero Including Behind-the-Scenes Footage (16:34, 1080p) - Nicotero recalls the excitement of working with John Carpenter. He also explains how his special effects shop created the creatures and monsters shown in the film. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Home Movies from Hobb's End Behind-the-Scenes Footage from Greg Nicotero (12:07, upscaled to 1080p) - this is a compilation of footage that Nicotero shot of bicycle Sean Ryan transformed into an old man in the makeup chair, the vampiric faces of the children from Hobb's End, and the wall of monsters sprung to life from Sutter Cane's insane world.

• Vintage Featurette – The Making of In the Mouth of Madness (5:02, upscaled to 1080p) - a production featurette done by New Line back in '95. This intersperses clips from the film with brief interviews of John Carpenter, Julie Carmen, Charlton Heston, and Jürgen Prochnow. In English, not subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:46, upscaled to 1080p) - an unrestored full-screen trailer lifted from Warner's 2013 Blu-ray.

• TV Spots (9:34, 1080i/1080p) - a staggering fifteen(!) promotional spots. Around half of these come from New Line's archive (the TCR is visible towards the bottom) and the other half are TV spots restored in HD by Shout! The latter appear in excellent quality. I can confirm that six of these spots appeared on the LD.

In the Mouth of Madness Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A fitting conclusion to Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy," In the Mouth of Madness is a thinking person's horror film that requires one's upmost concentration. It contains some of the most complex editing that Carpenter's done in his long career. For those who own New Line's Blu-ray of the film, Shout! Factory's Collector's Edition is a substantial upgrade that is worth making the double dip. The transfer easily matches if not eclipses its predecessor and the thunderous DTS-HD MA 5.1 sounds fabulous. The new interviews and featurettes are very good if not excellent. The only extras missing that I would have liked to have seen are a retrospective doc, a new interview with Sam Neill, and a photo gallery. This is still a MUST OWN release.