The Surreal John Carpenter Film Guillermo del Toro Calls “Fun, smart, shocking” Is Now Streaming on Tubi!
We love to spread the good word when a heavy hitter in the horror space recommends a chilling picture that hits all the right notes. We love it even more when it’s one heavy hitter recommending another’s work. I mean, how can you go wrong in that scenario? Well, it’s just such a scenario that brings us here today, dear reader. We’ve got the great Guillermo del Toro championing a film directed by the legendary John Carpenter. More specifically, this time around, del Toro is praising the underrated Carpenter gem, In the Mouth of Madness.
Although the flick was neither a critical smash nor a box office breakout when it bowed stateside in 1995, it’s absolutely a noteworthy effort in Carpenter’s influential oeuvre. It’s a surreal offering that juxtaposes Lovecraftian themes alongside a meta-narrative that nods to iconic horror author Stephen King’s captivating writing.
More specifically, the film plays out like this: When horror novelist Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) goes missing, insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) scrutinizes the claim made by his publisher, Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston), and endeavors to retrieve a yet-to-be-released manuscript and ascertain the writer’s whereabouts. Accompanied by the novelist’s editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), and disturbed by nightmares from reading Cane’s other novels, Trent makes an eerie nighttime trek to a supernatural town in New Hampshire.
As for del Toro’s take on the picture, you can see what he loves about the film via the social media post below:
As del Toro points out, the film holds the honorable distinction of not only gracing the pages of the prestigious French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma but actually claiming a place in the publication’s top 10 films of 1995. Not their top 10 horror films of the year, mind you, but their top 10 films overall.
I perceive that honorable distinction as further proof that Carpenter was often ahead of the curve. For instance, bothThe Thing and Big Trouble in Little China bombed at the box office. Yet Big Trouble in Little China is now regarded as one of the greatest B-movies of our time, and The Thing is one of the most celebrated body-horror pictures of the 20th century. Sometimes it takes time for the masses to recognize greatness. Carpenter’s filmography surely suggests as much.
The good news is that no matter whether you connected with the film instantly or took time to appreciate its brilliance, you can now stream In the Mouth of Madness on Tubi!
Categorized: Streaming News
