Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Brisk
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Graphic
- eerie
- paranoid
- grotesque
- late night horror marathon
- cult movie night
What critics said
Critics generally found the film ambitious and technically accomplished, praising its effects, direction, and performances while finding its complicated metafictional premise confusing and unevenly realized.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Sutter Cane's horror novels appear to make Hobb's End and its monsters materially real.
John Trent's investigation moves from a missing-person case into a town revealed as Cane's imagined creation.
Trent follows contradictory clues involving Cane, Hobb's End, and apocalyptic supernatural events while struggling to determine what is real.
The film emphasizes practical creature effects, monstrous transformations, occult imagery, and vivid nightmare-like set pieces.
Films like In the Mouth of Madness, and why
The Call of Cthulhu
Shares cosmic horror, reality distortion, paranoid investigation, and a writer-driven supernatural premise.
The Cabin in the Woods
Shares metafictional horror, unstable reality, literary creation, and escalating psychological dread.
Angel Heart
Shares neo-noir investigation, supernatural conspiracy, occult imagery, and a bleakly surreal atmosphere.
The Shining
Shares psychological horror, fictional worlds intruding into reality, and an unreliable sense of perception.
Movie Details
- Director
- John Carpenter
- Release Date
- 1995-02-03
- Runtime
- 95 min
- Rating
- 7.2 / 10 (2014)
Cast
- Sam Neill
- Julie Carmen
- Jürgen Prochnow
- David Warner
- John Glover
- Bernie Casey
- Peter Jason
- Charlton Heston
- Frances Bay
- Wilhelm von Homburg
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Howdy Amazon Channel
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is In the Mouth of Madness about?
- An insurance investigator searching for a vanished horror novelist enters a fictional town where stories, madness, and supernatural apocalypse become indistinguishable.
- What is In the Mouth of Madness like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of In the Mouth of Madness as brisk, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is In the Mouth of Madness violent?
- Yes. Ember rates the violence in In the Mouth of Madness as graphic.
- What did critics think of In the Mouth of Madness?
- Critics generally found the film ambitious and technically accomplished, praising its effects, direction, and performances while finding its complicated metafictional premise confusing and unevenly realized.
- Which films are like In the Mouth of Madness?
- Films with a similar feel include The Call of Cthulhu, The Cabin in the Woods, Angel Heart, and The Shining.
- How long is In the Mouth of Madness?
- In the Mouth of Madness runs 95 minutes.
- Where can I watch In the Mouth of Madness?
- In United States, In the Mouth of Madness streams on Howdy Amazon Channel.
