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In the Mouth of Madness....with John Trent?

posted 14 years ago by Brenapp
50 replies | jump to latest

At the end of the movie, Trent goes into the theatre that's showing the movie of Cain's book, and the sign outside advertises is as starring John Trent. Now I realise that the insanity plague was sweeping the whole world at this point and civilization was on the verge of total collapse, but surely someone who knew Trent and who wasn't insane would have seen this advertisement and gone "What the *beep* How the hell did John get his name on THIS?!?! What the hell's going on?!" Dr Wren, the guy who sees Trent in the asylum, is quite aware of the Sutter Cain madness that's causing so much chaos, wouldn't he be aware of the existence of the movie and know that the man he's speaking to also APPEARS AS HIMSELF IN THE MOVIE???

[–] eyesmalloy 14 years ago

You make a very excellent point. This is a good film, but it does have some serious flubs. The theater scene at the end makes absolutely no sense. Illogical touches like that take the me right out of the plot and remind me that I am in fact watching a movie. So many great movies fall apart at the end, which is weird since films are usually shot out of sequence. It isn't like everyone just got tired of working the last few weeks and let things like that slide.

So who is to blame? The writer, the director, or the producer? I guess whomever has final cut.

[–] haker-1 13 years ago

But it is just as it is. The end seems more like an explanation scene for the viewers to understand what really happened. The last scene and especially his laugh which transforms of howls of despair is a masterpiece! This last moment he realizes everything is epic.
After all many fantastic movies had plot holes and so the more realistic ones.
Now tell me do you read Sutter Cane? (devil)

Who was the first to forge the deadly blade? Of rugged steel his savage soul was made!

[–] jrosekonungrinn 13 years ago

For this movie, it's a case of everything makes perfect sense *because* it makes no sense. Reality has been shattered, and everything we know of how we perceive reality- time, space, reason- is gone. You can't take anything for granted. You can't trust anything you see. You can't reason it out.

[–] nbreyfogle-1 9 years ago

"Illogical touches like that take the me right out of the plot and remind me that I am in fact watching a movie."

Lol; the title of this film is "In the Mouth of Madness", and madness is NOT logical. The only "logic" to this film is that of madness.

[–] Littlebitsofgaming 8 years ago

Illogical touches like that take the me right out of the plot and remind me that I am in fact watching a movie.

That is the whole point, you ARE watching a movie.
The entire plot of the film is the blending of fiction with reality...the reality of the fiction you are watching.

And so, God came forth and proclaimed widescreen is the best.
Sony 16:9

[–] Gloede_The_Saint 14 years ago

Because it's written that way.

Well, there are two possibilities.

A. If it's all just a book and nothing is real, then everything is allowed. Ergo, if we take Trent as sane this all makes perfect sense.

B. If Trent is insane he is simply imagining it and is still in his cell.

Somebody here has been drinking and I'm sad to say it ain't me - Allan Francis Doyle

[–] Brenapp 13 years ago

So other people do see these things, but it's like they DON'T, because they're all a part of what's going on?

[–] Strazdamonas 13 years ago

its just like the woman (forgot the name) was written out and the boss doesnt remmeber her existing at all. they may just been blocked from realizing that the person is actually the start of the movie untill they see it. after they see it they are already infected anyway.

----------
"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

[–] srinath_r_htanirs 10 years ago

These two points are those that a lot of people conveniently ignore.

People who are yet to view the movie can stop here to get an experience and then visit here, I'm avoiding use of spoilers because I'm not revealing anything from the movie as such, but interpretations of what I saw.

The entire movie that we viewed is Cane's work of fiction, which explains why people become insane reading his books.

Cane builds his own reality in the book that merges with the reality (the epidemic and his disappearance - probably staged to make the novel prove its point). It is evident that the entire movie is a mental trip taken by Trent while reading 'In the Mouth of Madness' which has references to Cane's previous book 'The Hobb's End'.

Cane intelligently distorts reality and inserts bizarre elements in his book. When any experience for a common man is purely fantastical, or purely real, his/her perception is never tested. Only when there is a thin line between reality and something else, a person's senses and perception will get doubted, sometimes one's own's.

The significant part of this is, Trent wakes up from dreams multiple times in the movie, therefore they could be said as Cane's tools to trick the reader, introducing multiple layers/worlds within the same book.

The climax implies that Trent is still within Cane's book, after several trips to other inner layers was back within his cell, which further implies that the movie started within one of the layers of Cane's book.

[–] Hamasaurus68 8 years ago

This is what I thought all along. These are just characters in Cane's book...one where the author wrote himself as the bad guy...an author who can basically control reality.

So the movie scene isn't so far fetched, after all. It's almost a surreal way of reminding Trent that he is a charcacter in the book.

[–] www.wedd 13 years ago

They are all just fictional characters (on both levels)- therefore, they have no knowledge of things like that. At the end, Trent realises that he's just a character in a book/movie, that's why he's laughing insanely.

[–] GreatWhiteApeofBarsoom 13 years ago

The title of the movie is In the Mouth of Madness. Given that, I've always assumed the only way to apply any logic to the denouement is to assume Trent has gradually become obsessed with Sutter Cane to such an extent as to lose his sanity altogether. The movie is overtly Lovecraftian, and obsession with revelations of darkness often drives Lovecraft's protagonists to insanity. That would make the idea that Trent descends into lunacy plausible. Since it's Trent's fantasy at the end, wouldn't it make sense he'd imagine himself as the protagonist of a movie he himself dreamed into existence?

Carthago delenda est.

[–] Flamboyant_Little_Devil 10 years ago

Pretty much it.

[–] haileris-2 13 years ago

Well, if you like to really think outside of the box - He goes to the cinema and sees the same movie YOU ARE SEEING RIGHT NOW. That means YOU are already drawn into the madness yourself, so everything you see is questionable. Would've been funny if all other posters on IMDb would've claimed "John Trent? His name didn't appear on the sign. Are you hallucinating?" :D

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] zachanscom 13 years ago

he's a character in a book, then why does he have self awareness? this is like that stupid episode of twilight zone where people in the dreams actually have privates thoughts and memories.

it makes no sense on any level.

[–] Treeman222 13 years ago

It does all get pretty vague by the end, but that's kind of the point - you are watching the movie version of a fictional book - and since, in the book, Sutter Cane's work has become more popular than the bible, the character of John Trent is known to the millions who have read it (think Indiana Jones or Harry Potter), which could explain the marquee.

The "book" exists within itself, just as it does in the movie, and enough people (in the book reading the book) believe what's written in it that the lines begin to blur between reality and insanity, including pulling the actual character in the book into what is considered reality. His descent from fantasy (the book) into reality is the same as everybody's descent from reality to fantasy, and they meet somewhere in the middle.

I think.

[–] Morson 13 years ago

Yeah, Zachanscom, and what is up with that Picasso fellow? His drawings don't resemble reality at all. Noone really looks like that! Don't even get me started on that Escher guy's impossible staircases. You could never make them in real life, so what gives???? IT MAKES NO SENSE ON ANY LEVEL!!!

/sarcasam

[–] bfa-phact69 12 years ago

rofl thank you !

[–] LocoHero 12 years ago

rofl? Are you 5 years old?

[–] lonenut2000 13 years ago

It seems that almost everyone who has responded to this post has forgotten the central premise of the film: Sutter Cane has written a novel that, due to the power of the Dark Ones he was releasing from their prison, has become reality. All concepts of logic no longer apply because reality is now whatever Cane wrote in the book. If he wrote that a film version of In the Mouth of Madness was released starring Trent, then it was. As the farmer said to Trent before committing suicide, "Reality isn't what it used to be..."

This is a rotten way to end it!
This is not the end; you haven't read it yet.
In the Mouth of Madness

[–] adriantrumbly 13 years ago

"power of the Dark Ones"

Or,(how I interpret it) Sutter is just some guy who wrote a story. He's basically the god of the universes that he writes. This film is a story in which the main character becomes self aware of his own fictional-ness, and goes insane. Anything Sutter Cane wants make happen, happens. Their doesn't need to be any logic.

If I were Carpenter, I would have gone for a double mind screw at the end: After Sutter Cane ends the story, he himself realizes that he's a fictional character in the movie.

[–] Daze36 13 years ago

To be honest I think the end is so confusing and out of place because it is meant to show you the madness that John Trent is going through. I mean the film gets pretty messy in the last twenty minutes. But I agree that there are two possibilities, either trent is sane and everything we see is what Sutter Cane has been writing, so whatever he writes is completely okay. Or trent is insane, and you can't really say that someone's insane hallucinations have plot holes...

What i thought was cool was that in the end there when he's about to enter the movie theatre to watch the film they show the poster for In The Mouth of Madness and John Carpenter's name is written as the director. Nice touch!

It says to be exact:

New Line Cinema Presents A John Carpenter Film

"In The Mouth of Madness"

Starring John Trent Linda Styles (and a bunch of other names).

He wrote himself into the story as the director for Sutter Cane's novel which is really a figment of his imagination to begin with. But all the same following the rules of this movie it also means that John Carpenter is playing by the rules of Sutter Cane's imagination seeing as Sutter Cane writes the reality.

I think this is my favourite Carpenter film!

[–] koffeenkreame41-1 9 years ago

It seems that almost everyone who has responded to this post has forgotten the central premise of the film: Sutter Cane has written a novel that, due to the power of the Dark Ones he was releasing from their prison, has become reality. All concepts of logic no longer apply because reality is now whatever Cane wrote in the book. If he wrote that a film version of In the Mouth of Madness was released starring Trent, then it was. As the farmer said to Trent before committing suicide, "Reality isn't what it used to be..."

This.

"I'm the ultimate badass,you do NOT wanna f-ck wit me!"Hudson,Aliens😬

[–] winterimage 13 years ago

It's all there throughout the movie; the more people believe in the story, the more real it gets. And with a billion readers plus all movie-goers, Cane's book becomes more real than reality, and Trent (Neill) is the main character in the book. So if the fiction is reality, then who better to play Trent in the movie than Trent himself, since after all the movie is also real? And Styles's name on the poster is justified as well, since someone had to play her up until the point where she is written out of the story.

I think the whole thing makes perfect sense and fits the spirit of the movie, but maybe that says more about my mindset than anything else...

[–] love_horror 13 years ago

I think everything is kept ambigious & the interpretation is left at the viewer's discretion.
Either
1. Trent is insane & imagining everything.
2. Trent wrote the book while his mind was the devil's factory & all thos things did happen for real.
3. An eerie combination of both.

One thing which I am not able to comprehend, & perhaps its because I had to watch this movie in 2 parts, is who is, or who is 'shown', if you will, to be the author? Is it Trent or Suttercane?

In the climax, Trent was shown to be the author, but if hes the author why Suttercane has control over him? Or is Trent Suttercane?

I have never watched the same movie twice in like 10 years, but I think I may have to make an exception for this one.

I was always fascinated with the enemies of heaven -Crowley

[–] zachanscom 13 years ago

you guys' interpretation of this film remind me of that twilight zone episode where the guy is dreaming he's no deathrow and he's trying to convince everyone to stop the execution so as to "save" the fake people in his dream. highly illogical and quite frankly stupid course of action.

i don't think it's depicting a character from a book, i think it's depicting actual reality and some of the things in the film should be taken at face value.