In the Mouth of Madness Reviews

What if reading Stephen King novels opened the Gates of Hell? That's the silly question posed here, by way of the disappearance of best-selling horror writer Jurgen Prochnow, just as his new manuscript is due. His publisher, Charlton Heston, hires tough guy Sam Neill to track down the errant novelist. Neill finds himself in Hobbs End, the supposedly fictional town in which Prochnow's spooky stories are set. Prochnow, it turns out, has made some ghastly bargain with dark forces, and it's up to Neill to stop them. A better-than-average cast does nothing to save this dreary movie, another downward lurch in director John Carpenter's once-brilliant career.