The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
In the Mouth of Madness
Horror · Mystery · 1995
An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.
Movie details
In the Mouth of Madness
“Do you read Sutter Cane?”
1995 Horror · Mystery 1h 35m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
7.2 / 10
Community rating
An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over In the Mouth of Madness?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Reeling from the unexpected death of her husband, Beth is left alone in the lakeside home he built for her. She tries as best she can to keep it together — but then nightmares come. Disturbing visions of a presence in the house calling to her, beckoning her with a ghostly allure. Against the advice of her friends, she begins digging into her husband's belongings, yearning for answers. What she finds are secrets both strange and disturbing — a mystery she's determined to unravel.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Horror · 2019
Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, Halloween night, 1968. After playing a joke on a school bully, Stella and her friends decide to sneak into a supposedly haunted house that once belonged to the powerful Bellows family, unleashing dark forces that they will be unable to control.
The Witch
Horror · 2016
In 1630, a farmer relocates his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of a forest where strange, unsettling things happen. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, each family member's faith, loyalty and love are tested in shocking ways.
Sleepy Hollow
Fantasy · 1999
Skeptical young detective Ichabod Crane gets transferred to the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where he is tasked with investigating the decapitations of three people – murders the townsfolk attribute to a legendary specter, The Headless Horseman.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Mystery · 1939
When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.
The Mortuary Collection
Fantasy · 2020
In the phantasmagorical town of Raven's End, a misguided young girl takes refuge in a decrepit old mortuary. The eccentric undertaker chronicles the strange history of the town through a series of twisted tales, each more terrifying than the last, but the young girl's world is unhinged when she discovers that the final story... is her own.
The Pale Blue Eye
Thriller · 2022
West Point, New York, 1830. When a cadet at the burgeoning military academy is found hanged with his heart cut out, the top brass summons former New York City constable Augustus Landor to investigate. While attempting to solve this grisly mystery, the reluctant detective engages the help of one of the cadets: a strange but brilliant young fellow by the name of Edgar Allan Poe.
The Awakening
Horror · 2011
In post–War England, a writer and sometime-ghost hunter investigates a reported haunting at a boys boarding school.
Color Out of Space
Horror · 2020
The Gardner family moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard, melts into the earth, and infects both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly colour. To their horror, the family discovers this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches—including them.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
John Carpenter
Written by
Michael De Luca
Sam Neill
John Trent
Julie Carmen
Linda Styles
Jürgen Prochnow
Sutter Cane
David Warner
Dr. Wrenn
John Glover
Saperstein
Bernie Casey
Robinson
Peter Jason
Mr. Paul
Court is in session
Put In the Mouth of Madness on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.