John Carpenter's excellent H. P. Lovecraft tribute sees investigator John Trent (Sam Neil) and Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) on the trail of missing best-selling horror author Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). The pair make their way to the town of Hobbs End where they unearth Cane and the apocalyptic secrets hidden within his works. Michael De Luca's script for "In the Mouth of Madness" explores the sometime fine lines between fiction and reality; between predestination and free will to intelligent effect. The feelings of creeping dread and escalating madness that so typified H. P. Lovecraft's best work are captured by De Luca and Carpenter to great, creepy effect. As ever Carpenter makes great use of the full frame and delivers some great compositions and some first class monster imagery. Sam Neill is excellent in the lead role and follows the typical trajectory of a Lovecraftian antagonist who delves too deeply into hidden knowledge. "In the Mouth of Madness" is far from being a perfect film, but it is an intelligent, innovative, beautifully constructed effort where director John Carpenter does better than most to capture that quintessential, but elusive, Lovecraftian atmosphere. ( )