BOOK REVIEW: In The Mouth of Madness (Sutter Cane)

John Carpenter's cosmic horror magnum opus In The Mouth of Madness came out in 1995 and almost immediately devotees were calling it the greatest Lovecraftian movie that's not based on an HP Lovecraft story.

I don't know when I first saw it, but it was almost certainly the Lovecraft vibe that drew me to it and I was immediately smitten.

In The Mouth of Madness is quite possibly my all-time favourite horror movie.

At its heart, the story concerns a hunt by insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) for a missing best-selling horror author, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), and his much sought-after final manuscript, In The Mouth of Madness.

Fans have long demanded a novelisation of the movie - which in a turn of mindbending metafiction is the novel that forms the heart of the film - and finally this year it came to pass.

Published by Echo On Publications, the novel of In The Mouth of Madness fully embraces its cinematic provenance, being authored by the fictional Sutter Cane (actually Christian Francis) and "published" by Arcane (the publisher of Sutter Cane's work in the film). It even uses the front cover artwork shown on the book when it's onscreen.

But, sadly, there my fanboyish excitement ends.

For the most part this is a very pedestrian adaptation, only really grabbing the reader in the final act when it seeks to expand the world we know from the film.

Sutter Kane is a contemporary reimagining of HP Lovecraft - in a world where his Great Old Ones were actually real - with a heavy dose of Stephen King mixed in for good measure, so I had high expectations for this book (fuelled by the several decades' wait for it to be announced).

Yet, given that - in-universe - this is supposedly a book written by an author who outsells Stephen King tenfold, it instead reads in large part like fan-fiction.

Was this actually a hurriedly released unedited first (or early) draft? 

That might explain the most frustrating thing about the novel, which can't entirely be blamed on the author (unless this was self-published and he was expected to edit it himself). 

The text is riddled with typos and missing words, which isn't a dealbreaker but is immensely frustrating for a professionally published book.

The name of Cane's publisher, Jackson Harglow (played by Charlton Heston the film) changes spelling several times within a few pages, for instance, and there are even TWO inexcusable typos in the blurb on the back cover of the dust jacket.

Did nobody proof this?

On the other hand, there are some delightful additions to the story - such as interjections in the text, often directed at the reader, from Cane himself.

Another interesting inclusion was the discussion between Trent and Cane's editor Linda Styles over Cane’s approach to writing.

For the most part the book sticks to the film script, but there are some minor tweaks to the narrative, alternative takes as it were, and one major element slipped in that, as far as I was aware from multiple viewings of the film, adds a whole new level of existential horror to the story.

Sutter Cane's In The Mouth of Madness is at its best when it captures the cosmic horror of the movie, but ultimately serves primarily as a novelty artefact to sit on your shelf and spark conversation with those 'in the know'.

It certainly isn't the Lovecraftian/Stephen King assault on sanity that we'd all been waiting for.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Void (2016)

Late at night, on a deserted road outside of town, Sheriff Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) comes across a wounded man stumbling out of the woods.

The lawman rushes the injured man to the nearest hospital, a fire-damaged building on the point of closure, operated by a skeleton staff, including the sheriff's estranged wife, Allison (Kathleen Munroe).

Within moments of their arrival - and a nurse going insane - the dilapidated hospital is besieged by knife-wielding, sheet-wearing, cultists.

From there The Void is a non-stop, violent, gore-splattered, thrill-ride through Lovecraft country by way of Assault On Precinct 13, The Thing and Hellraiser.

This is a film - whose plot unfolds over a single night - that just doesn't let up. The action kicks off from the opening scene, backstories are sketched in with deft brevity, and the viewers find themselves sucked into the absorbing, claustrophobic, horror.

Malleable architecture, hallucinations, and shapeshifting, tentacled, monsters are just part of the sanity-assaulting fun that the writing-directing team of Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie bombard the audience with.

And it's probably worth drawing attention to a couple of extended scenes that feature bright, rapidly flashing lights that could affect people susceptible to such light shows.

There's a strong flavour of vintage '80s horror here (but delivered with ichor-dripping 21st Century practical effects) that should satisfy any fan of HP Lovecraft's cosmic horror who tends to find the best cinematic realisations of his themes come in films not directly based on his stories (such as the aforementioned The Thing, In The Mouth Of Madness, Event Horizon etc).

It would be a gross exaggeration to say The Void is wholly original, but the diverse recipe of influences tap into so  many of my favourite movies, sub-genres, and ideas of what makes good horror, that I embraced it all the more warmly.

In fact there was a part of me that couldn't help wondering if this script was lifted from a game of Call Of Cthulhu, with pointless gunplay, fire-axe-swinging, and pulp novel machismo in the face of monstrosities not meant for the eyes of man.

Annihilation (2018)

Three years ago, something alien crash landed in an isolated, swampy, region of southern America, creating an expanding field of energy known as The Shimmer.

While the government has been able to keep this classified so far, every expedition sent inside to investigate has failed to return.

That is, until special forces operative Kane (Oscar Isaac), the husband of biologist Lena (Natalie Portman), suddenly appears back at their house.

He is unable to tell her anything about where he has been, and quickly falls ill.

As they are being rushed to hospital, the government swoops in and Lena and her dying husband are taken to the Southern Reach, a top secret scientific outpost monitoring the growth of The Shimmer.

In an effort to help save her husband - and understand what happened to him - Lena agrees to accompany a new team venturing into the strange phenomenon.

As they enter, they quickly begin to grasp the extent of the mutative effects of the alien field, not just on the landscape and wildlife, but on themselves.

Released on Netflix today, Annihilation deserves a place amongst the rarefied Lovecraftian horrors of In The Mouth Of Madness, Event Horizon, The Thing et al that encapsulate the style and feel of HP Lovecraft's work without actually being based directly on anything he wrote.

That said, in part, it feels like an updated spin on the Lovecraft classic Colour Out Of Space, with a side order of 2001: A Space Odyssey for flavouring.

Written and directed by Alex Garland - adapted from the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's critically-acclaimed Southern Reach Trilogy - Annihilation initially unfolds beautifully, dazzling with its blend of disorientating sci-fi and atmospheric horror.

From the get-go, it's obvious that this is not a horror film for everyone, it's a slow burn, not relying on jump scares, but rather on the audience imagining themselves in that predicament, as everything they think is true begins to unravel.

However, where the film disappoints is its climactic "kill it with fire" resolution to the unearthly situation, rather than anything more cerebral as one might have hoped after the build-up.

Although blurred - and missing - time is a factor within The Shimmer, towards the climax of Annihilation it's clear that the story has a pacing issue.

While it may not have been able to attract the big name stars, I came away from this eagerly-anticipated film thinking that it would have worked better as, say, a six-part mini-series.

That way we could have been drawn in to, and experienced, the strange goings-on of The Shimmer on a deeper level.

So, while I say it deserves to be counted amongst those other legendary Lovecraftian horror movies, Annihilation is sadly the 'also ran' of the group.

It feels as though Garland couldn't decide whether to go full gonzo - as the set-up deserves - or play it safe with a more commercial horror flick, and in the end settled on something that was a bit of both and a lot of neither.

YellowBrickRoad (2010)

"One morning in New England, 1940, the entire population of Friar, New Hampshire - 572 people - walked together up a winding mountain trail and into the wilderness. They left behind their clothes, their money, all of their essentials. Even their dogs were abandoned, tied to posts and left to starve.

"No-one knows why. A search party dispatched by the U.S. Army eventually discovered the remains of nearly 300 of Friar's evacuees. Many had frozen to death. Others were cruelly and mysteriously slaughtered. The bodies of the remaining citizens are still unaccounted for.

"Over the years, a quiet cover-up operation managed to weave the story of Friar into the stuff of legends and backwoods fairy tales. The town has slowly repopulated, but the vast wilderness is mostly untracked, with the northern-most stretches off limits to local hunters and loggers.

"In 2008, the coordinates for the "YELLOWBRICKROAD" trail head were declassified. The first official expedition into a dark and twisted wilderness will attempt to solve the mystery of the lost citizens of Friar...and reach the end of the trail."

- plot summary from IMDB.

YellowBrickRoad, from the writing/directing team of Andy Mitton and Jess Holland, is frustratingly close to genius.

The powerful set-up (detailed above) had me hooked from the outset with its Lovecraftian overtones and engaging mystery, and this certainly isn't a movie that spoonfeeds answers to its audience.

I love a good mental challenge as much as the next person and films that don't necessarily spell out everything that's going on, but YellowBrickRoad suffers because - in a similar way to Lost - it is ultimately too obscure and obtuse.

While it is certainly a film that will stay with you as you try to ponder what fate befell the inhabitants of Friar - and the contemporary expedition  - I don't believe there are actually enough clues to adequately fill in the gaps.

As the the research team - which includes Smallville's Cassidy Freeman and her brother Clark Freeman (they also executive produced the movie) - get further up the trail, and into the mountains, they hear spectral 1940s music from ahead of them, which gets louder as they head north.

The sounds come and go as the journey progresses, but it appears to be having strange effects on some of the group, including memory loss, increased tension and confusion.

The unnerving suggestion that fixed points, directions and co-ordinates change depending on which way you are heading is the genuine stuff of nightmares.

The cinematography and audio effects are superb, although the editing and direction is occasionally jumpy (this, however, may be a deliberate ploy to heighten the hallucinogenic effects of the trail), that if nothing else makes this a gorgeous horror film to experience (I can only imagine how awesome some sequences - such as the auditory assault on the senses - would have been in a cinema).

We can easily pick up on the effects the music - and possibly even the environment - is having on the walkers, as well as clues such as the co-ordinates of the trailhead, the worn copy of the Wizard Of Oz in the town's picture house, the fact that people in the 1940s sought escape in the cinema etc., which kind of tie-in with the bizarre, rather leftfield ending, but there isn't enough indication of either the 'how' or 'why' to put together our own theories of what is going on.

I think I picked up on all the other Wizard Of Oz references - the scarecrow scene is particularly horrific and well done, but I wish there had been more moments like that (did I miss the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man?).

Not that I necessarily wanted more gore. Great horror can unsettle you by mere suggestion alone (cf. The Haunting) and YellowBrickRoad does do a lot of creepy stuff with its sound effects and surreal disorientation but I think the film was simply too big, too ambitious, for its makers and got away from them in the end.

Stylistically, and thematically, YellowBrickRoad reminded me of two of my favourite horrors - The Blair Witch Project (although thankfully this isn't another 'found footage' movie) and In The Mouth Of Madness - and for the majority its 96 minute run I was convinced that YellowBrickRoad would be joining these two in the ranks of my personal greats.

Then it doesn't so much as fall apart at the end (as I can see where the story was trying to go, with the brief flash of the ghostly images etc) as simply come to a hurried conclusion.

During the build-up I found myself so engrossed in the on-screen developments that I didn't want the film to end and when it did, it did it in a most unsatisfactory, and slightly messed-up, way.

We were left with too many unanswered questions and not even a general suggestion as to where we might find answers.

Yet, for all its faults I can certainly see myself revisiting YellowBrickRoad, just to see if I missed any clues along the way, even though I'm totally convinced I'm never going to get all the answers I'm looking for.

Part of the frustration with this film is that, if you let it, it can really get under your skin. Like it or not, you are not going to forget your journey on the YellowBrickRoad in a hurry.

The Empty Man (2020)

Even though it stumbled a bit in its closing moments, The Empty Man surprised me in ways no other film has managed recently.

Available to stream on Disney Plus, the trailer I'd seen beforehand (see below) suggested this was going to be a totally serviceable "teens discover local urban legend actually exists" monster movie, which I was totally okay with.

But what I got was so much more.

Opening with a 20-minute, pre-titles, atmospheric flashback to a group of backpackers in snowy Bhutan, who stumble upon a weird skeleton in a hidden cave, the film then shifts more towards what I was expecting as its focus jumps forward to a small town in Missouri in 2018.

Grizzled, former police officer James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) offers to help his widowed neighbour Nora Quail (Marin Ireland) - with whom he shares an unspoken secret - find her runaway daughter, Amanda (Sasha Frolova).

Taking on a Nordic noir/True Detective tone, this stage of the story unfolds like a police procedural, as James discovers that almost all Amanda's close friends have also disappeared after playing a "child's game" on a local bridge.

The night before, they'd found an empty bottle on the bridge and dared each other to blow into it... to summon "The Empty Man", a local urban legend.

Eventually, after some shocking revelations, James is led towards a bizarre self-help "cult", The Pontifex Institute, fronted by the charming Arthur Parsons (Stephen Root).

After being caught sneaking around the cult's headquarters, James gets a lead that sends him out to a seemingly abandoned Pontifax Institute facility in the wilderness, where things start to get really bizarre.

Initially, believing The Empty Man to be a "simple" teen horror, I couldn't understand how it could justify a two hour 20 minute running time.

However, once I realised I was in for something rather special the time seemed inconsequential as the story kept reinventing itself as it developed.

A key aspect of this very well made movie that I really appreciated was the conviction with which the characters approached the increasingly odd and distressing situations they were coming up against, giving the whole film a real sense of believability and verisimilitude.

Much like In The Mouth of Madness, with the The Empty Man you suddenly realise you're knee-deep in an incredible, mind-blowing, apocalyptic, nihilistic, Lovecraftian horror, and can't quite remember when you turned down this dark pathway.

Even though The Empty Man isn't overtly based upon any specific story by HP Lovecraft, I'm pretty sure I heard chants of 'Nyarlathotep' at one stage (which certainly makes sense in the context of this tale).

Lovecraft much?

Even a single viewing of The Empty Man requires a degree of concentration to stay on track, but I'm certain that this is a film that would reward a second, closer, examination as I'm sure there were many occult Easter Eggs I missed while on the initial journey.

As the narrative danced towards its final act, it became clear that The Empty Man was borrowing tropes from some of my other favourite horror movies, but it still managed to take a wild swing at putting a fresh lick of paint on its big twist.

Based on a Cullen Bunn comic book series, published by BOOM! Studios, The Empty Man was written and directed by David Prior and was one of the last films produced by Fox before it was brought out by Disney.

Apparently, The Empty Man got a low-key cinematic release, making so little money that even a home DVD release was ruled out as unprofitable.

All that said, The Empty Man is a strange and cerebral horror film so I realise it's not going to appeal to everyone, but I reckon in a few years it may well have spawned its own cult following.

The Whisperer In Darkness (2011)

It should be written into American law that if ever a Hollywood suit has the cockamamie idea of trying to do a big budget adaptation of an HP Lovecraft horror story they should be forced (possibly at gunpoint) to first watch the HP Lovecraft Historical Society's Call Of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness to see how it can be done well and with due respect to the source material.

The Whisperer In Darkness was 2011's cinematic offering from the foremost producers of Lovecraftian replicas and gaming props, The HP Lovecraft Historical Society, and like its predecessor retains its verisimilitude through the use of black and white film - although unlike Call Of Cthulhu this one is a talkie!

Taking Lovecraft's tale as its base, the movie expands the set-up and adds in an entirely original finale to give the story a classic three act structure, rather than ending on the shock revelation of the short story. It also attempts to humanise Lovecraft's protagonist more, giving him an emotional investment and a more 'traditional' Hollywood style ending - while still managing to neatly stitch in a suitably Lovecraftian twist.

The Whisperer In Darkness tells of Miskatonic University folklore professor Albert Wilmarth (Matt Foyer) and his sceptical investigations into supposed 'monster' sightings in the most remote hills of Vermont after some particularly violent flooding.

His search for the truth begins with footprints around the property of the isolated home of Henry Akeley (Barry Lynch) and quickly spirals into madness as he unearths more than he was bargaining for and discovers the future of mankind is at stake.

Like their inspiration, film-makers Sean Branney and Andrew Leman rely primarily on suggestion and atmosphere and it's only really when the true face of the central creatures are revealed in the final act that the excellence of the tale wobbles slightly.

Saving both time and (more importantly) money, the team went with CGI animation for the alien Mi-go instead of the costlier and more time-consuming stop motion (which I get the impression a lot of fans would have preferred).

By no means a deal breaker, but there is no escaping the truth right in front of your eyes when you watch the movie that the CGI Mi-go, especially in close-up, really stand apart from the rest of the film (and not in a good way).

We'd waited a long time for this movie to appear (more than two years I believe since the original announcements and teasers) and I'd have gladly waited longer, but I totally understand the HPLHS's desire to get the film done and for a decent budget (as it is Sandy Petersen, creator of the Call Of Cthulhu RPG had to step in and help with the funding to get the movie finished).

They also, rather cheekily, added in a new, most 'unLovecraftian' character in the form of a little girl, Hannah (Autumn Wendel), whose life is in jeopardy because of the alien creatures in the hills, and Wilmarth takes her under his wing and attempts to protect her from a possible fate worse than death.

Whether he succeeds is for you to find out when you purchase the movie directly from the HPLHS. The two-disc DVD set includes a disc chock full of extra features including a bevy of informative behind-the-scenes documentaries, trailers and deleted scenes.

You won't regret the purchase. This ranks as one of the strongest adaptations of Lovecraft's stories of indescribable monsters and things man was not supposed to know.

Outside of HPLHS's own productions, the only live-action Lovecraftiana  at that time that came close to getting under my skin - as Lovecraft's words have the power to do - were John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness and Cigarette Burns (from the TV series Masters Of Horror), even though neither of these are actually Lovecraft stories, and Stuart Gordon's Dagon and Dreams In The Witch-House, the latter also from Masters of Horror.

Thus John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon would be exempt from my proposed law above; everyone else - watch these movies before you dare even contemplate trying to bring Lovecraft to the big, or small, screen yourself.

Rabid (2019)

After an argument with her best friend, vegetarian wallflower and aspiring fashion designer Rose (Laura Vandervoort aka Smallville's Supergirl) is hideously disfigured in a road traffic accident.

During her recuperation, she learns of an experimental private medical centre, run by the not-at-all-sinister Dr William (yes, I see what they did there) Burroughs (Ted Atherton).

After undergoing cutting-edge stem cell treatment and remarkable restorative plastic surgery, Rose emerges full-on Vandervoort gorgeous.

However, upon returning home, she is troubled by crippling stomach pains and increasingly gruesome nightmares.

Unfortunately, for everyone she comes into contact with, they are not nightmares and she is actually patient zero for an outbreak of superfast, mutated rabies which spreads through the city like wildfire.

A retelling of David Cronenberg's original 1977 body horror classic, Jen and Sylvia Soska‘s Rabid is a phenomenal and shocking tale that takes its audience to some surprising places along its visceral journey.

Featuring everything from Lovecraftian mad science to unstoppable plague zombies, this ticks a lot of boxes for me.

As the mayhem escalates - with the mutated strain of rabies engulfing the city - there's almost an In The Mouth Of Madness level of existential dread, which is then compounded by the film's bleak denouement.

The not-too-subtle critique of body-shaming and vanity is wryly amusing, with several of the supporting roles teetering on the brink of being arch.

Nicely paced and cleverly shot, blurring hallucinations (such as the Silent Hill/music video sequence) with gruesome reality, the action in Rabid may take some time to get going but the central performances never fail to draw the audience in.

As well as a number of the characters carrying over their names from the original, the Soska Sisters's Rabid is sprinkled with Cronenberg-related Easter Eggs, such as the use of  the name of William Burroughs alluding to Cronenberg's adaptation of his famous novel Naked Lunch and the red surgical gowns worn during Rose's operation are a clear nod to Jeremy Irons's gowns in Dead Ringers.

MONSTER MAYHEM: Prince of Darkness (1987)

When the last member of a secret Catholic sect, The Brother of Sleep, dies before he can nominate a successor, a nameless priest (Halloween's Donald Pleasence) discovers what the sect has been concealing under a seemingly abandoned church in Los Angeles.

He finds a subterranean laboratory containing a large, sealed cylinder of swirling green liquid and an ancient book of encoded warnings.

The priest seeks assistance from quantum physicist, Professor Howard Birack (Big Trouble in Little China's Victor Wong), who enlists a team of students and fellow scientists to investigate the impossible liquid.

As hordes of vagrant, street people - led by Alice Cooper - gather around the building, some of the liquid escapes, defying gravity and dripping upwards, before infecting one of the students, Susan (Anne Howard).

She then embarks on a conversion and killing spree in the shadowy corridors of the old building.

Meanwhile, Lisa (Ann Yen) translates the mysterious book, revealing a very HP Lovecraft reimaging of the Bible, with God, Jesus, and The Devil actually being extra-terrestrial entities.

The tightly sealed, millennia-old, canister - which, it turns out, can only be opened from the inside - is said to contain "The Devil" and should he escape he plans to open a portal to the "Dark Side" and liberate his imprisoned "father", The Anti-God.

Alice Cooper leads his horde of possessed street people to besiege the scientists in the old church

Prince of Darkness is the second - and weakest - in John Carpenter's Lovecraft-influenced, self-styled, Apocalypse Trilogy, bookended by two of the greatest horror films ever made, 1982's The Thing and 1994's In The Mouth of Madness.

Compared to Carpenter's better works, Prince of Darkness is narratively a bit of a mess, yet still highly entertaining, occasionally quite gruesome, and centred around a really intriguing concept.

From the first notes of the film's score, the font used in the credits, and the way it's shot, you know this is a John Carpenter movie.

Prince of Darkness shares tropes with the other parts of his Apocalypse Trilogy, such as the 'scientists in a base under siege' setting of The Thing, and the questioning of reality as evidenced in In The Mouth of Madness.

Given my love and admiration for these latter two movies, I'll admit it's a bit of surprise that this is the first time I've actually seen Prince of Darkness, but, honestly, it pales to comparison to those other flawless masterpieces.

While the core concept is a fascinating idea, Carpenter's actual script and some of the performances are not up to the level we'd normally expect from a piece of his art.

It's hard to believe that the "comic relief" character of student Walter Fong is played by the same Dennis Dun who was so good as Kurt Russell's co-lead in the previous year's Big Trouble In Little China.

Ignoring the mostly failed attempts at humour (such as the running "who's Susan?" gag and Walter Fong's casual racism), the characters don't feel as developed as one would hope (Donald Pleasence's priest doesn't even have a name, for crying out loud).

There's also an uncomfortable 'romance' between two of the main students, the reticent Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount) and moustachioed stalker Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) that strongly suggested - to me - that Marsh was going to turn out to be a "bad guy" and get his well-deserved "comeuppence". But it turns out he was just an '80s dude!

Conversely, this frisson between Brian and Catherine heightened the heroic sacrifice of the movie's climax and certainly makes sure Prince of Darkness goes out with a bang.

MONSTER MAYHEM: The Tingler (1959)

Horror icon Vincent Price stars in director William Castle's The Tingler, a very Lovecraftian tale of weird science and creatures that feed on fear inside the human body.

The movie opens with Castle addressing the audience, warning them that some will feel similar effects to those experienced by the characters on the screen and the only way to shake this off is to scream!

What he doesn't mention is that when this delightful B-movie was first being shown in the 1950s some seats in the auditoriums were wired up with electrical buzzers to give anyone sitting in them "the tingles" at key moments in the film.

Price plays pathologist Dr Warren Chapin, whose experiments into the nature of fear reveal a parasite growing inside every human being - a tingler - that feeds off a person's fear until it grows strong enough to kill them (i.e. dying of fright).

Because he devotes all his time to his research, his wife, Isabel Stevens Chapin (Patricia Cutts), a rich heiress that he suspects of poisoning her father, is blantantly cheating on him, but the doctor draws her into a cruel experiment which helps him prove the existence of the tingler.

Through his work, he has befriended Oliver Higgins (Philip Coolidge), who operates a silent movie theatre with his deaf and mute wife, Martha (a stellar performance from Judith Evelyn).

The tingler's only weakness is the sound of a human scream, but Dr Chapin realises that because Martha cannot scream she would make a great test subject for his experiments.

After conducting a failed test on himself, with a shot of LSD (the drug's first depiction in a major motion picture) to induce fearful hallucinations, Chapin then turns his attention to Martha - little realising that the creepy vibes her husband is always giving off isn't just because he's a lush.

Dr Chapin trippin' on LSD

For an 82-minute weird science and monster movie from master showman William Castle - penned by his frequent collaborator Robb White - the story of The Tingler is surprisingly layered, and elements that could easily be dismissed as "that's just because it's a B-movie" are actually justified and explained in the script.

Other exquisite Castle touches include an unexpected splash of colour in this otherwise black and white movie and some delightfully meta sequences during the movie's climax in the auditorium of Oliver and Martha's movie theatre.

The cinema is screening an old silent movie, but every so often Dr Chapin has to stop the film - turning the screen we are watching black - and announcing in voice-over that there is a tingler on the loose. I can only imagine what a hit this trick was watching it all unfold in an actual cinema in the 1950s.

As to the tingler itself, it's a two-foot long, bulky, rubbery centipede creature with a pair of enormous pincers at its head, very similar to an enlarged version of the parasites that tried to take over Star Fleet in the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Conspiracy (and were never mentioned ever again!)

Yes, The Tingler is cheesy by modern standards and the monster effects quite basic, yet it still sits comfortably in the ranks of movies that feel like they were based upon the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft (like In The Mouth of Madness and The Thing) but have, in fact, tapped into their own, very similar, vein of horror.

The tingler in all its rubbery glory

Now You CAN Read Sutter Cane

Sutter Cane's Most Anticipated Novel Has Arrived

In the Mouth of Madness is the long-lost novel fans have been waiting for.

Readers of his earlier books (The Hobbs End Horror, The Thing in the Basement, The Breathing Tunnel, Haunter in the Dark, The Feeding and The Whisperer of the Dark) will recognize his signature blend of psychological terror and cosmic dread.

Sutter Cane has always been a figure shrouded in mystery. Critics have called his writing "dangerously immersive" and "deeply infectious." Although sales records are incomplete or missing, many believe he has outsold every living author.

The story follows John Trent, an insurance investigator assigned to find Sutter Cane after his sudden disappearance. What begins as a simple missing person case soon spirals into a nightmare. Trent learns that Cane's fiction doesn't just reflect reality, it may shape it.

Will you read Sutter Cane?

John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness is one of the greatest horror movies of all time, a loving homage to the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft (the grandfather of modern horror) that also embraces Stephen King (the father of modern horror, whose own work was heavily influenced by Lovecraft).

The film follows insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) in his pursuit of missing author Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), who has vanished just ahead of the publication of his latest work, In The Mouth of Madness.

Trent believes the whole thing is an elaborate publicity stunt, an idea reinforced when he realises that images on the covers of previous Cane novels form a map to Cane's fictional town of Hobb's End.

For years, fans of the 1994 movie have been wanting a 'real' version of Cane's novel, In The Mouth of Madness. And now, as of October 1, the book can be yours!

Ghost-written by Christian Francis, the book is being released by Echo On the horror-centric publisher  masquerading as Arcane Publishing (Sutter Cane's 'in-universe' publisher).

Arcane's website bears this warning:

"Cane’s works have an undeniable effect on those who dare to read them. If you have experienced disorientation after reading any his books, please contact our support team immediately."

Below is a gallery of the covers of Cane's novels as depicted in the film: