In The Mouth Of Event Horizon

This is an inspired fanedit! "In The Mouth of Madness" is a wonderful film, Carpenter's last great movie, and while this edit doesn't try to replace it, it gives it a fun new twist. There are a couple niggles, points that the rotoscoping/motion-tracking looked too obvious or slightly twitchy, but the majority of the work is solid and impressive. Recommended for horror fans.

The idea of In the Mouth of Event Horizon, I think, sounds good on paper but in practice didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Both films star Sam Neill, and both movies focus on his characters descent into madness, but that's where the similarities end.

It was basically watching In the Mouth of Madness with bits of Event Horizon sprinkled in. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it begs the question as to why? If it doesn't improve and/or change the narrative I'm not sure what the point was, and this edit accomplishes neither. The shots from Event Horizon don't add anything to Carpenter's film.

That's not to say this is a bad edit. The video and audio quality are fine and I didn't notice any cuts. The special effect changes were really well done and to be honest I was quite impressed by them. That said, I didn't feel like I was watching anything different than "In the Mouth of Madness".

I'm happy I watched this fanedit, I enjoyed it, though I feel the narrative suffered from the inclusion of "Event Horizon" since it didn't really add anything.

Do I recommend the edit? Sure. Why not? But I don't think it's one I need to see again.

Overview - An inspired concept here. Editing In The Mouth Of Madness, and adding sequences from Event Horizon. At first thought, one would doubt this would be a wise combination. Yet both films are major reality disconnects, and the linking device is focusing primarily on Sam Neill’s characters. Turns out RollWave is onto something.

Video - From smooth transitions to jarring, hard cuts, everything works. A few of the edits were diabolically clever, passageways in particular. Near the end, watch for visual easter eggs. Brilliant.

Audio - Very good work combining two different sound designs. I watched the mkv file and the sound was a detailed 5.1. Only problem I had was with sections of dialogue, particularly Jürgen Prochnow’s mumbling. I dialed the volume up, invariably just before an avalanche of sound. Can’t fault RollWave for this, but for those with sensitive eared roommates, be forewarned.

Narrative - This is not an equal sharing of movies. The burden of the edit is in Carpenter’s film, which is the far stronger film, in intelligence, in plot, in acting. All to the good. The additional scenes from Event Horizon enhance the breakdowns of characters. These are often hard cuts, but character reactions sync perfectly. The story of spiraling descent into derangement, individual and societal, stays on track throughout.

Enjoyment - I did not think I would like this. Wasn’t until I scanned favorable and insightful reviews that I took the plunge. This is not a replacement for Carpenter’s original film, but it is an astounding parallel version. For those who may be turned off by Event Horizon, the best scenes seemed to have been used, and inserted judiciously.

Most entertaining, intelligent Horror labyrinth. Superlative effort.

This edit is an absolute blast! This is best seen without spoilers so I'll keep this review brief...

The blend of the two horror-movies is freaky as hell but never feels illogical. The FX shots are astounding, you would never know anything had been changed.

The altered painting and the intercutting of the corridor are jaw dropping. Plus it's always a total fanediting thrill to make a character from one movie, look at something from another movie... and this has that in spades!

One small negative would be the narrative, which is sometimes a bit hard to follow but I'm sure this is mostly down to the source movie (And probably deliberate, given the subject of insanity). Lastly, the editing of the visuals and the audio is both technically and creatively perfect.

I'm not the biggest horror buff around, but I do really like In the Mouth of Madness and Event Horizon, so this edit got my interest. I absolutely loved it. The visual editing is just incredible and worth watching for that alone. The audio editing is great, no issues. Picture is perfect. The story works amazingly well. The only issues I had were the inclusion of the In the Mouth of Madness opening credits along with the custom credits. It looks a little odd to have "Directed by John Carpenter and Paul Anderson" followed by "Directed by John Carpenter". And there is a strange edit around 15:45. I know it was a necessary cut, but could have been smoothed out a bit more.

But those are very minor quibbles and this is a great edit. I love seeing this kind of creativity by someone who really has some amazing technical skill. Can't wait to see what RollWave does next.