Carpenter likes to have complete control over his movies, and in his early days, he had just that (that’s part of the reason his name frequently appeared before the movie’s title). But studio interference became a real concern for the filmmaker as his career continued, and apparently, the producers of “In the Mouth of Madness” didn’t quite get what Carpenter was going for with his fright flick. While speaking with Variety, Carpenter was asked if he ran into any problems on “In the Mouth of Madness.” First, the filmmaker talked about the issues with working with rubber monsters: “Well, when you work with a bunch of rubber, which we did on that film, there are always problems making it not look so ridiculous because it is ridiculous: There’s a bunch of rubber moving around!” Then, he moved on to the issue of studio notes.
“That movie had some interesting notes when I showed the final cut to the studio and, oh man,” he said, continuing:
“The head of the studio wanted to gut it and throw it out, said it didn’t work. And I thought, ‘What the hell are you talking about? We can’t. This is the movie.’ I didn’t want to throw out Hobb’s End, I was in such shock. I’ve gotten some great notes. Let me tell you, just great.” (Laughs)
Hobb’s End refers to a cursed town the main characters find themselves in during the course of the film, and the scenes in Hobb’s End comprise a huge chunk of the movie. “Throwing them out,” as seems to have been the suggestion from the studio, would’ve completely ruined the film and blown up the narrative. Thankfully, Carpenter won out in the end, and “In the Mouth of Madness” has stood the test of time to be remembered as one of his great films (at least by me).