Continued catching up the John Carpenter movies I hadn’t seen before. A Sam Neill double bill
Yesterday I watched In the Mouth of Madness. Here Sam Neill is the protagonist. It’s very silly, and doesn’t quite get across what I think the writer intended, but there’s a lot of creepy practical effects. Also the film features Francis Bay, who completely the trifector of being in an episode of Seinfeld, a John Carpenter movie and a recurring(?) character in Twin Peaks. I mean, she’s in one episode and the movie. That counts as reccuring, right?
Today I watched Memoirs of an Invisible Man, which is probably the least Carpenter-y of his movies. Sam Neill plays the villain here, a CIA agent trying to capture the invisible man (Chevy Chase, who looks absolutely bored of being on screen, even by his low standards). The effects are kind of fun, but really dated-looking. Apparently Ivan Reitman was the original director but kept arguing with Chevy Chase, and it really shows that Carpenter was kind of phoning it in a bit. Also a bit of a treat to see Jim Norton (aka Bishop Brennan from Father Ted) make an appearance! Looking at Norton’s imdb page, he’s been in so much stuff, but I’d only knowingly seen him in Father Ted before today.
