In 1995 John Carpenter released In the Mouth of Madness, an “End of times we’re all gonna die terrible deaths in Lovecraftian style” story. It was and still is one of my favorite horror movies. My brother started asking me to rollout my own take on the movie poster since I was not a big fan of the original movie poster. Like usual I gave into my brother’s request. The original In the Mouth of Madness poster just didn’t allude to Lovecraft. Nothing says Lovecraft more than Cthulhu and tentacles. I browsed thru my own library of images to find a suitable model to start the illustration off and finally found one of Lucile Fur, in the original shot Lucile is hungrily devouring a Devil’s Food cake and looking quite happy doing so. Base found. Next I thought “what would be good for her to be doing? Stuffing souls down her throat”? No, In the Mouth of Madness is about the Elder Gods coming through into our world. So, with that said I’ll have the damsel in distress vomiting forth a gaggle of writhing slimy tentacles and have her pupils double ( actually in the movie). From the start I wanted a color scheme that invoked horror and though I’ve read purple and black do well for pushing horror I decided Orange and Black would be my major players, the colors of Halloween, c’mon it’s Horror! As a little detail I have above each orange line another toss back to the movie a recurring line “Do You Read Sutter Cain”? Well. Do you?
In the Mouth of Madness is John Carpenters third apocalypse inspired film. The other two are The Thing and The Prince of Darkness below are Alternative Movie Posters I’ve done for those as well.
I love doing Alternative Movie Posters. Currently working on an AMP for Hellraiser and one for the latest Mad Max, I promise neither will be “Mediocre”. You can find some of the posters I’ve done under Illustrations. I do sell prints of these posters and I do commissioned pieces as well. If either interests you email me at Jerry.Winnett@gmail.com
