In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

All hell breaks loose (or does it?) in this John Carpenter chiller, which charts a nightmarish course through levels of unreality. Sam Neill plays an insurance investigator searching for a missing novelist. The writer's books supposedly have the power to drive people murderously mad, but our hero doesn't believe it — until he discovers a sleepy New England town where the children are flesh-eating zombies and hideous monsters pour out of a bottomless pit. If you missed In the Mouth of Madness in theaters — but caught Carpenter's more recent Village of the Damned — you'll be surprised at the difference in quality between the two. Madness is Carpenter's best movie in years. B+