The Color Out of Space accomplishes the difficult feat of capturing Lovecraft's tone and basic story with terror that infects your mind! It is based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story that was published in 1927. There are a number of adaptations of the Lovecraft story. The first was the loosely based horror movie Die, Monster, Die! (1965). It is available on Amazon Prime. Stephen King’s short story, “Weeds” has some resemblance to H.P. Lovecraft. It was later adapted into the segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” in the film anthology Creepshow (1982). Then, the horror movie, The Curse (1987). Stephen King played Jody Verrill. The new Creepshow series is on Amazon Prime.
In 2010, there was a German film, Die Farbe, “The Color” that was retitled “H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space.” It is also streaming on Amazon Prime. If you are interested in Lovecraft-type films, read The Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft (2006), not updated. Always a word of caution, H.P. Lovecraft’s writings are not for the casual horror fan, they are dark, racist, and misogynist, but a reader has to be conscious of Lovecraft’s weaknesses to appreciate his brilliance. The film is written and directed by Richard Stanley, who also directed the sci fi movie, Hardware (1990), and was fired as director for The Island of Doctor Moreau (1996). He plans a trilogy of Lovecraft films with an adaptation of The Dunwich Horror.
The movie starts with disjointed synthesizers from Colin Stetson until we get a foggy forest. A narrator explains that this forest is west of Arkham. It is the fictional town that was created by Lovecraft and contains Miskatonic University. The words are direct from H.P. Lovecraft. At a beach is a white horse tied to a tree and a woman (Madeleine Arthur) in a white robe and dark blue cloak around a circle of stones. Arthur is in the sci fi series, Snowpiercer. She is performing a ceremony holding up a compass and calling out names of what seem to be angels. A man (Elliot Knight) is walking up a path with a pack at his side listening to her. Knight played Brady Ross in the horror show, American Gothic, and I recognize him playing the title character in the Sky1 fantasy series, Sinbad. He wears a Miskatonic University t-shirt. She calls on fire to burn a locket of hair to eliminate the cancer of her mother, Teresa Gardner. The woman is startled by the man walking up to her and he apologizes.
He introduces himself as Ward Phillips, a surveyor, and he seems to know about rituals. She says her name is Lavinia Gardener and rides away on her horse. Lavinia rides up to her house and farm of alpacas. In a rocking chair, is her father, Nathan (Nicolas Cage) with glasses, who is concerned that she rode off without a helmet and boots. Cage was in the crime drama, Running with the Devil (2019). Lavinia’s mother, Teresa (Joely Richardson), appears and asks about her brother. She rides away to the stable where she finds her brother, Benny (Brendan Meyer), smoking. Meyer was in the fantasy show, The OA. He has found their grandfather’s goggles and says that Lavinia took his compass. Her younger brother, Jack (Julian Hilliard), is staring down a well. The family besides the mother, is all gathered at the dinner table, he has prepared cassoulet. In the dusty attic, Teresa is having a conversation through her desktop about stocks, her husband calls up to her about dinner. The father goes down to the basement to find some wine. After the dinner, Nathan joins Teresa on the porch looking out at the foggy outdoors that is slowly becoming dark. It is a quiet moment with this married couple.
Night has set, the house is still bright with lights, Lavinia has a restless sleep. Benny is looking at star charts on his computer. In their dark bedroom, Nathan calls his wife, his “Golden Lady”, and they kiss. Benny’s dog, Sam, starts whimpering. Jack is holding is T-Rex stuffie frightened. There is an unusual swirl of purple in the night sky above the house. Jack walks out his room to see Sam in the hallway when a strange, pink light appears behind him. It starts to appear everywhere in the house including on a copy of the Necronomicon in Lavinia’s room. This is the eldritch book that is found in Lovecraft's stories. Jack is crouched on the floor trying to cover his eyes when there is a burst of light. The alien light seems to strike the house wakening up everyone. Nathan and Teresa find Jack, but he seems stunned, Nathan picks him up as Benny and Lavinia join them. Outside, there is a pinkish meteor buried with Sam watching over it. Nathan checks it out, says there is a strange smell, and they have to rush back to check on Jack. The child is catatonic, unresponsive, Teresa wants to take him to a hospital.
All of the sounds become muted, we focus on Jack, and then he snaps out of it. The boy is a bit like the young boy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). In the morning, Jack looks outside of his window at an approaching police car, Benny is poking it with a tiny branch. Nathan says to his visitors that the smell is “like someone lit a dog on fire.” The group includes Mayor Tooma (Q’orianka Kilcher) and Sheriff Pierce (Josh C. Waller). The sheriff strikes the meteorite with a branch and hears a metallic ring. Lavinia sees Ward and brings him to meet her father. Then, Ward goes to check on the meteor now the color of dirt, but still smoking. The mayor and sheriff leave. Lavinia walks into the house and Teresa says it looked like she has fallen for Ward. Then, Nathan goes to milk the alpacas, and then sends Benny to show Ward over to the squatter, Ezra (Tommy Chong). He was recently in the comedy film, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. The surveyor wants to take samples of the water. A storm rolls in, Lavinia is outside watching the lightning strike the meteorite! Ezra seems to understand what is happening, Ward is the voice of science, and the family becomes sick and driven by the madness of the otherworldly presence. The concept design and visual effects are by User T38. Color Out of Space has the eeriness of Lovecraft's weird fiction and there is some horror from the alien corruption!
Four Colors out of Five!
#TheColorOutofSpace, #RichardStanley, #HPLovecraft, #NicholasCage
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