Checked out the new horror flick Color Out of Space based on the HP Lovecraft short story The Colour Out of Space. Rented it on iTunes but is probably streaming elsewhere too. This is not the first filmed version of the story nor remotely the first movie inspired by it either.
Color Out of Space is about a meteorite that lands on an isolated farm. Soon mysterious things start to happen, the land and water gets soured, and people start to go a little loony. The farmer can only describe what he saw as being a color but not any color he’s ever seen. Apparently the story was inspired by creating a truly alien concept, unlike most stories of the time which used traditional bug-eyed monster for their aliens.
It’s no doubt hard to adapt a story where the antagonist is described as a color you’ve never seen. This movie does a pretty good job at depicting the menace within the practical limitations of being a visual medium. It seems that magenta is what they went with for their alien presence… which turns out to be a kind of creepy color to paint nature with so the movie does its best in that regard. Not only does the landscape go purple, but the air and visual hallucinations too. It’s about as good as anyone could probably do and maintain the stories concept.
But the film made a big mistake in casting Nicolas Cage as their beleaguered farmer. For one thing, he’s not a convincing farmer so they recast him as a city type who has decided to retire to the wilderness with his family. So fine – this is a film adaptation, they don’t have to stick with what was in the short story. But they also hired Nic Cage to do his weirdo Nic Cage thing and that, this time, really puts the film on crutches. Because the film otherwise doesn’t have Nic Cage’s loopy energy or goofy line readings. They needed someone with a more grounded creepyiness than a batshit Cage performance.
Color otherwise makes a good effort at adapting the weirdness of an HP Lovecraft adaptation. It’s not perfect and there’s certainly some budget limitations. But it tries and there’s a long history of bad, low budget adaptations that have fared far worse (and some that are a lot better… looking at your Re-Animator).
I understand this is the first of a planning interconnected trilogy of Lovecraft-inspired movies. Certainly the film takes the time to name-drop Arkham (the town, not the Batman prison), Innsmouth, and Dunwich… all locations referenced in his Cthulhu mythos. Apparently they are working on The Dunwich Horror next. So part of me roots for this movie to do well enough on streaming to continue the plan.
So… I think if you are a Lovecraft fan on any level, this is worth at least trying. If, for no other reason, than to support a good-faith effort at making a quality adaptation. It doesn’t succeed entirely and they made some casting mistakes, but I think it’s an earnest attempt.
Score: 76