Saturday, June 20, 2020


¡QUÉ HORROR2020
Candidate #6

COLOR OUT OF SPACE
(September 2019)


... and then there was this ‘Boom!’ like, like, like a sonic boom, and a big flash, like a pink light…
“Or actually, I don’t even know what color it was, it wasn’t like any color I’d ever seen before, and then everything just blew up, or fell from the sky…”

The Gardners are working through a trying family situation when things get really effed up after a meteorite crash lands on their isolated alpaca farm in Richard Stanley’s outstanding Color Out of Space.

Being a huge fan of Stanley’s lo-fi SF classic Hardware, I was understandably both anxious and hopeful when news broke of his intent to adapt H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” so I’m frankly relieved that the film came out spectacularly, and that I loved it as much as I do.

Stanley and co-writer Scarlett Amaris refract familial dynamics through the kaleidoscope of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, shining that unearthly-colored light into the cracks and crevices of the fault lines that run through any family (no matter how apparently well-adjusted), to uncover the wriggling mutations that breed in the darkness of neglect, misunderstanding, and generational trauma.

Produced by SpectreVision (Go, Frodo!), this is a hallucinatory, unsettling, and mind-blowing first taste of what Stanley hopes will, heh, evolve into a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations.
So, yes, hopefully more where this came from!

“Drink? I’m having one.”

Parting Shot 1:
Not only do we have a cast that includes Joely Richardson, Tommy Chong, Nicolas Cage, and a menagerie of animal actors with awesome names like Rowan, Lucifer, Xibanga, Bruno, and Ulisses, we also get a significant appearance of the so-called “Simon Necronomicon,” which my brothers and I actually had a copy of (the Avon paperback, if memory serves me correctly) way back when…

Parting Shot 2:
There’s also more Lovecraft to be had this year, with HBO’s adaptation of Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country, scheduled for an August release.
Co-produced by J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele, Lovecraft Country more directly engages with the writer’s more problematic views on race.

Parting Shot 3:
Stanley’s adaptation makes a fine double feature with Alex Garland’s Annihilation
Just saying…

(Color Out of Space OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

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