The Color(NOT Colour) Out of Space

 

Reviewed by Paris

(The Colour Out of Space was published in 1927, I will not be making an attempt to avoid spoilers)

I am going to be straight with you.  This movie is excellent.  Follows the original story pretty well(for the most part), and actually uses excerpts from the text of the story in the opening, and the ending, as well as in a character's death.

I loved the use of the text from the story, particularly Nahum's final words(which were uttered by a new character to the movie), which I have always adored in the story.  And they were presented with all the wonder and horror they deserved.

“Nothin’ . . . nothin’ . . . the colour . . . it burns . . . cold an’ wet . . . but it burns . . . it lived in the well . . . I seen it . . . a kind o’ smoke . . . jest like the flowers last spring . . . the well shone at night . . . Thad an’ Mernie an’ Zenas . . . everything alive . . . suckin’ the life out of everything . . . in that stone . . . it must a’ come in that stone . . . pizened the whole place . . . dun’t know what it wants . . . that round thing them men from the college dug outen the stone . . . they smashed it . . . it was that same colour . . . jest the same, like the flowers an’ plants . . . must a’ ben more of ’em . . . seeds . . . seeds . . . they growed . . . I seen it the fust time this week . . . must a’ got strong on Zenas . . . he was a big boy, full o’ life . . . it beats down your mind an’ then gits ye . . . burns ye up . . . in the well water . . . you was right about that . . . evil water . . . Zenas never come back from the well . . . can’t git away . . . draws ye . . . ye know summ’at’s comin’, but ’tain’t no use . . . I seen it time an’ agin senct Zenas was took . . . whar’s Nabby, Ammi? . . . my head’s no good . . . dun’t know how long senct I fed her . . . it’ll git her ef we ain’t keerful . . . jest a colour . . . her face is gettin’ to hev that colour sometimes towards night . . . an’ it burns an’ sucks . . . it come from some place whar things ain’t as they is here . . . one o’ them professors said so . . . he was right . . . look out, Ammi, it’ll do suthin’ more . . . sucks the life out. . . .”

I get chills when I read it in the story, and it's every bit as good when presented here in this movie.  The narrator and observer in this movie uses quotes from the beginning and ending of the story to open and close out the movie.  Which....Doesn't quite fit.  This florid old language coming out of this young guy in a year close to this one.

And yes, Ward Phillips, from Providence, reads Algernon Blackwood, I get it, the narrator is Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

And this is where crabby Paris is going to come in.  Why the hell did it take place in a modern age?  Even Lovecraft when he wrote the story in 1927, couldn't make it work in present time, and the whole story is related to the surveyor by someone else, and it took place 30 years earlier.    Did they seriously drink water out of that well?  They must have because the daughter complains why couldn't they just buy bottled water?
And what the hell is with Lovecraft Homages trying to shove as many little references in as they can?  Aside from the narrator being from Providence and reading Blackwood, lets see what else they put in:
The daughter's name is Lavinia?  The woman from The Dunwich Horror who was impregnated by Yog Sothoth?(The girl the the movie vomits a few times, I thought they were going to imply she was pregnant)
The weather report rattles off landmarks in Lovecraft Country, Innsmouth, Dunwich, Kingsport.
The squatter's name is Ezra, a character in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

The Daughter has a copy of the Necronomicon(I have that book actually)
Or how about the news van's logo being the fucking Elder Sign?(The original, not Derleth's modification)
Those are some of the things I noticed.  I hate it when these kind of things get shoved in, because then I feel like I have to pay close attention and pick up everything

The father in the story has his name changed from Nahum to Nathan, which I guess makes more sense, because it takes place in about two thousand fucking nineteen, but he has been reduced to a poor copy of Jack Torrance(I also always liked the name Nahum being an anagram of Human.  Feels important)  

ultimately though, it is a great movie, nitpicks aside.  It goes a little crazy at times in ways Lovecraft never would, but I thought it still worked well and built upon his masterpiece.