Midnight Session n°4 : The Color Out Of Space

“The color out of space” is a short story by Howard Philips Lovecraft published in 1927.
This rather short story tells how a strange meteorite, with a very particular color, will bring chaos to a small farm in New England.

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As you read this story, you say to yourself that it would be very complicated to adapt it to the cinema, so much it plays on unknown concepts and indescribable forms, that it would be very difficult, if not impossible to bring the screen to life.
While this isn’t the first time that this news has tried to be adapted, or at least in part (“The Curse” with Wil Wheaton), the trailer for Richard Stanley’s latest film looked really promising. As fans of Lovecraft’s stories, I couldn’t wait to find out.

Welcome everyone to this new Midnight Session!

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“The color out of space” is directed by Richard Stanley, whose last feature film, “Dust Devil” dates back to 1992. Very good film that I highly recommend to you by the way, with the excellent “Hardware” of 1991. Passionate about magic and everything related to the occult, Stanley (not the Marvel guy) has also made many documentaries on this subject. (Difficult to give you an opinion, I haven’t seen them).

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With “Color out of space” he finds himself at the helm of a film in which horror will slowly creep in.
We follow the misadventure of the Gardner family, whose relations between each member are rather tense and will also have to deal with a strange contamination of their environment following the crash of a meteorite.

If at first it is the children who realize the danger that creeps into their lives, the parents will quickly realize that something is wrong:

• Strange colored vegetation;
• Strange insect;
• Mutant animals …

So many things that will get the better of their sanity, particularly that of the father of a family, alpaca ranchers who objectively could not be better interpreted than by a freewheeling Nicholas Cage in moments of madness.

This film is a real gem, which takes the time to deepen its characters, to install its story and to take us into this cosmic delirium with shimmering colors and monstrous creatures, which will not be without reminding us of the brilliant “The Thing ”by Jhon Carpenter, thanks to some old-fashioned animated models, to scenes of transformations, but also because the threat is invisible there, using its environment to create a physical form giving it all a dimension absolutely terrifying!

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This film is a real success. Bringing Lovecraft’s short story to life was not easy. The odd color that pervaded his surroundings was surely what was most difficult to convey to the screen. By choosing a mix of purple and pink, it creates a hypnotic ambience that perfectly matches what is described in the original story.
Of course, the director takes a few distances by adding certain elements specific to his universe which are perfectly grafted to that of Lovecraft.
The couple’s young daughter, passionate about occult science, uses the formulas of the Necronomicon (a fictional book invented by Lovecraft that some occult enthusiasts believe to be true).

Visually superb and inventive, full of humor and scary scenes, “The color out of space” is an all too rare cinema experience, which if you let yourself be carried along, will take you into a hallucinated spiral of madness from which you will not come out. unharmed.

If like me you enjoyed this film, know that the production company of Elijah Wood, Spectrevision, already responsible for this film to sign an agreement with Richard Stanley to adapt two other novels of Lovecraft. If these films are of the same ilk, I can’t wait to see them!
And if the success is at the rendezvous, we can, perhaps, hope that the adaptation project of “At the Montain Madness” by Guillermo del Toro is relaunched!