The Color Out Of Space: Worth the Time

17th July, 2018.

OK, I’m definitely on to something, there.

That light?   The one Photo Booth seems to like me having on, when I record a video of myself?

Don’t half glare.

Possibly that’s my own fault for not wanting to switch the main light on.

Whatever.

At any rate … ?

It’s a Tuesday night.

Various bits and bobs have been done.

Including the fixing of my bathroom light.

You know?   The one that was only fitted a few months ago, by the chap who did my electricity check?

Yeah, you’d think a bulb would last, won’t you … ?

At additional any rate … ?!

I’ve ALSO got Japan’s Gentleman Take Polaroids on in the background.

Track 7: Nightporter, if you must know.

Strikes me the band put a lot of work into that, and a handful of other, tunes.

But that possibly suits my mood, right now.

Mildly sleepy, slightly mournful … 

And having watched a film: the 2010 movie adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft short story, the Huan Vu directed, The Colour Out of Space.

And yes: it’s slow …

~≈§≈~

The Colour Out of Space — Die Farbe, in the original German — replaces the unnamed surveyor in the short story with with a young man called Jonathon Davis (Ingo Heise): a young man searching for his father.

Davis senior?

Has decided to re-visit a small village in the Swabian-Franconian Forest Where he’d been stationed during the war.

And been told stories, by the locals.

Of how a meteorite had crashed on the Gärtener family farm.

And how something had got into the soil in the area, as a result.

Pears?

Shouldn’t be that size … 

~≈§≈~

Now … 

Good?

And slow?

Let’s take slow, first, call we?

Yes: even though The Color Out Of Space* is only 85 minutes, it’s somewhat slowly paced: it’s NOT an all guns blazing type of film.

Do NOT go into it expecting to get running about!

For me … ?

That slow pace, especially during the first fifty minutes or so almost put me off carrying on.

I resisted, though.

As, at around the fifty minute mark is when the film starts to bite.   And, in a scene the the Gärtener family’s eldest son starts going mad, the film starts to pick up pace … 

And dig into a viewer’s nerves.

Personally?

I think I’d’ve preferred some thing a little pacier … 

However, that takes me to my next point.

Good … ?

I‘d have to say a somewhat qualified yes.



Don’t forget, my introduction to the works of HP Lovecraft was through the deliciously zippy Reanimator: and through Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu.

So the pace was a little off putting.

Beyond that, though?

I think The Color Out Of Space scores on atmosphere: atmosphere, AND on textural authenticity.

Reanimator?

Modernised a story that had been set — in part — in the run up to WW1.

The Color Out Of Space, on the other hand?

Stayed a little closer to its source.

And was just as unnerving.

Yes: that makes the film worth your while

The Color Out Of Space
★★★☆