If you saw Nicolas CageOpens in a new tab in the movie MandyOpens in a new tab from last year, you’re aware of just how much rage and desperation the often ineffable actor can put into an intense role. Now imagine that same ferocity coupled with the godfather of cosmic horror and you have an idea of what we might be getting in the new film Color out of Space. The news was announced via press release on Wednesday and what’s even more interesting is the movie will be produced by Elijah Wood’s SpectreVision, which also made Mandy, and will be directed and co-written by infamous filmmaker Richard StanleyOpens in a new tab.
Color out of Space is an adaptation of the 1927 H.P. LovecraftOpens in a new tab short story “The Colour Out of Space” about a meteorite crashing on a farm in rural New England and the strange, unknowable, shapeless thing that comes out of it, slowly mutating and killing all life around it while manipulating space-time in the process. It’s one of Lovecraft’s best loved stories, and certainly one of his most beloved science fiction storiesOpens in a new tab, though of course there’s a hefty helping of existential dread. The short story has been adapted a few times over the years, first as the Boris Karloff film Die, Monster, Die! in 1965, then as a Wil Wheaton movie called The Curse in 1987. Several low-budget projects have been made of the story, including the 2010 German film Die Farbe.
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It’ll be interesting to have a movie based on the story come out so soon after AnnihilationOpens in a new tab. Though that film is based on the novel by Jeff VanDerMeer, it strays considerablyOpens in a new tab in execution and writer-director Alex Garland incorporates several plot elements from “Colour,” making it, in our opinion, one of the best Lovecraftian moviesOpens in a new tab ever made.
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Stanley, for his part, is one of the more notorious filmmakers of the past 30 years. After getting much acclaim for his indie sci-fi/horror films Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992), he was the original director for the 1996 movie The Island of Dr. Moreau, though he was replaced by veteran John Frankenheimer after several weeks. The strange and complicated story of that movie’s plagued production is the subject of the excellent 2014 documentary Lost Soul.
SpectreVision partner Daniel Noah commented “Lovecraft is the dark father of modern horror, and we have been searching for an adaptation that captures the true scope of his cosmic dread for years. Richard Stanley – a wizard in his own right – will at long last bring Lovecraft’s humbling power to the screen unfiltered.”
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Major films directly based on LovecraftOpens in a new tab stories have been few and far betweenOpens in a new tab in recent years, though several filmmakers (like John CarpenterOpens in a new tab and Guillermo del Toro) have cited the writer as a major influence and used his themesOpens in a new tab in their films. Del Toro also, infamously, nearly got a big-budget adaptation of Lovecraft’s novella At The Mountains of MadnessOpens in a new tab off the ground but stopped after Ridley Scott’s Prometheus touched on similar themes. Maybe, if Stanley’s film coming on the heels of Annihilation does well, we might finally see higher profile Lovecraft moviesOpens in a new tab.
Images: SpectreVision, Paramount, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews hereOpens in a new tab. Follow him on Twitter!Opens in a new tab
