Seems like he's been out in the wilderness for years after the debacle of The Island of Dr Moreau - although it at least made possible the excellent doc Lost Soul - but Richard Stanley appears to be returning with an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space.
Oddly, perhaps, it appears to be starring Nic Cage.
There's an interesting-looking still surfaced, which looks like a cross between Annihilation and Mandy, so colour me interested :-)
https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3579524/heres-nicolas-cage-richard-stanleys-color-space/
the Worrier saw this in Morrison's DVD for £7.
Moo. 🐮
I imported the US Blu-ray a few weeks back and I have to say I loved it. It's by far the best and most faithful Lovecraft screen adaptation to date. Clearly, Stanley 'gets' Lovecraft in a way that few other directors in the past seem to have done. This is one of Lovecraft's more film-friendly tales (it's no accident that this is the fourth screen adaptation), and it neatly gets past the central problem - how do you depict a colour that's supposed to be outside of the known spectrum? Answer - you make it pink! At one point, Cage's character says that it was like no colour he'd ever seen. Well, he must have never seen pink before. But that's fine, and it really doesn't matter what the colour looks like, it's more about what it does. And it does lots of crazy, horrible stuff! Like all good adaptations, the film stays faithful to the source when it needs to and makes changes that make sense. There are loads of little easter eggs for Lovecraft fans, and it was a lovely poke at Lovecraft's racism to make the character Ward Phillips black. That says everything it needs to. According to the 'making of' doc on the disc, there are plans for Stanley to make a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations for Spectre Vision, the next being 'The Dunwich Horror'. I am looking forward to that! I suspect that the character of Ward Phillips might be back for that one, and the three films might form part of a new Stanley/Lovecraft cinematic universe. I would be up for that! :)
I saw this at the pictures just before lockdown, BoJo's ultimate wrestling move.
I enjoyed it, a little slow in parts, as mad as I'd thought it would be. As with a lot of HP Lovecraft's stories something bad happens and things get worse, that's the plot. it looked good and Cage's OTT antics suit the film, although he does reign it in a little compared to some of his other films, not saying a lot though.
Myself and The Worrier enjoyed this. It is due out soon, HMV have put together a lovely limited package blu ray for this.
Note it's not a BHF though.
Moo. 🐮
Sad no one here has caught this yet. It's one of the Lovecraft stories I've not read and wondering whether I should wait for the surprise of the film or just go ahead with the story.
IMHO Stanley's Hardwired and Dust Devil were good in places but ultimately unsatisfying.
Heard that Stanley was thinking about The Dunwich Horror as a potential next film.
That'll probably re-ignite the pronunciation argument over whether it's Dun-ITCH or Dun-WITCH.
Looking forward to reading any of your spoiler-free opinions about the film.
I think Stanley's legend largely thrives on what he hasn't made, rather than what he has (I didn't think much of Hardware or Dust Devil when I saw them back in the 80s), but what with this being a Lovecraft adaptation with Nic Cage in it (and alpacas), it is a must see! So I hope it becomes available to view on some format, eventually.
Anybody seen it yet? Is it worthwhile?
Screening at Nottingham's Mayhem festival in mid-October. Booked my ticket yesterday.
Has the HPL Historical Society done a version?
There's been Die, Monster Die! in the 60s, The Curse in the 80s (as well as a French TV movie Le Coleur de l'Abime), the Italian Colour From The Dark in 2008 and a rather decent B/W German version, Die Farbe from 2010. How many more do we need? And....Nic Cage! The well...not the well...nooooo!
I suppose it was the ever-expanding bag of money that freaked everybody out - I don't think Stanley's TIoDM would have been anything like a classic but, had it stayed a modestly budgeted, smaller film with,say, Thewlis but no stars, I think it would have been worth watching for being more than a train-wreck in action.
I watched the doco about the making of TIoDM and Stanley came across as a total fruit loop and way too sensitive to deal with Brando and Kilmer, like putting putting Noel Fielding in a ring with Tyson Fury (which, to be fair, is the only thing involving Noel Fielding that I'd want to watch). Stanley and Cage together may be "interesting".