Richard Stanley to Direct "Color Out of Space."

I'm hoping this makes it to production. Stanley is an interesting character and hey, It's Lovecraft.

HK AND CULT FILM NEWS: Nicolas Cage to Star in SpectreVision & Ace Pictures' H.P. Lovecraft Thriller "COLOR OUT OF SPACE"

Nicolas Cage to Star in Horror Movie ‘Color Out of Space’

 

Nice artwork for this title

 

Lookee good indeed.

 

I'm always surprised that Lovecraft adaptations seem to turn out so poorly. He wasn't the best writer, but he had some great ideas, and his stories were always nice and atmospheric. Seems like prime fodder for a decent creepy movie. Dark, rainy cobblestone streets. Primeval Floridian swamps. Remote, crumbling mansions in Europe.

Directors always seem to want to amp up the action, but that's not what Lovecraft stories are about. Steven King has had a few adaptations that come close - the original Shining being the closest of all, followed closely by 1408.

Hopefully this adaptation works out. Stanley seems like the guy to pull it off. He seems to understand genre films, and has a good grasp of atmosphere.

 

The original movie with Boris Karloff, “Die Monster, Die”, scared the daylights out of me when I was a kid. In those days, one had to stay up nearly to midnight to catch a horror flick on TV. That pitch dark, too quiet house helped a lot. No CGI or over-the-top makeup effects, just your imagination.

I recently felt nostalgic and bought the DVD. It’s awfully corny to an adult. Acting sure has come along way.

It is sad that “At The Mountains Of Madness” (Guillermo del Toro was to direct, I believe) was shelved in a dispute over an ‘R’ rating. Another of Lovecraft’s very best stories.

 

Agreed. None of the films are really great and I agree he wasn't a great writer. I disagree that he had some good ideas -- I think he was a big bage of purple prose lunatic! A poor man's Poe, but not even close. More like Poe meets George Romero.

 

The Guillermo Del Toro At the Mountains of Madness would have been good if Warner Bros. had let him make it

 

Click the link and read the brief plot blurb. I wonder where the writer of "Annihilation" with Natalie Portman got his idea?

Dave Mac

 

With Nicholas Cage, hot off of Mandy? Oh, baby!

 

Stanley has a unique and undeniably creative sensibility. He’s probably the kind of director (like Werner Herzog) who can channel Cage’s energy into an interesting collaboration.

 

His writing was an entirely different creature than Poe, no pun intended. He borrowed heavily from Poe, but injected his own ideas.

Before Lovecraft, you had monsters in the shape of evil humans, or evil creatures that prey on humans. Lovecraft introduced the idea of, essentially, incomprehensible monsters that couldn't care less about humans. It's, more or less, the ultimate horror. Some ancient alien wipes out all life on earth, either as a lark, or without even realizing what it's doing, and not caring in the slightest. In the grand scheme of things, humanity is insignificant. I think he may be the first existentialist horror writer.

 

He will have made four films between now and then, though!

Lovecraft was a master of creating an air of inescapable dread and creepiness. That's for me what films based on his work have always lacked. Hopefully this one will have it.

 

Yeah, the 'shimmer'. Lovecraft has been an inspiration for writers for nearly a century.

 

And long before that, it likely inspired the Russian authors of influential sci-fi novel Roadside Picnic.

Roadside Picnic - Wikipedia

 

That it's Richard Stanley directing is what has my interest, mainly. I can even live with Nicolas Cage. Who knows, sometimes he's pretty good.

 

It's fine being inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, but it's strange that they would evoke his name and get the name of the story wrong. It's called "The Colour Out of Space", not "Color Out of Space". Lovecraft, an American writer, purposefully used British spellings. They are part of his aesthetics.

 

Lovecraft fan since teens, but Cage is a non-starter for me

 

Yeah, Cage gives me pause, too. I think David Fincher would do a good job directing...he certainly maintained a creepy atmosphere in Seven.

 

I doubt they have the budget to afford someone like Fincher.

 

The film is making it's USA Premier at the TIFF fest, schedule to be released Aug. 20.

Color Out of Space

 

Trailer! It looks promising

 

Lovecraft on film has been a bit like King on film (although the latter has a better track record): sometimes what's on the page is hard to put into images.

Lovecraft has one thing I admire: he can conjure up enormous visions, landscapes and ancient times, and make you see them in your mind, even as his writing is overblown and filigreed a lot of the time. I hope this film works, for Lovecraft, and for Stanley to get his career back on track.

 

Probably from the novel,of,the same name since it was adapted from it. It’s not an uncommon science fiction theme.

 

Agreed - Lovecraft is a master of language and can conjur up an atmosphere of creeping dread that permeates you to your very bones. I've yet to see a film adaption that really nails that feeling. That's why I keep hoping Guillermo gets a shot at Mountains of Madness - he seems to really get the material and what is required.

Having said that though, this looks interesting and I am always down for some crazy Cage.