THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE

THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE

"'It must be somethin’ from away off in the sky like the men from the college last year says the meteor stone was. The way it’s made an’ the way it works ain’t like no way o’ God’s world. It’s some’at from beyond.'"

"It was a scene from a vision of Fuseli, and over all the rest reigned that riot of luminous amorphousness, that alien and undimensioned rainbow of cryptic poison from the well—seething, feeling, lapping, reaching, scintillating, straining, and malignly bubbling in its cosmic and unrecognisable chromaticism."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Colour Out Of Space

This week will be redrawings of 5 creatures from Lovecraft's story The Colour Out Of Space. This first one is the titular "color". I wanted to this new verson to look more smoke like and billowy.

This story was first published in the September 1927 issue of Amazing Stories (cover art by Frank R. Paul) and featured an illustration by J. M. de Aragon. It was later collected in the The Outsider And Others with an amazing illustration by Virgil Finlay.

As far as pop culture goes, Colour is all over the place. It's one of the most adapted of Lovecraft's stories, though almost all indirect. The first is the muddled AIP produced Die, Monster, Die! It features a meteor that makes plant life grow to gigantic proportions and mutates humans and animals alike. The problem is it's overly complicated and most of the actors are horrible. However, Boris Karloff is amazing in it and the FX are pretty cool.

There's also the Creepshow segment The Lonely Death Of Jordy Verrill (based on the Stephen King short story Weeds) that's basically a King version of Colour complete with meteor full of iridescent goo and rapidly growing plants.

It was adapted again in the 80s with film The Curse, starring Will Wheton that spawned 3 sequels! Again, giant meteor, quickly growing plants and human mutations!

One of my favorite versions is the German low budget film Die Farbe (aka The Color). This is the most straightforward adaptation of the story and the best. Cleverly, it's in black and white except for the color which appears as a pinkish purple.

Then, unfortunately, there's the overrated, overhyped Richard Stanley version starring (ugh) Nicholas Cage. This was sooo unintentionally goofy and Cage was so awful. Like Die, Monster, Die! there were confusing, unnecessary changes & additions.

Some of the visuals were cool but overall it's too painful to watch.