Matt Ruff's Blog, page 15

Lovecraft Bingewatch: Colors out of Space

This post is #2 of a series.

In H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Colour out of Space,” a meteorite lands on the Gardner farm in the wooded hills west of Arkham, Massachusetts. The meteor is carrying some sort of alien life form encased in globules of a strange and indescribable color. The color contaminates the farm’s groundwater and mutates the local plants and wildlife; as the corruption advances, every living thing in the vicinity, including the unfortunate Gardner family, begins to decay and die. In the end, the color launches itself back into space, leaving behind a “blasted heath” of gray desolation where nothing will grow. The story’s narrator fears that something else might be left behind too. Referring to a reservoir that will soon cover the blasted heath, he writes, “Nothing could bribe me to drink the new city water of Arkham.”

“Colour” was reportedly Lovecraft’s favorite of his own works, and it’s a favorite of filmmakers as well: IMDb lists a half dozen adaptations, beginning with the 1965 Boris Karloff film Die Monster Die! More recent versions include the 2008 Colour From the Dark, which sets the story in fascist Italy, and a low budget Spanish film, Blasted Heath (original title: Erial), which despite the name is really more of a Night of the Living Dead knockoff.

The latest take, 2019’s Color out of Space, is by South African director Richard Stanley. I’m a fan of Stanley’s two previous films, Hardware and Dust Devil, so I was really looking forward to this one, but ultimately it just didn’t work for me.

My main complaint about the film is that it can’t seem to decide what tone it’s going for. This a tale of cosmic horror in which Nicholas Cage plays an alpaca farmer. I’d describe his character arc as Goofball Dad into Cranky Goofball Dad into Psychotically Angry Goofball Dad Slaughtering Mutant Llamas With a Shotgun. Which would be fine if the whole movie were an absurdist comedy, but if that was the intention, Cage is the only actor who got the memo. Joely Richardson as Mrs. Gardner plays her own descent into madness straight, and delivers most of the film’s truly horrific moments. But the tonal inconsistency undercuts this, and I found the result neither scary nor funny. It’s just weird.

There were things I liked. Visually the film is gorgeous. Tommy Chong turns in a good low-key performance as an aging hippie squatting on the Gardner’s land, demonstrating how comedy can work in a horror film. The Gardners’ daughter, Livinia (Madeleine Arthur), has a nice meet-cute scene with hydrologist Ward Phillips (Elliot Knight), though their relationship doesn’t go anywhere. And of course I was grateful for the excuse to make bad puns about the Necro-llama-con.

Color is currently streaming on Hoopla if you’d like to check it out for yourself.

My own pick for best “Colour” adaptation is the 2015 German film Die Farbe, by director Huan Vu. It relocates the doomed farm to the Swabian-Franconian Forest but is otherwise very faithful to Lovecraft’s story. Die Farbe is shot in black and white, except for the alien color, which, as in the Stanley film, appears as a pinkish purple. It’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi (free, with ads), and Kanopy (free with a public library card).

I also want to namecheck two other films. The first is Creepshow, the 1982 horror anthology by George Romero and Stephen King, whose second vignette, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” (based on King’s short story “Weeds”), is clearly an homage to “Colour.” In this case, the meteorite is filled with an alien version of the goop you smear on Chia pets. Farmer Verrill (played by King) gets some on his fingers and soon has space moss growing all over his body. This one’s definitely a comedy, but everybody involved knows that, and it’s short enough that the joke doesn’t wear out its welcome.

My other recommendation is Alex Garland’s Annihilation, based on the Jeff Vandermeer novel of the same name. A meteor strikes a lighthouse on a remote stretch of coastline and creates an expanding zone called “the shimmer” that mutates everything inside it. The shimmer’s boundary blocks radio transmissions and knocks out drones. Human investigators sent inside don’t return, with the exception of a Green Beret played by Oscar Isaac, who shows up at his home a year after his disappearance, suffering from amnesia. Federal agents arrive shortly thereafter; they scoop up Isaac and his wife, a biologist and ex-soldier played by Natalie Portman. With Isaac now on life support and fading fast, Portman volunteers to join a team of four other women (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny) on an expedition into the shimmer.

Though I haven’t read Vandermeer’s novel, the film feels like a cross between “Colour” and J.G. Ballard’s The Crystal World. Like Stanley’s Color, it’s a visual feast, but the tone is consistent and the characters are a lot more interesting. Currently streaming on Epix and DirecTV.

My Favorite Things at Speculative Chic

Lovecraft Country was the July book club selection over at the Speculative Chic website. Site founder Shara White invited me to submit a guest blog post talking about some of my favorite things, which is up today. You can read it here.

Lovecraft Binge-watch: Spring and the Void

To pass the time as I wait for the premiere of the Lovecraft Country HBO series—just over two weeks away, now!—I’ve been on a Lovecraft binge-watch.  There’s a lot to choose from. For a guy who never set foot in Hollywood, H.P. Lovecraft has an impressive , with 214 writing credits at present. And those are just the movies and TV shows directly based on his stories. The two films I want to highlight today belong to the much broader category of original works that incorporate Lovecraftian themes.

Spring is a rare example of a Lovecraftian romance. Lou Taylor Pucci plays Evan, an American who flees to Italy to escape legal troubles at home. He hooks up with Louise (Nadia Hilker), who claims to be a local girl even though she doesn’t sound particularly Italian (“I’ve lived in a lot of different places,” she explains, adding matter-of-factly that she speaks a dozen different languages). There are some other unusual things about her: her eyes are different colors, and she has an unspecified medical condition that makes her sensitive to sunlight and occasionally requires her to run off to the bathroom and inject herself with a serum. Despite some misgivings, Evan is smitten, and believes that Louise may be the love of his life—the catch being that if he’s wrong, she’ll kill him. It’s a surprisingly sweet and funny story, a kind of Before Sunrise with tentacles.

The Void, a more traditional horror story, opens with a shooting massacre at a house in the woods. A lone survivor escapes and gets picked up by Sheriff Deputy Carter (Aaron Poole), who takes him to a small rural hospital. Soon afterwards, the hospital is surrounded by knife-wielding robed cultists, and a malevolent force starts driving the trapped occupants crazy and mutating their bodies. It’s a fun ride that compares favorably to the old John Carpenter classic Prince of Darkness.

Spring is streaming on Tubi right now (free, with commericals), and if you’ve got a library card, you can watch The Void on Hoopla, but both films are also available as cheap rentals on iTunes and Amazon.

New Lovecraft Country trailer

Just in time for Comic-Con. Speaking of which, the cast will be doing a Comic-Con at Home panel discussion about the show tomorrow, July 25, starting at 4 PM Pacific. You’ll be able to watch it on YouTube once it goes live.

You can also join me online tomorrow at 5:30 PM Pacific, talking about my new novel, 88 Names, on a Zoom event hosted by . To sign up for this event, contact the bookstore by calling 541-593-2525 or email them at sunriverbooks@sunriverbooks.com.

Chatting with Christopher Moore at Powell’s Virtual City of Books

Here’s the video of my conversation with Christopher Moore last Thursday, hosted on Zoom by Powell’s City of Books. Thanks to Chris and Powell’s for a fun time.

You’ll have another chance to catch me live online this Saturday, July 25, at 5:30 PM Pacific Time, when I do a solo Zoom appearance for . For details on how to sign up for this event, contact the bookstore by calling 541-593-2525 or email them at sunriverbooks@sunriverbooks.com.

Second Life Book Club video

Here’s the video of my recent appearance on the Second Life Book Club. My host, Draxtor Despres, came up with the idea of having me read a short passage from each of my seven novels, to create a sort of “tasting menu” of the Matt Ruff canon. I thought it worked out pretty well, and the discussion was a lot of fun, too.

Also, just a reminder, if you’re interested in catching me live, there’s still time to register for this evening’s Zoom event hosted by Powell’s City of Books. My friend Christopher Moore and I will be chatting about 88 Names. The event starts at 5 PM Pacific Time and you can sign up here.

And if you’re busy this evening, you’ll have another chance to see me on Zoom when I do a solo appearance for Sunriver Books & Music on Saturday, July 25 at 5:30 PM Pacific. Details .

Powell’s online event with me and Christopher Moore this Thursday, 7/16, at 5 PM Pacific Time

This Thursday, July 16, at 5 PM Pacific, I’ll be appearing on a Zoom event hosted by Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon. Joining me online will be my friend, the author Christopher Moore (Shakespeare for Squirrels). We’ll talk about and whatever else comes to mind, and then take questions from the audience.

You can register for the event here.

Lovecraft Country ebook on sale for $3.99

My publisher HarperCollins is running a special summer ebook sale, now through July 13. The ebook of Lovecraft Country is available for just $3.99.

You can check out the full list of sale titles on Harper’s website, here.

Purchase links for the Lovecraft Country ebook are below:

Apple • Google • Kindle • Kobo • Nook

And don’t miss the premiere of the Lovecraft Country HBO series on Sunday, August 16!

Lovecraft Country will premiere on HBO on August 16

It’s official! HBO’s adaptation of Lovecraft Country will premiere on Sunday, August 16!

Teaser trailers are here and here.

The Fear of God podcast

This week I am a guest on the Fear of God podcast, talking horror and Lovecraft Country with hosts Reed Lackey and Nathan Rouse. This was originally supposed to be a ninety-minute conversation, but we were having so much fun I ended up chatting more than two hours. You can listen here.

FYI, we focus on the novel—and there are spoilers—but I’ll be back on the podcast to talk about the Lovecraft Country TV series after it airs.

Also, a reminder that tomorrow, July 1, starting at noon Pacific, I’ll be a guest on the Second Life Book Club. Hope to see some of you there!