The way I read it, the breast cancer plot point was there to foreshadow the body horror - the wife spends multiple scenes talking about how she feels lesser, and unattractive, because she's had a mastectomy and been through horrifying messy illness. Nic Cage responds to this every time by saying that she's beautiful to him. This directly mirrors one of the final scenes, where he continues to tell his wife that she's beautiful and that we can fix this, even when she's a fused monster. It's a sweet and sad character moment, where you see that color-altered Nic Cage still has some part of his own mind.
Spoilers Ditto, except I interpreted it as cancer having a more direct role in her resulting mutation; her son is both pseudo-unbirthed and is like a cancerous growth. At the final part before her death her neck/head is gaunt as if drained to sustain the cancerous bulk, making her irrationally hungry as the mutation and Color eats her up. After he kills her the husband says the creature isn’t his wife. Delusion from the madness? Or did he see her, having been subsumed by the mutant growth, as a monstrous hungering mass?
I'm sure you're right, but that almost seems worse? They gave her a traumatic illness and paralleled a life-saving surgery with body horror so that her husband could say nice things and prove his humanity?
@@Whatlander Yeah, when I was watching it I thought it was a little upsetting, as someone who's had multiple painful surgeries myself that my partner had to take care of me for, it does ring true as something that I would say in a moment of self-hate. And my partner would act like nic cage. But it is kinda... "This guy's a generically nice guy" plot device that's a little exploitative, I very much agree.
@Indybot Worse, As an effect of the horrifying power of the Color, yes. Just as the father and daughter had similar arcs as malignancy takes them over, not simply physically; their fears and thoughts turned into tools of perversion of their spirits and bodies. The daughter went from protective paganism to cultist body mutilation, the father became more unstable emotionally and flat out aggressive instead of passive aggressive as he fails to cope with what’s happening to his family, the overwhelming powerlessness, frustration, and spite weighing on him similar to how you can’t ‘fight’ cancer especially as a second party to someone that has it. The cancer aspect could have been something else but it plays an important role to ground and contextualize the family. They’re insecure and seeking a quiet place to heal... instead their values and personas are driven to extremes as they’re altered and consumed. I don’t see how using a real life issue like surviving cancer in an obvious fantasy horror for developing the setting and effects is bad. It wasn’t handled poorly, to me. Looking back in consideration I’m far more troubled by my own life experiences with cancer but the material felt natural in the movie without distracting. If you’re oriented to feel weird about it of course it’s going to be weird, but it will be a matter of perspective. No less valid a critique measure but the same measure allows other disturbing implications to go by. It’s not used to misrepresent nor as a superficial element but as an important pivot for the character’s behaviors and event’s results. I find the idea of the youngest boy and mother fearing losing one another and having their desires hideously fulfilled as mother absorbs her child to never be apart more upsetting. In trying to protect him she destroys him, binding his life to her, and ends up killing them both. The daughter basically went from white witch to blood magic overnight, which from an outside perspective doesn’t seem so bad until you swap paganism with christianity and suddenly have her flesh-carving satanic symbols instead of the proto-evils of the Necronomicon to give context. Even the trees are skullfk-murderous by the end.
Same! My mom worked for Hewlett Packard, and I mean, I know Hbomb is from the U.K. and he won't have the same associations I have but I couldn't help hoping.
@@BlueGangsta1958 It was an international technology company from California. It had a lot of power, and most leftists who are familiar with it would consider invoking a comparison to incomprehensible lovecraftian monsters to be delightful.
To "well ahchtuhally" this: Magenta is a colour that doesn't exist! It's what's known as an extra-spectral colour: it has no wavelength, there's no place for it on the spectrum. The only reason we see it is because our brain doesn't like having green (magenta's complement) between purple/violet and red, so it substitutes a new thing. See also: impossible colour, and chimerical colour for some really fascinating stuff!
It’s not even a bad movie... But please let a hipster criticism by a critic who doesn’t usually stoop this low decide your opinion of this film that is reviewed Actually quite well on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic!
@@AbigailHonestly Ah, yes, because a singular critic whose biases you can know (which, in fact, he actively disclaims) is much less reliable than an undifferentiated mass of aggregated opinions from people who are each precisely as fallible as the single critic. I'm not trying to say that review-aggregator sites like the two you mentioned are bad, but I very much object to the idea that they "should" be taken more seriously than other forms of review.
@@blarg2429 Taking Rotten Tomatoes seriously, let alone holding them up as some standard of excellence in film criticism just makes that post a kind of parody in itself.
I saw a screening of this with subtitles. A lot of the horror was undone by the caption [alpacas screaming] turning up every now and again. (I thought it was a really good adaptation and I really enjoyed it - seeing it in the pictures really added to it though)
So what's nifty about that scene with Lavinia carves all those sigils is that there's some real world basis for why it doesn't work to protect her. The book she was using is an actual book called the Simon Necronomicon, which is a well known hoax that attempted to pass itself off as the book Lovecraft had based his writings off of. It contains spells, exorcisms, and myths pulled from various other sources and presented out of context as being "authentic Sumerian magic". So in universe, having the author appropriate a symbol from the Color's homeworld and present is erroneously as a protective symbol makes a lot of sense. And though not explicitly stated, I do feel like the movie at least suggested that this was what made her finally succumb to the Color's influence when it revealed the symbol's origin. Could it have been presented better? Yeah, probably. I just thought it was neat that they went there.
Lovecraft didn't "base his writings off of" the Necronomicon. He made the Necronomicon up entirely, including writing a fake history of the book, and admitted to this openly. That's one of these examples that show how immense the cultural impact of Lovecraft is. People still think there's a real Necronomicon
@@Tacklepig That's why I referred to the Simon Necronomicon as a "well known hoax". It's obviously not Lovecraft's fictitious Necronomicon but it claims to be. Perhaps I could have worded this better.
See, the buzzing synth drones and whole lot of nothing happening which slowly points more and more towards something genuinely bizarre is entirely my kind of thing, and suits the tone of Lovecraft at his eeriest better than a tighter film or a more bombastic one would.
I need this. After witnessing the actual real life horror of my country propping up maniac cops against the people, it’s nice to go to fantasy land for a moment. Fake horror is far more pleasant than the real thing. I could talk more sense into leatherface than the average state police officer. Even chop top has a stronger moral compass, and that guys an asshole.
I know. It’s evil and it’s heartbreaking. Hang in there, Brother/Sister/Family. I suggest binging Hammer Films(if you can) or some Tod Browning(“Freaks” is amazing if you haven’t seen it). Be safe
YourGod IsMean I’ve been getting freaks recommended lately. I’ve known about it for years but never watched it. Gonna have to check it out. Thanks so much for the suggestion. “Chopping mall” was on the rotation last night. Kill crazy security guard robots seemed like a fitting film for the times. You stay safe as well my friend.
HectorGrey I got to get my Christopher Lee Hammer on on occasion. That man was so beautiful in his youth...sigh. Hey! Whoever has not seen the (ORIGINAL!!!) Wicker Man, must drop what you are doing immediately and watch it. It changed my life
I remember in Discworld there's a color for magic most people can't perceive that is impossible; I wonder if it was a lil riff on that HP Minecraft story
I never read any discworld books, but from the excerpts I’ve read I get the feeling he’d use unfathomable eldritch horror as a source of fantastical weirdness. It really is a shame HPL didn’t have a sense of humor.
I think a lot of people are mistaking some of the stylistic choices in this film as somehow unaware of themselves or accidental because of the nature of those choices. The soundtrack refusing to give you just one damn minute alone with yourself (a sentiment Cage expresses regularly in the film) constantly grating away honestly reminded me of living with chronic illness, something that the breast cancer thing was also supposed to hint at. It’s included so that you understand these people have already had enough when the color arrives. He’s desperate for the alpacas to work out and they’re not, she’s just trying to recover from the trauma of cancer, the kids are both have their own issues, mom’s cancer among them. It felt like chronic illness projected through cosmic horror. Annihilation is an excellent comparison because, if you remember, every team member also has something similar going on in their background. One’s suicidal, one’s terminal, one has nothing left to lose, the others have other... stuff. I haven’t watched it in a year, sue me. Garner hits you over the head with stuff that Stanley is content to let you catch in a reflection in the background and wonder about. At any rate when you’re chronically ill there’s a lot of nothing and a lot of pain and not a lot between. Moments of hope that lead nowhere, dead ends in the plot of your life, things left undone and unanswered EVERYWHERE all. the. god. damn. time. And I saw that on this movie. And what’s more I think Stanley, himself no stranger to mental illness or other chronic illness, did these things intentionally. So while I disagree with you overall with your reading of the film I’m glad you were able to see beyond the stuff that turned you off and, considering the experience you had, still be kind in your recommendation. I think the people this movie resonates with will resonate with it particularly hard. Looking forward to the next 2 that Wood and whatsisface contracted him for. Dunwich is gonna be dope as hell.
I mean it wasnt good. I kind of liked it because I have a weird boner for Nick Cage and I was hoping for another "Not the bees," moment, but it wasnt a well made movie.
Just watched this tonight, I mostly disagree! I think the strangeness of the family from the beginning, and the nebulousness of their descent into madness, really worked as a kind of ambiguity "descent into madness" movies rarely pull off. We know from the get-go that Nicholas Cage is an insecure burnout weirdo, so his freakouts leave us (like his family and like the hydrologist) always a little unsure whether he's going insane or just badly stressed. It feels like an interesting use of the framing device from the original story: the Hydrologist is by far the most "normal" character we see, so even though we spend more time with the Gardeners, anytime he's around we're compelled to take his perspective and see them from an outside point of view, which only amplifies the unease about what's going on. I really liked the movie. Serious contender for Favorite Lovecraft Movie, edging up against "In the Mouth of Madness."
@@poposterous236 IDK... While the source of the magic is pretty mysterious, the monsters in The Cats of Ulthar are pretty clear. It's those asshole old people. Who then are clearly eaten by our heroes, the cats. 😹
SO much of classic Lovecraft comes from fundamental minsunderstandings of (then) modern science and popular trends. What are the spectrums of light outside the visible range? No, it's not UV or Infrared radiation, no it's not radio waves, it's ALIENS! What are these tall mountains explorers were seeing in Antarctica? No, it's not atmospheric mirage making distant ridges look impossibly tall, it's AN ANCIENT CITY! How does evolution work? SHOGGOTHS! Why are all these artists getting into Cubism and abstraction? No, it's not because modern art has moved beyond representationalism, it's because the artists are using HIDEOUS MONSTERS as their models! Is non-Euclidean geometry just a way to describe efficient traversal across the globe? No, it's how to describe the impossible architecture of THE GREAT OLD ONES! Is air conditioning a good idea? No, it's a plot by mad scientists to create HORRIFYING UNDEAD MONSTERS!
z beeblebrox Uhhhhhhhh, no. Lovecraft was *very* well-acquainted with what constituted modern physics and astronomy, and while he wasn't a big fan of modernism in art and literature he definitely understood the point, as evidenced by his dead-on satire of T.S. Eliot's poetry. Yes, he was intensely right-wing and extremely racist and classist for much of his life, but he wasn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination. The idea behind "The Colour Out of Space" is very intentionally meant to be something incomprehensible and inexplicable by science as we understand it and is, if anything, more a logical progression from the Expressionistic enigma of the second violist in "The Music of Erich Zann" than something to be quantified and understood on a literal level. It's lending scientific precision of detail to the mechanics and logic of a nightmare. This comment is honestly the Cinema Sins of literary criticism in miniature, albeit with less sexism and marginally better media literacy.
I felt I enjoyed the movie as I was watching it, because I am a very in-the-moment person. but when getting time to think about it and process my own feelings, it definitely wasn't as good as it could have been. But I really love that they used magenta to represent the incomprehensible space color. I mean pink to purple hues tend to be used as shorthand for mystery or magic, the strange and unknown, because of the whole "the color that doesn't exist" thing. But it still made me happy to see here in particular since it was about the color itself.
Hard disagree on this one, Matt. Coming from somebody that also thinks Mandy is the bee's knees I appreciate Color Out of Space for what it is and I found the horror to be genuinely effective! The scene you described and the lead up where the mom and kid are just slowly desintigrating as they fuse together was fuckin' groady in a super effective way that I still sometimes think about! Also I'd love to think of Hewlett Packard Lovecraft just spinning in his grave because A Black was not only in an adaptation of his work but he's one of the few characters that actually survives lol 😂
It's radiation. The "color out of space" is literally just an expression of Lovecraft's horror at the then very new scientific concept of nuclear radiation. It's a kind of light you can't see and it mutates people, what more do you need? It's radiation.
Personally I enjoyed the film and I felt like its a damn good Lovecraft adaptation, its more of a suspense piece and feel that it suits the general tone of Lovecrafts writing rather then outright in your face horror. most things that try to adapt anything lovecrafty do way to much showing, cant say I've enjoyed a film with cosmic horror themes this much since The Thing,
I couldn't tell if the dismissal of the breast cancer subplot was a conscious nod to The Room or... It did seem flimsier than I'd hoped; Annihilation definitely fleshed a similar premise out way better
The cancer aspect I connected with her resulting mutation... a prelude to the body horror, diseased looking insane hunger monster with tumor for a son. As well as the husband’s behavior, how she’ll always be beautiful to him, supporting her through surviving a likely exhausting and terrifying trial in their lives. Why the daughter is so protective and possibly why they’re out on the farm now. Why the husband first decided not to mercy her but instead continue to fight the ‘disease’. ...even as the mother and son’s flesh aggressively merge and grow into disfiguring scale and shape, the hunger of the Color consuming who and what she was and leaving a desiccated face... similar visually and conceptually to cancer slash tumors.
I did wish they had gone more into the daughter's occultism. But really for the most part I went in with low expectations and got something I loved. I was never really bored, myself, and I thought the slow burn was great. It felt very Lovecraft that it'd didn't really matter who the characters were at the end of the day and that it only went fully off the deep end into madness in the closing minutes of the movie. Personally, I'd be happy to let them make more as they've expressed interest in doing.
i think this is one of the best adaptations of hp love craft and exactly for all the reason you stated. and superior to all the example you statded. i think this just comes down to taste since i especialy disagre with your take on the soundtrack becuse it was amazing. and thos last minutes are so great becuse they are earned if it had stared earlier it wouldent have the same impact. its a vision from a truly alien world.
6:54 ALSO, please do watch the film Annihilation (and many other films) was inspired by, "Stalker". It's much slower, but it's beautiful and creepy, and probably the reason Tarkovsky, his wife, and one of the actors all died of cancer.
Nick Cage movies are like getting candy out of a vending machine at the mall; sometimes you get a piece of candy, other times you get a desiccated moth that was mummified in sugar
Really good video! Can see where you are coming from But I really disagree, the "boring" parts in this movie really compelled me to care about the zany stuff in a way I wouldn't if they weren't there. So while the slow buildup is really good in movies like The Witch and Hereditary, it can also be ok (if you are open to it) in a movie like this IMO
I think the cancer works. The mother is clearly suffering from dysmorphia following her mastectomy. This very real and human kind of "body horror" foreshadows the otherworldly transformations that come later in the film. I also like the soundtrack, but that's probably just taste. In general I agree with your assessment tho, this could have (should have?) been better than it was and it's definitely no Mandy.
I think it also adds to The Colour's influence later in the film. Cage's character is so sweet and reassuring that everyone getting increasingly antagonistic towards each other, especially Cage, adds to the horror of the situation well before the mutilation sets in.
I quite enjoyed the movie for what it was, though I'd be lying if I said it didn't lose me when the PS2 CG creatures started popping up. The lack of elaboration on the cancer subplot also annoyed the hell out of me.
I was shocked when I saw they were doing "The Colour Out of Space." Like-- Lovecraft's bread and butter is "racism." But his glass of milk is "unspeakable horrors that defy description." Though most of them, you can get at least an idea of what they might look like. The Colour Out of Space is... literally it's described. It's a colour that doesn't exist. That's like the ONE of his indescribable horrors that is truly unpictureable. And THAT'S the one they decide to try and make a movie out of?? That's not to say that it can't be done, a friend and I discussed how they might be able to do such a thing, maybe through a black and white film, or the slow leaching of colour from the film from start to finish, but.... oh well.
But maybe have the people affected by it be able to see it (and also see it do some mind freaky deaky-ing stuff). I also like that they use magenta, which I think isn’t actually a color at all. It’s a blend of them. Small props.
I like the slow-leeching of color idea, that would have been awesome. By the end, there's no color to speak of... It's been a few years since I read this one but I think it's not particularly racist at any point. Don't get me wrong, lovecraft was cartoonishly racist in most of his works but this one seemed rather fine.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat Nowadays, I believe a lot of editions of his books actually remove a lot of his racist little asides. I don't like that, mostly because I find it hilarious in a sort of edgelord oh-no-he-didn't sort of way. Like "Oh, Howard. You kooky little racist scamp". Also something about censorship and remembering the mistakes of history or whatever.
I disagree with you, the pacing of the movie is what made it enjoyable for me. However, im not here to argue, im here to recommend that you watch Blood Machines because you said you wished they would let loose with the psychedelic scapes and whatnot.
"I got the results of the test back. I definitely have breast cancer." _Color Out Space_ definitely isn't on the same god-tier level as _Mandy_ , but I still consider it a good (not great) movie. I imagine it could be improved easily with a little fanediting.
Well that’s your opinion, on a scale of monster movies this... Is a fucking great film is there an actual monster in Mandy? I don’t have a fucking clue... It was so confusing it evades most reason for me to really go back. But whatever we feel how we feel about one film but we don’t really care about one if we don’t agree so I mean it’s not like you can force anyone to like anything. It’s never a smart person’s intent to... Maybe just to point out that this opinion seems really hipster-y!
I actually liked it a lot. It was one of my favorite films of the year. The film is much better visually in higher definition. I was able to see it on a big screen, and realized that the alien presence actually does a lot of digital distortions that would get lost in a lower quality picture. It's a uncomfortable film that very much made me feel off while watching. Then, unlike a lot of other films which just stopped or made the uncomfortable bits the climax, it just kept going. Mom and kid fuse into a monster? Nope, we've got 45 minutes left. This is where we live now. Don't get me wrong, I love the Witch as a film too, but the movie very much backs off from actually putting us in a place like that until the very end. In the Witch, when things go sideways, it's because you're in the final stretch. From Beyond tried doing that sort of thing, but it couldn't decide on sexploitation, psychological horror, or being a monster movie.
I loved this movie and put off watching this video until now because I am very sensitive and I'm ducking out haha. Great movie, not for everyone, top notch body horror, the cancer-mom subplot worked well and hit home hard. Recommended.
You're pretty spot on. There's a better movie in there. You're really rooting for it. I think did feel the creeping madness a bit more than you did. Mandy I wanted to watch again immediately.
I loved this film. And I liked the soundtrack. The ritual scarring thing was brought up again, just not through dialogue. Someone else in the comments already explained it quite well, though. I preferred it to annihilation, although I have to admit that the latter was probably a better film, really. I just liked the pretty colours in this one and prefer my horror films to take place in the dark.
"It's very boring but the parts that aren't boring are very interesting" kinda sums up my opinion of Lovecraft as a whole now that the novelty of his ideas have been well worn down over the years.
the Colorado Space was a pretty fun movie and im glad you gave us your opinions, Scaredy Matt. It was a bit plodding, in retrospect, but I guess that was subdued to a great degree due to me and a friend riffing almost the entire time.
Have you checked out Richard Stanley's older movies? Hardware is pretty great if you are in the mood for a b-movie. Stanley himself is a very interesting guy, theres's a doc about his attempt to make the Island of Dr. Moreau that is one of my favourite documentaries of all time. It's called Island of Lost Souls and is quite a ride. Mandy definitely rules and I can't wait for more movies out of Panos Cosmatos.
sorry, i'm gonna need a moment to process the rest of this video, because when i was six years old, my parents decided to move our family away from The City to go live on an alpaca farm....
funnily enough i think the slowness of the film pretty accurately sums up what it feels like to read a lovecraft story: it's a bit meandering, it only sucks you in enough to keep you going, the conclusion is never as satisfying as you hope, and it's just not direct. the refusal to explain half of the story (including the dropped plot threads) also seems... pretty in keeping with lovecraft - just the part about his writing i hate. personally, i enjoyed it, and the fact that the film is pretty striking visually at times carried me through it more than lovecraft's style ever could.
I recommend watching in order: A Dark Song, The Void, Color Out of Space, From Beyond. And if you have time, Dead Alive aka Braindead aka Peter Jackson’s first good film. A Dark Song is a slow to boil occult movie that gets real interesting once it flips its lid. Not strictly lovecraftian but it feels like it fits. The scale goes from less weirdi more serious to more weirdi less serious.
Little-known Lovecraft face; in the short story 'The Whsiperer In Darkness' (or possibly 'The Shuttered Room'?), H.P first used the phrase 'fear and loathing,' which was later pinched by Hunter Thompson. (...ha!)
I had all of the same problems you had *and also* two hours of people doing random things for no reason, staring off into space at nothing, losing time and ending up in the wrong place while barely reacting at all is tedious and boring. The 20 minutes with Spoiler-Mom were a joy though.
the constant intense music really made it feel like a wayy older movie. I was looking away and when I looked up and saw something... not 70s... surprised me
You can also watch 1987's The Curse, which I tried to watch recently because something was vaguely familiar about it...it's just The Color Out of Space. The familiarity is I tried to watch it due to a childhood crush on Wil Wheaton when I was a kid, shortly after it made it to TV broadcast.
"It makes me wish", people like you got a chance to at least co-write, pre-produce and collaborate on a couple of horror films, your taste I think, reflects a large audience.
Sounds a bit like Gretel and Hansel. I thought i was in for a really good flick from the first couple of shots. But then it KEPT doing all these arty angles and i just got desensitized
I liked the movie more than you did (though not a whole lot more), but wow, you are on point about how the "climax" feels like it stretches forever because of the score. There's A LOT of scenes where you think the movie's building up to the ending but no, there's still like 40 minutes left.
That would be fun! I actually really like Session 9 - mostly for the actors and the setting, but I genuinely enjoy a lot of the things it does. I even bought the DVD, which really helps clear up what they were going for by talking about a majorly important and entirely cut sub-plot. Had they been able to leave it in, at least *some* of the things would've made more sense. Also - I wish more horror movies would film in real abandoned asylums, and I feel bad for the suckers who live in the apartments they built there >.>
I felt that the cancer thing was put there to compliment the horror of what happened to the mother latter during the spoilery parts you know... basically the child becomes like a tumor
I saw in the film also a critic of the white family of the bourgeoisie : they are obviously rich without working too much, there is several scenes feeling like cliché of an cereal ad family and false outward love which is not holding a lot when troubles come. All in all a bit like Society
I will repeat something I had about this movie over a few times... I watched it after watching PIG ( it is a masterpiece... my wife called it "gourmet john whick" which I find funny but also a bit unfair except the thing about the culinary universe being an underground fight club universe ) and Willy's Wonderland ( peak Nick Cage )... and I also was a bit let down by Color out of space. And.. I think it comes down to a reason. Before watching Color Out of Space I did watch a fan made black and white movie called "The Whisperer In Darkness", a slow burn low budget treat for anyone wanting some Lovecraft sticking to the text as much as possible.... and... The Color out of Space is... in color. A color we cannot register in photos, a color unlike any other, just making it a hue of pink ( smart move if the audience remembers pink does not exist as a spectrum but a mind play ) on the screen doesn't work... or is less effective, as if the movie was black and white. Yes, it would be screaming at you, but would be a color in a otherwise black and white movie. I think, lacking how to call attention to that color, in a color movie... they added the sound, constantly. Instead of a color creeping in slowly, we have the sound to create the same effect... and it did not work, because we see that as a sign we are getting to a moment of high tension, and it creates a permanence of high tension that yes, can be perceived as tiresome. I did like the movie... but I would love someday to be treated to a black and white version of it. And no, just turning my TV into black and white mode is not the same as a DP making it black and white in soft contrast, and over the length of the film increase contrast, grain, processing dirtyness and the hue of pink, to visually instruct the pervasion of said color. And becoming a pure black and white experience, the soundscape could be altered to adjust.
Magenta doesn't exist. No, seriously, in real life, magenta isn't a real color of light. If you look for it on a spectrograph, you won't find it. It's a placeholder "color" invented by our brains as a stand-in for when our red and blue cones are both activated at once.
@@InfiniteAnvil I get your point. But if you consider color as being defined too by how your brain perceives it, and not just by if it exists in the light spectrum, you can say it exists. Yes, magenta is one of the most alien colors that exists, by your definition. And it still is a color that has been perceived by people and defined by that name. It exists, for humans.
The HP Lovecraft Historical Society films are great. Call of Cthulhu is SILENT(!!!) And fantastic for what it is. I also loved The Whisperer in Darkness
as soon as i heard hewlet packard lovecraft, i knew this was going to be a fuckin great video can i just add that the string arrangement is like a perfect metaphor for chronic migraines?
yeah, a lot of lovecraft horror is, like... not actually that scary outside your imagination. That whole "indescribable horror" thing... doesn't do well when you just *show* it on camera, and it can boil down to "basically nothing" and "a spider monster" I *would* really love to see something like this where, like, they just put Deep Dream AI filters over the images of the scary things, that's honestly something like the best visual you could get for lovecraftian horror. just *showing it* on screen doesn't cut it
I appreciated this movie a lot, actually. I like a good slow-burning horror movie that leaves room for lines and visuals to breathe. Other commenters have pointed out the purpose of the breast cancer plot line, and I'd like to suggest that part of the intent was also to establish the family as being particularly resilient to normal types of body horror, with the mother having survived cancer and surgery. I further think the reason for the family having moved from the city to the farm was partly to play into the themes of migration and assimilation. The family migrated and is trying to assimilate, and so is the color, in a contrasting manner that's supposed to create a contrast. It's not presented very clearly, but that was how I read it.
The way I read it, the breast cancer plot point was there to foreshadow the body horror - the wife spends multiple scenes talking about how she feels lesser, and unattractive, because she's had a mastectomy and been through horrifying messy illness. Nic Cage responds to this every time by saying that she's beautiful to him. This directly mirrors one of the final scenes, where he continues to tell his wife that she's beautiful and that we can fix this, even when she's a fused monster. It's a sweet and sad character moment, where you see that color-altered Nic Cage still has some part of his own mind.
That is also how I read the breast cancer subplot too.
Spoilers
Ditto, except I interpreted it as cancer having a more direct role in her resulting mutation; her son is both pseudo-unbirthed and is like a cancerous growth. At the final part before her death her neck/head is gaunt as if drained to sustain the cancerous bulk, making her irrationally hungry as the mutation and Color eats her up. After he kills her the husband says the creature isn’t his wife. Delusion from the madness? Or did he see her, having been subsumed by the mutant growth, as a monstrous hungering mass?
I'm sure you're right, but that almost seems worse? They gave her a traumatic illness and paralleled a life-saving surgery with body horror so that her husband could say nice things and prove his humanity?
@@Whatlander Yeah, when I was watching it I thought it was a little upsetting, as someone who's had multiple painful surgeries myself that my partner had to take care of me for, it does ring true as something that I would say in a moment of self-hate. And my partner would act like nic cage. But it is kinda... "This guy's a generically nice guy" plot device that's a little exploitative, I very much agree.
@Indybot Worse, As an effect of the horrifying power of the Color, yes. Just as the father and daughter had similar arcs as malignancy takes them over, not simply physically; their fears and thoughts turned into tools of perversion of their spirits and bodies.
The daughter went from protective paganism to cultist body mutilation, the father became more unstable emotionally and flat out aggressive instead of passive aggressive as he fails to cope with what’s happening to his family, the overwhelming powerlessness, frustration, and spite weighing on him similar to how you can’t ‘fight’ cancer especially as a second party to someone that has it.
The cancer aspect could have been something else but it plays an important role to ground and contextualize the family. They’re insecure and seeking a quiet place to heal... instead their values and personas are driven to extremes as they’re altered and consumed.
I don’t see how using a real life issue like surviving cancer in an obvious fantasy horror for developing the setting and effects is bad. It wasn’t handled poorly, to me. Looking back in consideration I’m far more troubled by my own life experiences with cancer but the material felt natural in the movie without distracting. If you’re oriented to feel weird about it of course it’s going to be weird, but it will be a matter of perspective. No less valid a critique measure but the same measure allows other disturbing implications to go by. It’s not used to misrepresent nor as a superficial element but as an important pivot for the character’s behaviors and event’s results.
I find the idea of the youngest boy and mother fearing losing one another and having their desires hideously fulfilled as mother absorbs her child to never be apart more upsetting. In trying to protect him she destroys him, binding his life to her, and ends up killing them both.
The daughter basically went from white witch to blood magic overnight, which from an outside perspective doesn’t seem so bad until you swap paganism with christianity and suddenly have her flesh-carving satanic symbols instead of the proto-evils of the Necronomicon to give context. Even the trees are skullfk-murderous by the end.
"Breast cancer is not something you just put in a movie and not be relevant."
"Oh hai Mark"
I came here for this comment.
Boop!
"I did naht hit her! I did nahht!"
Ladies, Gentlemen and Honored Enbies, we have a winner!
Hai doggy
thank god colors arent real. almost got scared there for a minute
they are just pigments of the imagination
@@geekgroupie42 🏆🥇👍
geekgroupie42 OH MY FUCKING GOD.
@@carolyntalbot947 credit to Terry Pratchett for that one.
@@geekgroupie42 you just won the internets
I’ve seen so many leftist analyses of HP Lovecraft, and this is the first one that finally made the Hewlett-Packard pun I’ve been waiting for
Same! My mom worked for Hewlett Packard, and I mean, I know Hbomb is from the U.K. and he won't have the same associations I have but I couldn't help hoping.
Never heard of Hewlett Packard (though I'm noticing my autocorrect knows it), would you mind explaining the joke?
@@BlueGangsta1958 It was an international technology company from California. It had a lot of power, and most leftists who are familiar with it would consider invoking a comparison to incomprehensible lovecraftian monsters to be delightful.
@@lydiafayre9806 Okay thanks
Haughty Prude Lovecraft - Horrid Phobias Lovecraft - Hammy Pompous Lovecraft...the list is endless...
Ah yes "The mysterious color unlike anything seen on earth!"
Puce
To "well ahchtuhally" this:
Magenta is a colour that doesn't exist! It's what's known as an extra-spectral colour: it has no wavelength, there's no place for it on the spectrum. The only reason we see it is because our brain doesn't like having green (magenta's complement) between purple/violet and red, so it substitutes a new thing. See also: impossible colour, and chimerical colour for some really fascinating stuff!
Good reference. :)
OSP fan?
@@hollandscottthomas check out Overly Sarcastic Productions for some fun and to see what this is referring to
"Move to an an alpaca far--"
Sold. Watching it.
"Alpacas are the future"
The scene where Cage drinks the steaming alpaca milk is great and terrible.
It’s not even a bad movie... But please let a hipster criticism by a critic who doesn’t usually stoop this low decide your opinion of this film that is reviewed Actually quite well on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic!
@@AbigailHonestly Ah, yes, because a singular critic whose biases you can know (which, in fact, he actively disclaims) is much less reliable than an undifferentiated mass of aggregated opinions from people who are each precisely as fallible as the single critic.
I'm not trying to say that review-aggregator sites like the two you mentioned are bad, but I very much object to the idea that they "should" be taken more seriously than other forms of review.
@@blarg2429 Taking Rotten Tomatoes seriously, let alone holding them up as some standard of excellence in film criticism just makes that post a kind of parody in itself.
I saw a screening of this with subtitles.
A lot of the horror was undone by the caption [alpacas screaming] turning up every now and again.
(I thought it was a really good adaptation and I really enjoyed it - seeing it in the pictures really added to it though)
There is nothing funnier to me in this moment than [alpacas screaming] . Thank you for sharing this
Captions for the alpacas screaming would've probably improved my viewing experience.
A friend of mine told me there was a point where they said, "Oh, good, Nic Cage is gonna do the sensible thing and grab a shotgun to go shoot purple."
So what's nifty about that scene with Lavinia carves all those sigils is that there's some real world basis for why it doesn't work to protect her. The book she was using is an actual book called the Simon Necronomicon, which is a well known hoax that attempted to pass itself off as the book Lovecraft had based his writings off of.
It contains spells, exorcisms, and myths pulled from various other sources and presented out of context as being "authentic Sumerian magic". So in universe, having the author appropriate a symbol from the Color's homeworld and present is erroneously as a protective symbol makes a lot of sense. And though not explicitly stated, I do feel like the movie at least suggested that this was what made her finally succumb to the Color's influence when it revealed the symbol's origin.
Could it have been presented better? Yeah, probably. I just thought it was neat that they went there.
I'm pretty sure those sigils are what caused it to explode
The Simon Necronomicon is pretty effective. It just isn't what Lavinia thought it was
Lovecraft didn't "base his writings off of" the Necronomicon. He made the Necronomicon up entirely, including writing a fake history of the book, and admitted to this openly.
That's one of these examples that show how immense the cultural impact of Lovecraft is. People still think there's a real Necronomicon
@@Tacklepig That's why I referred to the Simon Necronomicon as a "well known hoax". It's obviously not Lovecraft's fictitious Necronomicon but it claims to be. Perhaps I could have worded this better.
@@Tacklepig No one thinks there's a real Necronomicon.
See, the buzzing synth drones and whole lot of nothing happening which slowly points more and more towards something genuinely bizarre is entirely my kind of thing, and suits the tone of Lovecraft at his eeriest better than a tighter film or a more bombastic one would.
Same, I felt more eerieness in the background and perception distortion building up from the droning. Maybe movies overuse tension drone these days...
I need this. After witnessing the actual real life horror of my country propping up maniac cops against the people, it’s nice to go to fantasy land for a moment. Fake horror is far more pleasant than the real thing. I could talk more sense into leatherface than the average state police officer. Even chop top has a stronger moral compass, and that guys an asshole.
I know. It’s evil and it’s heartbreaking. Hang in there, Brother/Sister/Family. I suggest binging Hammer Films(if you can) or some Tod Browning(“Freaks” is amazing if you haven’t seen it). Be safe
YourGod IsMean I’ve been getting freaks recommended lately. I’ve known about it for years but never watched it. Gonna have to check it out. Thanks so much for the suggestion. “Chopping mall” was on the rotation last night. Kill crazy security guard robots seemed like a fitting film for the times. You stay safe as well my friend.
@@yourgodismean4526 Hammer is pretty great - the devil rides out is hokey as fuck and I love it.
HectorGrey I got to get my Christopher Lee Hammer on on occasion. That man was so beautiful in his youth...sigh. Hey! Whoever has not seen the (ORIGINAL!!!) Wicker Man, must drop what you are doing immediately and watch it. It changed my life
Shreddie Krueger Also Browning directed Dracula in 1931, and it is a beautiful film, not to be missed
I remember in Discworld there's a color for magic most people can't perceive that is impossible; I wonder if it was a lil riff on that HP Minecraft story
Octarine is sort of a greenish purple.
Very likely, the first few discworlds were full of lovecraftian shenanigens, I think that's also when octarine was introduced
I never read any discworld books, but from the excerpts I’ve read I get the feeling he’d use unfathomable eldritch horror as a source of fantastical weirdness. It really is a shame HPL didn’t have a sense of humor.
I think a lot of people are mistaking some of the stylistic choices in this film as somehow unaware of themselves or accidental because of the nature of those choices. The soundtrack refusing to give you just one damn minute alone with yourself (a sentiment Cage expresses regularly in the film) constantly grating away honestly reminded me of living with chronic illness, something that the breast cancer thing was also supposed to hint at. It’s included so that you understand these people have already had enough when the color arrives. He’s desperate for the alpacas to work out and they’re not, she’s just trying to recover from the trauma of cancer, the kids are both have their own issues, mom’s cancer among them. It felt like chronic illness projected through cosmic horror. Annihilation is an excellent comparison because, if you remember, every team member also has something similar going on in their background. One’s suicidal, one’s terminal, one has nothing left to lose, the others have other... stuff. I haven’t watched it in a year, sue me. Garner hits you over the head with stuff that Stanley is content to let you catch in a reflection in the background and wonder about. At any rate when you’re chronically ill there’s a lot of nothing and a lot of pain and not a lot between. Moments of hope that lead nowhere, dead ends in the plot of your life, things left undone and unanswered EVERYWHERE all. the. god. damn. time. And I saw that on this movie. And what’s more I think Stanley, himself no stranger to mental illness or other chronic illness, did these things intentionally.
So while I disagree with you overall with your reading of the film I’m glad you were able to see beyond the stuff that turned you off and, considering the experience you had, still be kind in your recommendation. I think the people this movie resonates with will resonate with it particularly hard. Looking forward to the next 2 that Wood and whatsisface contracted him for. Dunwich is gonna be dope as hell.
MY PRAYERS TO THE EYEBALLS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED! MATT TACKLES COLOR OUT OF SPACE!
Oh no, Matt didn't like it TmT
I mean it wasnt good. I kind of liked it because I have a weird boner for Nick Cage and I was hoping for another "Not the bees," moment, but it wasnt a well made movie.
WISH GRANTED
Looking significantly less sweaty today. Also that's a rad shirt. Thank you for the great content comrade.
Tommy Chong has always been underestimated if you ask me. He's really creative.
Just watched this tonight, I mostly disagree! I think the strangeness of the family from the beginning, and the nebulousness of their descent into madness, really worked as a kind of ambiguity "descent into madness" movies rarely pull off. We know from the get-go that Nicholas Cage is an insecure burnout weirdo, so his freakouts leave us (like his family and like the hydrologist) always a little unsure whether he's going insane or just badly stressed.
It feels like an interesting use of the framing device from the original story: the Hydrologist is by far the most "normal" character we see, so even though we spend more time with the Gardeners, anytime he's around we're compelled to take his perspective and see them from an outside point of view, which only amplifies the unease about what's going on.
I really liked the movie. Serious contender for Favorite Lovecraft Movie, edging up against "In the Mouth of Madness."
That little boy has been in so many scary things lately he is either going to grow up to be super weird or an emotional rock.
Very little substance, but what there is is interesting?
Sounds like HP Lovecraft's stories
Lovecraft: "Dude it's so scary I can't describe it, trust me."
@@poposterous236 But with more syllables
@@poposterous236 IDK... While the source of the magic is pretty mysterious, the monsters in The Cats of Ulthar are pretty clear.
It's those asshole old people. Who then are clearly eaten by our heroes, the cats. 😹
SO much of classic Lovecraft comes from fundamental minsunderstandings of (then) modern science and popular trends. What are the spectrums of light outside the visible range? No, it's not UV or Infrared radiation, no it's not radio waves, it's ALIENS! What are these tall mountains explorers were seeing in Antarctica? No, it's not atmospheric mirage making distant ridges look impossibly tall, it's AN ANCIENT CITY! How does evolution work? SHOGGOTHS! Why are all these artists getting into Cubism and abstraction? No, it's not because modern art has moved beyond representationalism, it's because the artists are using HIDEOUS MONSTERS as their models! Is non-Euclidean geometry just a way to describe efficient traversal across the globe? No, it's how to describe the impossible architecture of THE GREAT OLD ONES! Is air conditioning a good idea? No, it's a plot by mad scientists to create HORRIFYING UNDEAD MONSTERS!
z beeblebrox Uhhhhhhhh, no. Lovecraft was *very* well-acquainted with what constituted modern physics and astronomy, and while he wasn't a big fan of modernism in art and literature he definitely understood the point, as evidenced by his dead-on satire of T.S. Eliot's poetry. Yes, he was intensely right-wing and extremely racist and classist for much of his life, but he wasn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination. The idea behind "The Colour Out of Space" is very intentionally meant to be something incomprehensible and inexplicable by science as we understand it and is, if anything, more a logical progression from the Expressionistic enigma of the second violist in "The Music of Erich Zann" than something to be quantified and understood on a literal level. It's lending scientific precision of detail to the mechanics and logic of a nightmare.
This comment is honestly the Cinema Sins of literary criticism in miniature, albeit with less sexism and marginally better media literacy.
I felt I enjoyed the movie as I was watching it, because I am a very in-the-moment person. but when getting time to think about it and process my own feelings, it definitely wasn't as good as it could have been.
But I really love that they used magenta to represent the incomprehensible space color. I mean pink to purple hues tend to be used as shorthand for mystery or magic, the strange and unknown, because of the whole "the color that doesn't exist" thing. But it still made me happy to see here in particular since it was about the color itself.
With this video, I have officially watched all of your UA-cam content, on both channels. I think I may be a fan.
Hard disagree on this one, Matt. Coming from somebody that also thinks Mandy is the bee's knees I appreciate Color Out of Space for what it is and I found the horror to be genuinely effective! The scene you described and the lead up where the mom and kid are just slowly desintigrating as they fuse together was fuckin' groady in a super effective way that I still sometimes think about! Also I'd love to think of Hewlett Packard Lovecraft just spinning in his grave because A Black was not only in an adaptation of his work but he's one of the few characters that actually survives lol 😂
It's radiation.
The "color out of space" is literally just an expression of Lovecraft's horror at the then very new scientific concept of nuclear radiation. It's a kind of light you can't see and it mutates people, what more do you need? It's radiation.
YES EXACTLY
Personally I enjoyed the film and I felt like its a damn good Lovecraft adaptation, its more of a suspense piece and feel that it suits the general tone of Lovecrafts writing rather then outright in your face horror. most things that try to adapt anything lovecrafty do way to much showing, cant say I've enjoyed a film with cosmic horror themes this much since The Thing,
"they're not my family" is my absolute favorite line
When you fail at the career you have to go raise alpacas. That's how it works for all of us.
"Do you have *AnY! Idea!?* HOW EXPENSIVE THOSE ANIMALS ARE!?" -Nic Cage
I couldn't tell if the dismissal of the breast cancer subplot was a conscious nod to The Room or...
It did seem flimsier than I'd hoped; Annihilation definitely fleshed a similar premise out way better
I got the results of the test back. I was definitely attacked by an eldritch horror from beyond the realm of the human imagination.
The cancer aspect I connected with her resulting mutation... a prelude to the body horror, diseased looking insane hunger monster with tumor for a son. As well as the husband’s behavior, how she’ll always be beautiful to him, supporting her through surviving a likely exhausting and terrifying trial in their lives. Why the daughter is so protective and possibly why they’re out on the farm now. Why the husband first decided not to mercy her but instead continue to fight the ‘disease’. ...even as the mother and son’s flesh aggressively merge and grow into disfiguring scale and shape, the hunger of the Color consuming who and what she was and leaving a desiccated face... similar visually and conceptually to cancer slash tumors.
Ha, “fleshed out”
I did wish they had gone more into the daughter's occultism. But really for the most part I went in with low expectations and got something I loved. I was never really bored, myself, and I thought the slow burn was great. It felt very Lovecraft that it'd didn't really matter who the characters were at the end of the day and that it only went fully off the deep end into madness in the closing minutes of the movie. Personally, I'd be happy to let them make more as they've expressed interest in doing.
It seemed like at the end her wards channeled the monster back to it's home.
I'm surprised Blood Quantum hasn't been talked about by Scaredy Matt yet! I think it'd be a great topic for this channel specifically
Working on it!
it was a tiny thing, but Hewlett-Packard Lovecraft made me chuckle
loveraft was also afraid of electric refrigeration. it is no wonder though; he wasn't very chill
the utmost respect for your making sure spoiler alerts provide enough time to reach for the remote
i think this is one of the best adaptations of hp love craft and exactly for all the reason you stated. and superior to all the example you statded. i think this just comes down to taste since i especialy disagre with your take on the soundtrack becuse it was amazing.
and thos last minutes are so great becuse they are earned if it had stared earlier it wouldent have the same impact. its a vision from a truly alien world.
6:54 ALSO, please do watch the film Annihilation (and many other films) was inspired by, "Stalker". It's much slower, but it's beautiful and creepy, and probably the reason Tarkovsky, his wife, and one of the actors all died of cancer.
It was definitely a hypnotic bit of cinema, and Eduard Artemyev's score was dreamy.
Nick Cage movies are like getting candy out of a vending machine at the mall; sometimes you get a piece of candy, other times you get a desiccated moth that was mummified in sugar
working retail is wild bc I'm just watching youtube and it's like bruh I folded that shirt
OH MY GOD I WAS GONNA SUGGEST ANNIHILATION I'm so glad I'm not the only person that interpreted it as a Colour Out Of Space adaptation!
Really good video! Can see where you are coming from
But I really disagree, the "boring" parts in this movie really compelled me to care about the zany stuff in a way I wouldn't if they weren't there. So while the slow buildup is really good in movies like The Witch and Hereditary, it can also be ok (if you are open to it) in a movie like this IMO
I'm parasocialing hard rn, Matt, thanks for posting today.
I think the cancer works. The mother is clearly suffering from dysmorphia following her mastectomy. This very real and human kind of "body horror" foreshadows the otherworldly transformations that come later in the film.
I also like the soundtrack, but that's probably just taste.
In general I agree with your assessment tho, this could have (should have?) been better than it was and it's definitely no Mandy.
I think it also adds to The Colour's influence later in the film. Cage's character is so sweet and reassuring that everyone getting increasingly antagonistic towards each other, especially Cage, adds to the horror of the situation well before the mutilation sets in.
the original short story is easily Lovecraft's finest work
I quite enjoyed the movie for what it was, though I'd be lying if I said it didn't lose me when the PS2 CG creatures started popping up. The lack of elaboration on the cancer subplot also annoyed the hell out of me.
I was shocked when I saw they were doing "The Colour Out of Space." Like-- Lovecraft's bread and butter is "racism." But his glass of milk is "unspeakable horrors that defy description." Though most of them, you can get at least an idea of what they might look like. The Colour Out of Space is... literally it's described. It's a colour that doesn't exist. That's like the ONE of his indescribable horrors that is truly unpictureable. And THAT'S the one they decide to try and make a movie out of?? That's not to say that it can't be done, a friend and I discussed how they might be able to do such a thing, maybe through a black and white film, or the slow leaching of colour from the film from start to finish, but.... oh well.
xxJETSETxx they should have had the ‘color’ be in greyscale.
But maybe have the people affected by it be able to see it (and also see it do some mind freaky deaky-ing stuff). I also like that they use magenta, which I think isn’t actually a color at all. It’s a blend of them. Small props.
I like the slow-leeching of color idea, that would have been awesome. By the end, there's no color to speak of...
It's been a few years since I read this one but I think it's not particularly racist at any point. Don't get me wrong, lovecraft was cartoonishly racist in most of his works but this one seemed rather fine.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat Nowadays, I believe a lot of editions of his books actually remove a lot of his racist little asides. I don't like that, mostly because I find it hilarious in a sort of edgelord oh-no-he-didn't sort of way. Like "Oh, Howard. You kooky little racist scamp". Also something about censorship and remembering the mistakes of history or whatever.
@@meursault7030 I read it online and I don't remember where so I couldn't tell you if it was altered.
I disagree with you, the pacing of the movie is what made it enjoyable for me. However, im not here to argue, im here to recommend that you watch Blood Machines because you said you wished they would let loose with the psychedelic scapes and whatnot.
Thank you. You have voiced my issues with this work eloquently.
The one glaring flaw of this movie is not including the line, "Save the drama for the llama." somewhere in Nicholas Cage's dialogue.
Funny, this is the opposite of how I feel about The Colour Out of Space and the exact way I feel about Annihilation.
Ah yes, good old Hates POC Lovecraft
I saw this in a theater in January and I gotta say everything you said is absolutely correct and its still my pick for Best Picture next Oscar season
Thank you for the waky horror suggestions
"I got the results of the test back. I definitely have breast cancer."
_Color Out Space_ definitely isn't on the same god-tier level as _Mandy_ , but I still consider it a good (not great) movie. I imagine it could be improved easily with a little fanediting.
Well that’s your opinion, on a scale of monster movies this... Is a fucking great film is there an actual monster in Mandy? I don’t have a fucking clue... It was so confusing it evades most reason for me to really go back. But whatever we feel how we feel about one film but we don’t really care about one if we don’t agree so I mean it’s not like you can force anyone to like anything. It’s never a smart person’s intent to... Maybe just to point out that this opinion seems really hipster-y!
I actually liked it a lot. It was one of my favorite films of the year. The film is much better visually in higher definition. I was able to see it on a big screen, and realized that the alien presence actually does a lot of digital distortions that would get lost in a lower quality picture.
It's a uncomfortable film that very much made me feel off while watching. Then, unlike a lot of other films which just stopped or made the uncomfortable bits the climax, it just kept going. Mom and kid fuse into a monster? Nope, we've got 45 minutes left. This is where we live now. Don't get me wrong, I love the Witch as a film too, but the movie very much backs off from actually putting us in a place like that until the very end. In the Witch, when things go sideways, it's because you're in the final stretch.
From Beyond tried doing that sort of thing, but it couldn't decide on sexploitation, psychological horror, or being a monster movie.
I loved this movie and put off watching this video until now because I am very sensitive and I'm ducking out haha. Great movie, not for everyone, top notch body horror, the cancer-mom subplot worked well and hit home hard. Recommended.
i remember reading the story back a couple years ago and feeling so terrified, in a way that lovecraft stories usually don't make me
First time I actually watched the movies you talk about
You're pretty spot on. There's a better movie in there. You're really rooting for it. I think did feel the creeping madness a bit more than you did.
Mandy I wanted to watch again immediately.
You said that it was about what Lovecraft was most afraid of, and my mind said, "literally everything."
Villianous color: "There's very little substance to it."
I loved this film.
And I liked the soundtrack.
The ritual scarring thing was brought up again, just not through dialogue.
Someone else in the comments already explained it quite well, though.
I preferred it to annihilation, although I have to admit that the latter was probably a better film, really. I just liked the pretty colours in this one and prefer my horror films to take place in the dark.
"It's very boring but the parts that aren't boring are very interesting" kinda sums up my opinion of Lovecraft as a whole now that the novelty of his ideas have been well worn down over the years.
the Colorado Space was a pretty fun movie and im glad you gave us your opinions, Scaredy Matt. It was a bit plodding, in retrospect, but I guess that was subdued to a great degree due to me and a friend riffing almost the entire time.
Liked at health point lovecraft
I liked the color out of space, it's not Mandy, sure, but some of my favorite things are not Mandy either and that's fine
Have you checked out Richard Stanley's older movies? Hardware is pretty great if you are in the mood for a b-movie. Stanley himself is a very interesting guy, theres's a doc about his attempt to make the Island of Dr. Moreau that is one of my favourite documentaries of all time. It's called Island of Lost Souls and is quite a ride.
Mandy definitely rules and I can't wait for more movies out of Panos Cosmatos.
Health Point Lovecraft.
sorry, i'm gonna need a moment to process the rest of this video, because when i was six years old, my parents decided to move our family away from The City to go live on an alpaca farm....
funnily enough i think the slowness of the film pretty accurately sums up what it feels like to read a lovecraft story: it's a bit meandering, it only sucks you in enough to keep you going, the conclusion is never as satisfying as you hope, and it's just not direct. the refusal to explain half of the story (including the dropped plot threads) also seems... pretty in keeping with lovecraft - just the part about his writing i hate. personally, i enjoyed it, and the fact that the film is pretty striking visually at times carried me through it more than lovecraft's style ever could.
it took me how long to notice the dies ire as the theme song, well done idw
Spooky scary colour chart, came from outer space/ eats the life from living things and leaves more it in place
I recommend watching in order: A Dark Song, The Void, Color Out of Space, From Beyond. And if you have time, Dead Alive aka Braindead aka Peter Jackson’s first good film.
A Dark Song is a slow to boil occult movie that gets real interesting once it flips its lid. Not strictly lovecraftian but it feels like it fits. The scale goes from less weirdi more serious to more weirdi less serious.
Here’s to hoping we get everything promised out of that Jiu Jitsu film. Nic cage as an alien fighting martial artist could be really fucking fun
Little-known Lovecraft face; in the short story 'The Whsiperer In Darkness' (or possibly 'The Shuttered Room'?), H.P first used the phrase 'fear and loathing,' which was later pinched by Hunter Thompson. (...ha!)
I had all of the same problems you had *and also* two hours of people doing random things for no reason, staring off into space at nothing, losing time and ending up in the wrong place while barely reacting at all is tedious and boring. The 20 minutes with Spoiler-Mom were a joy though.
the constant intense music really made it feel like a wayy older movie. I was looking away and when I looked up and saw something... not 70s... surprised me
Even I know about the Chekov's breast cancer rule.
You can also watch 1987's The Curse, which I tried to watch recently because something was vaguely familiar about it...it's just The Color Out of Space. The familiarity is I tried to watch it due to a childhood crush on Wil Wheaton when I was a kid, shortly after it made it to TV broadcast.
"It makes me wish", people like you got a chance to at least co-write, pre-produce and collaborate on a couple of horror films, your taste I think, reflects a large audience.
Adap-TA-tion That said, I've been wanting to see this one, and I think I might do that tonight. Thanks.
Sounds a bit like Gretel and Hansel. I thought i was in for a really good flick from the first couple of shots. But then it KEPT doing all these arty angles and i just got desensitized
I'm dying at your HP jokes.
I liked the movie more than you did (though not a whole lot more), but wow, you are on point about how the "climax" feels like it stretches forever because of the score. There's A LOT of scenes where you think the movie's building up to the ending but no, there's still like 40 minutes left.
every time you leave a syllable out of adaptation it feels like crossed wires in my brain
"Hewlitt-Packard" Lovecraft LOL
If feel like I watch a new video by you everyday. I love it, but please take care of yourself and don't overwork. Love.
I’m watching these out of order and noticed one of the guys had a “Miskatonic University” shirt!
I accidentally watched Session 9 yesterday because I thought it was a different movie, would love to see your review on it. It's.... something.
That would be fun! I actually really like Session 9 - mostly for the actors and the setting, but I genuinely enjoy a lot of the things it does. I even bought the DVD, which really helps clear up what they were going for by talking about a majorly important and entirely cut sub-plot. Had they been able to leave it in, at least *some* of the things would've made more sense.
Also - I wish more horror movies would film in real abandoned asylums, and I feel bad for the suckers who live in the apartments they built there >.>
The scene where the mother and son get merged together reminded me of that one scene in spongebob
You know the one
I felt that the cancer thing was put there to compliment the horror of what happened to the mother latter during the spoilery parts you know... basically the child becomes like a tumor
Hewlett-Packard Lovecraft got to me so much more on the second watch for some reason.
I saw in the film also a critic of the white family of the bourgeoisie : they are obviously rich without working too much, there is several scenes feeling like cliché of an cereal ad family and false outward love which is not holding a lot when troubles come.
All in all a bit like Society
It was a radiation explained at the time in the original story and Richard Stanley did a fantastic job on it
I just watched a thought slime video and you mentioned puppetmaster. Please oh please do a puppet master seriessssss
Despite disagreeing with much of your take on the film...
you do a great job of articulating your take in an entertaining and enjoyable way.
I will repeat something I had about this movie over a few times... I watched it after watching PIG ( it is a masterpiece... my wife called it "gourmet john whick" which I find funny but also a bit unfair except the thing about the culinary universe being an underground fight club universe ) and Willy's Wonderland ( peak Nick Cage )... and I also was a bit let down by Color out of space. And.. I think it comes down to a reason. Before watching Color Out of Space I did watch a fan made black and white movie called "The Whisperer In Darkness", a slow burn low budget treat for anyone wanting some Lovecraft sticking to the text as much as possible.... and... The Color out of Space is... in color. A color we cannot register in photos, a color unlike any other, just making it a hue of pink ( smart move if the audience remembers pink does not exist as a spectrum but a mind play ) on the screen doesn't work... or is less effective, as if the movie was black and white. Yes, it would be screaming at you, but would be a color in a otherwise black and white movie. I think, lacking how to call attention to that color, in a color movie... they added the sound, constantly. Instead of a color creeping in slowly, we have the sound to create the same effect... and it did not work, because we see that as a sign we are getting to a moment of high tension, and it creates a permanence of high tension that yes, can be perceived as tiresome. I did like the movie... but I would love someday to be treated to a black and white version of it. And no, just turning my TV into black and white mode is not the same as a DP making it black and white in soft contrast, and over the length of the film increase contrast, grain, processing dirtyness and the hue of pink, to visually instruct the pervasion of said color. And becoming a pure black and white experience, the soundscape could be altered to adjust.
for colors that descended from space, they lokked like a very common shade of pink
Magenta doesn't exist.
No, seriously, in real life, magenta isn't a real color of light. If you look for it on a spectrograph, you won't find it. It's a placeholder "color" invented by our brains as a stand-in for when our red and blue cones are both activated at once.
@@InfiniteAnvil I get your point. But if you consider color as being defined too by how your brain perceives it, and not just by if it exists in the light spectrum, you can say it exists. Yes, magenta is one of the most alien colors that exists, by your definition. And it still is a color that has been perceived by people and defined by that name. It exists, for humans.
To be fair, there are magenta regions in space that look very otherworldly but magnificent.
Oh man, this video title is quite a combination of words
When this movie was first announced I was praying it would be in black and white
The HP Lovecraft Historical Society films are great. Call of Cthulhu is SILENT(!!!) And fantastic for what it is. I also loved The Whisperer in Darkness
@@fatheroflies Just gonna... Have a little google of that... Thankya kindly.
Check out the 2010 German adaptation: Die Farbe. This is what they did.
as soon as i heard hewlet packard lovecraft, i knew this was going to be a fuckin great video
can i just add that the string arrangement is like a perfect metaphor for chronic migraines?
yeah, a lot of lovecraft horror is, like... not actually that scary outside your imagination. That whole "indescribable horror" thing... doesn't do well when you just *show* it on camera, and it can boil down to "basically nothing" and "a spider monster"
I *would* really love to see something like this where, like, they just put Deep Dream AI filters over the images of the scary things, that's honestly something like the best visual you could get for lovecraftian horror. just *showing it* on screen doesn't cut it
I appreciated this movie a lot, actually. I like a good slow-burning horror movie that leaves room for lines and visuals to breathe. Other commenters have pointed out the purpose of the breast cancer plot line, and I'd like to suggest that part of the intent was also to establish the family as being particularly resilient to normal types of body horror, with the mother having survived cancer and surgery. I further think the reason for the family having moved from the city to the farm was partly to play into the themes of migration and assimilation. The family migrated and is trying to assimilate, and so is the color, in a contrasting manner that's supposed to create a contrast. It's not presented very clearly, but that was how I read it.