Directed and co-produced by Ivan Zuccon, best known to American horror audiences for helming The Shunned House (2003), also a Lovecraft adaptation. He’s also responsible for The Darkness Beyond (2000) and Unknown Beyond (2001), both directly Lovecraft-inspired, which makes four Lovecraft adaptations in a filmography of six movies. This, you might reasonably surmise, is a passion for him. And that’s a shame, because Zuccon’s filmmaking vocabulary is absolutely wrong for adapting Lovecraft.
#1 by Blake on February 11, 2011 - 9:31 am
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Good review. I saw the trailer some time back and thought it looked pretty interesting, and I’m glad you were the one who reviewed it (I wanted to see your comparison between this and the other Zuccon film you reviewed). Beyond the lack of an accent, how was Debbie Rochon’s acting (I always got the impression from your other reviews that you found her acting in general to be solid by B-movie standards)?
#2 by Nathan Shumate on February 11, 2011 - 10:09 am
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She was kind of unimpressive (before she got all covered with latex and greasepaint, anyway), but I think that’s more of a problem resulting from the director not really directing his actors; nobody was really impressive.
#3 by Braineater on February 11, 2011 - 3:22 pm
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Trying to fit the amoral, otherworldly “Colour” into a typical good vs. evil formula is so out of tune with HPL’s whole point that you kind-of wonder where Zuccon’s passion comes from.
Plus, I think this is one of those stories that doesn’t gain anything by being adapted.
#4 by Ken on February 11, 2011 - 6:23 pm
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“well, we can’t show on screen a color unlike those heretofore seen by human eyes”
Well, there are some cool tricks involving mixes of monochrome light which produce color sensations that you can’t get any other way. Unfortunately for the would-be film-maker, they’re outside the gamut for projected film; and for that matter for CMYK printing and RGB phosphors, so you can’t use them in posters or DVDs either.
Also, although technically not found in nature (at least, nature without monochrome lasers), most people would just call them a magenta or violet. That just isn’t right for Lovecraft’s Colour, which should not make you think of My Pretty Pony.
#5 by Bryan on February 12, 2011 - 5:56 am
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“well, we can’t show on screen a color unlike those heretofore seen by human eyes”
Just need to include some LSD with each DVD. I guess you could call that the “special edition.”
#6 by Doc on February 14, 2011 - 4:19 pm
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I was wondering how to do Colour after this review. What would happen if you got a CGI to repeatedly and randomly alter the spectrum of a color several hundred or more times per second as the film unreels–would the brain just register it as white light, or would you truly be able to say you couldn’t rightly identify the colour?
Other than that, there’s no reason it couldn’t be adapted to film–people have been depicted crumbling to dust even before CGI, and I think the mutant trees and critters in the woods would look great. Or just let the HPLHS do it in black and white already–at least they would be faithful to the story.
#7 by Read MacGuirtose on February 15, 2011 - 2:31 am
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Well, a standard movie is only 24 frames per second, so unless you were somehow able to outfit all the theaters with special high-speed projectors, altering the spectrum hundreds of times a second isn’t really an option. Even if you could, though, I suspect the eye would just see it as white (though perhaps with something subconsciously discomfiting about it to some people), though I don’t know that for sure.
There have apparently been some claims about circumstances in which people can see certain “impossible” colors — see here — but they seem to be controversial at best.
#8 by Chad R. on February 15, 2011 - 1:46 am
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Shoot it in black and white except for the Colour, which will be in color, much like the tub of blood in The Tingler.
#9 by Doc on February 15, 2011 - 1:17 pm
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Or have them wear the old red and blue 3D glasses to the theater. Neat article on impossible colors, thank you.