Die Farbe

[Mark Brett]

Just got done watching Die Farbe, the German adaptation of The Colour Out of Space that the Historical Society's distributing. Very nice, very faithful adaptation. They do move the story to Germany, and replace the surveyor who narrates the story with an American (from Arkham, no less!) who's in the area searching for his missing father. But the story of the Gardner (or, here, Gartener) family's decline and death due to the Colour is spot-on. The madness that grips the mother is especially well-done, as is the fit that comes over the middle son when he thinks he can hear the thing moving all around them. And Ammi's discovery of the Gardner's final fate is creepy as all hell, too.

The budget's obviously not huge, but they make use of some limited CGI that looks pretty good in small doses, mostly for a couple of freakish insects and for the Colour itself. Speaking of which...

Nothing that follows is terribly SPOILERY, but still. If you don't want a couple of the film's better surprises SPOILED for you, stop reading now.

The film's in black and white, which seemed like kind of an odd choice for this particular story at first. But as I thought about it, I began to suspect that they were going to do exactly what they did: the Colour is the only thing in the film that's actually in color. The contrast works well for them, accentuating the lifelessness of the Blasted Heath in relation to his alien thing that's descended upon it. They went with a virulent sort of violet for the Colour, and it looks, as best I can describe it, like a gelatinous cloud made up of smaller globules of violet light. That's not how I've always pictured it, but it's probably closer to how Lovecraft actually describes it. For a monster that's probably best-left to the imagination, at any rate, they do a nice job with it.

I would have liked to have seen them do more with the glow that's supposed to permeate everything on the Gardner farm by the end, but that's a quibble. There's a touch of it that's handled to good effect as Ammi flees the house, so maybe less is more in this case.

And, finally and most SPOILERY... They add on a dream sequence late in the film that seems to imply that Ammi may have actually fallen under the Colour's influence at some point, and had a hand in feeding the Gardners to the thing! In particular, it looks like he's responsible for throwing Marwin down the well! Now, whether that's really supposed to have happened, or if it's just a nightmare brought on by post-traumatic suvivor's guilt, is open to debate. I like the ambiguity, but I also think I prefer to believe that it's true. Because that adds a layer of sick irony to Lovecraft's oddly flat ending, showing concern for kindly old Ammi as the reservoir's built.

Which reminds me... Make sure you watch the credits to get the cherry on top of the Die Farbe cake.

[Genus Unknown]

Haven't seen it yet, and didn't want to read your post until I have. I've got it ordered though, and it should arrive sometime in the next week or so.

I'm excited. I hear good things about it, and I've been dying for a good Colour Out of Space adaptation for years. I'm really interested in seeing how they handle the Colour.

[Robert R.]

I watched it over the weekend. I had some problems with the sound dropping out of the stereo track, although switching to 5.1 solved it. There's some minor subtitle issues with it as well.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, but it's obvious in the English scenes that it's non-native actors.

For the most part, I think it's a good adaptation. A bit talky, but it works well enough for the adaptation. The limited special effects are used well and I agree with the black and white choice. I think the best decision they make is to play it quiet, including the score, to develop an overall feeling of dread. It's a slow burn and effective at that. I do think that they dropped the ball a bit on the disappearance of the youngest son.

I kind of wish that the scientific investigation had been truncated some. It's not bad, but doesn't really serve to develop the mood any and I think more time with the Gartener family would have been better.

I didn't get the Celtic Headstone idea at all, except for a way to get the main character out of the car at the end. It seems kind of clumsy.

I'll be pretty much anti- the twist in the tail for the ending. Making the narrator unreliable is an interesting choice, but one ultimately that I think serves to confuse the issue of the horror rather than add to it. Especially as I think they could have placed emphasis on where the water is ultimately going.

Overall, I think it's a good adaptation and serves as a nice complement to HPLHS's other offerings.

[Genus Unknown]

And, finally and most SPOILERY... They add on a dream sequence late in the film that seems to imply that Ammi may have actually fallen under the Colour's influence at some point, and had a hand in feeding the Gardners to the thing! In particular, it looks like he's responsible for throwing Marwin down the well!

Wait, what? I missed that completely.

[Lechance]

I just got this and watched (most of) it yesterday. i had to stop right when the Colour comes out of the well. I have to say what I saw was way better than I expected it to be...I even didn't mind, scratch that, enjoyed the cgi in the beginning of the film.
***SPOILERS****
The odd bluescreened backgrounds and the even the insects and ash added an other worldly feel the whole affair. I will say i was VERY disappointed with the Colour. I enjoyed the purplish/pinkish color choice and even wasn't too bummed on the choice the globules as the shape of it instead of a mist or vapour...but i think the CGI in those parts is distractingly bad. Everything was pretty subtle up until these pink balls start swooping through windows and popping out of corpse eyes. I think the scene of the mothers death would have been exponentially creepier had I not been thinking "oh god that looks awful". Mind you, not the ashy corpse, but the pink globs oozing out of her head like the ghost of a scyfy movie. However, though I still have to finish the movie, I think the rest of the film is beautiful, eerie and haunting. The good totally outweigh the bad on this one