STACK #187 May 2020

FILM FEATURE

visit stack.com.au

COLOUR OF LOVECRAFT THE

After a two-decade hiatus, cult filmmaker Richard Stanley returns with a horrific take on the H.P. Lovecraft story Color Out of Space . Words Glenn Cochrane

R ichard Stanley is a cinematic cult figure like no other. His two films of the ‘90s – Hardware and Dust Devil – were polarising examples of science fiction and horror that catapulted him into the Hollywood sphere. With a rockstar-like status, he was touted as the next big thing. That is until his ambitious 1996 production of The Island of Dr.

Speaking with STACK , Stanley emphasised his love of practical filmmaking. “I haven’t really changed my values over the years. I still like my physical makeup effects, my gore effects, along with my bright primary colours, as much as I liked them in the early ‘90s.” He also discussed his hiatus from the industry and how it has influenced his new film. “I think that it helped that I was perched on top of a mountain for 20 years, and I wasn’t influenced by the movies that were coming out over the last decade or so. There are a lot of things I haven’t seen – I was kind of grateful that I skipped Annihilation , for example, going into this, which allowed me to come at Color Out of Space from a pretty unique angle for this day and age.” An ambitious production, Color Out of Space presented the impossible task of creating a colour that has never been seen by the human eye. “I dived into the mad science of it, as deeply as possible,” he explains. “We obviously

the surrounding area. The entity itself occupies the ethos and manifests itself in the environment, emitting an unearthly colour whenever it’s present. With Nicolas Cage onboard, along with Elijah Wood’s increasingly prolific production

Director Richard Stanley

Moreau came crashing down when he lost creative control as a result of interference from his stars, Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. Stanley was replaced by director John Frankenheimer, went a little crazy, and fell off the radar. Missing from the cinema landscape for 20 years, Stanley has now made a triumphant return with an eerie adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story Color Out of Space – the tale of a unique alien invasion, whereby a meteor crashes beside a farmhouse and infects

I was a fan of H.P. Lovecraft all of my life...

company SpectreVision ( Mandy , Daniel Isn’t Real ), Stanley’s new film is a throwback to the body horror movies of the 1980s, relying on practical artistry to deliver the grotesque goods.

22 MAY 2020

jbhifi.com.au