Lovecraft- The Colour Out of Space (Analysis)
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- Weekly Lovecraft no. 1? I give a simple analysis of the classic horror tale by HP Lovecraft.
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I always picture the colors that you see on the sides of bubbles that you blow or maybe the color that appears when gas is in water. A sort of shimmering mix of colors as opposed to just one solid. Actually exactly like how they designed the Shimmer on the movie annihilation but more solid and less transparent.
Yes, me too.
Just getting into HP Lovecraft, this was my first story and Jesus I love it. Idk why it’s so simple but affect at its story. I feel the Colour has to be one of the most interesting entity/creatures I’ve seen in media. (I’ve seen a lot of horror movies) The idea of something not being able to physically touch but it slowly killing you and everyone around you is so scary. It just gives me such a overly drawn out illness killing you type of vibes. I love this story so much.
Probably my favorite, too
It’s incredible, but also….. while this was not intentional on Lovecraft’s part, he basically predicted a number of the effects of Radiation upon living tissue. The Heath, is….. in and of itself? Kinda akin to Chernobyl, as the Gardener Farm was irradiated. Why? Because the Colour, is itself essentially…… living sentient radiation.
The Colour Out of Space is perhaps my favorite H.P. Lovecraft story. This was an awesome watch! Thanks! I will definitely tune in every week for Lovecraft!
That’s the ‘blasted heath’, good sir.
Glad someone else noticed this. And, in such a case with HPL, it is much more than semantics. He is relying on the resonances with both Shakespeare and Milton in his use of that specific term, both for the supernatural and apocalyptic dimensions... just as he does in using the Charles Lamb quotation from "Witches, and Other Night Fears" as the epigraph for "The Dunwich Horror"....
Yeah, this guy's really good. Not sure how he could botch that one so many times. Did he have an overseas copy??? Going to see the movie tonight!!!
Yeah this bothers me too haha, good story though and one of my favorites too.
How about "The Devil's Hop Yard?"
The Colour is essentially a Star-Vampire, that drains the life-force from everything living around it in order to restore its own power (the meteorite may be seen as its sarcophagus. Once breached, the Colour takes refuge in the well, and from there starts draining the environment). It's one of the greatest examples of "subversion of expectations" done right (as opposed to recent abysmal failures at trying that). Even if you know it's a Vampire, you come in expecting Dracula, and instead get a cosmic horror.
One of the great Lovecraft pieces indeed.
What if it's jut plant or fungus and it's just its natural growth?..
You are trying to explain that can't be and shouldn't be explain because it's too alien.
As soon as you give it "earthly" understandable reason you'll loose what they call Lovecraftian Cosmic horror.
It could be anything really. I always imagined it was like some kind of toxic waste perhaps dumped by a more advanced race and falling in earth by accident.
@@DemienC. Exactly. The whole reason why Lovecraft's writing was so unique was mainly because of all the unexplained parts of it. There is nothing less Lovecraftian in the world than having the whole mythos explained, with the name of all the Old Gods and Deities and the list of their powers, hierarchy, etc. Lovecraft would loathe seeing that lol
@@DemienC. Uh, Vampires are "earthly"? They are supernatural monsters. The Colour behaves almost exactly like one, except it affects every living thing in different ways, but ends up draining their life-force anyway.
The point is it doesn't matter if it's its natural growth or not. The Colour behaves in a way, voluntary or not, that destroys life and annihilates sanity, and that's where the horror comes from. If it just sprinkled pixie dust on top of every watermelon the farmer was raising it wouldn't be nearly as horrific, no matter how alien it was.
@@GamePlayMetal Funny you should say that, since one of his closest disciples, August Derleth, started cataloguing the Mythos almost as soon as he met Lovecraft.
Derleth ended up going way too far when he expanded the Mythos to include "neutral" or even kinda-sorta good deities and established a "war in heaven" of sorts.
Lovecraft's writing was supposed to evoke fear of the unknown indeed, but it's not impervious to some forms of cliche. For example, you say there's no hierarchy, while Lovecraft himself established Azatoth at the center of the universe as the all-powerful being in his Mythos. He also established Nyarlathotep as the "Herald of the Old Gods". How can one be a herald without some sort of hierarchy?
Way too many people these days have a superficial reading of Lovecraft and spout stuff they heard from other people or commentators without an appreciation of where his writing came from. Dunsany, Poe, Mather, all of them had some form of influence on his writing, and it shows. He did develop his own style of prose, but it doesn't make him impervious to analysis.
So....anybody here know the game 'darkest dungeon'? Very Lovecraft inspired, has a dlc called 'the colour of madness'. Cannot speak of it highly enough, so lovecraft fans go check it out :)
Who's here after the movie?Wow I went from watching Mandy to this and absolutely loved them both.You explained this very well 👍👌
I don't recall the term "withered" heath. I think was called the "blasted heath".
You need to analyze The Temple, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
I'm looking forward to the film.
When soes a trailer come out
I'm not, it's got Nicolas bloody Cage in it. Why, why???
I wanted to like it but... Yeah. One day we will get a good Lovecraft movie adaptation, hopefully before I die of natural causes.
Weekly Lovecraft sounds great!
Great review of one of my favorite stories. I've always imagined the color as many colors like in an oil slick.
Great analysis David - I should note that The Color Out of Space is actually Lovecraft's favorite of his works, so you're in good company! It was one of the earlier Lovecraft stories I read and actually just a couple days ago I re-listened to an audiobook reading of it by the CZcams channel, Horrorbabble. I highly recommend looking into them for anyone who likes weird fiction and old school horror audiobooks. If you're interested in strictly Lovecraft audiobooks though, you can't do better than the ones narrated by Wayne June. He is bar none the best audiobook narrator I've ever heard, and some may know that he was actually brought on as the narrator of the lovecraftian RPG game, "Darkest Dungeon." Some of Wayne's narrations can be found here on youtube, but I was only able to find all of the ones he did by buying them on Amazon or Audible.
I don't think Color out of Space is my favorite Lovecraft work, but it sure is an excellently paced story, with a fantastic payoff - the revelation that the whatever-it-is still lives, and that there's going to be a reservoir put in over that land adds the perfect note of dread to end the book on. I think the story also works really well because the threat is completely and purely alien - it's not really presented as if it's malicious or anything. It's just a completely foreign force whose existence threatens everything sane around it. It makes for a really great threat because you Lovecraft was kind of able to play with a little bit of "man vs nature" within the threat instead of it being purely extrinsic.
Hmmm so the movie annihilation borrowed a lot from this book
I was reminded constantly of that movie when i read this story
Unquestionably. Just as The Thing (and its source - Who Goes There) borrows a lot from At the Mountains of Madness.
I am doing a coursework on H.P. Lovecraft's specific genre of existential and cosmic horror, so I read a lot of literature on the subject and specifically The Colour Out of Space. I found a really interesting take in a book (Lovecraft in the 21st centruy; dead but still dreaming), where the mysterious, indescribeable colour could be suggested as closer to something like radioactive rays or similar. This derives from the historical context of the 1930s, where the otherwise positive expectations of nuclear advancement are watered down as this is when we see the first negative and transmutative properties of long exposure to radioactive material. While it's unlikely that the meteor is actually radioactive, I just thought the similarites between the corruption of The Colour Out of Space and an example like Chernobyl to be incredibly intriguing.
This has always been my favorite Lovecraft story, loved your analysis.
Facts concerning the late Arthur Jermyn and his family. It's a short read and you can sort of predict the outcome, yet when it happens it's still a shock.
The Blob was influenced by this story quite a bit. Lovecraft considered this story his best, or at least very close. The version available on Audible is worth getting. Great narrator.
Annihilation also gives me a loy of The Colour out of Space vibes.
Sorry, I had a very difficult time paying attention to what you were saying. Your hair is just.. gorgeous. So distractively beautiful.
Would love your analysis on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, or The Dreams in the Witch House.
Weekly story reviews I like it doesn't have to be only lovecraft
My first H.P.Lovecraft story and the one that would hook me to the genre. Back in high school they used to take us to the library and make us choose a book to read and make a summary. Usually I thought this would be a colossal waste of time, but something about this book caught my attention: How could a color come from outer space? This change my life entirely.I don't really consider Lovecraft has part of the horror genre but something else entirely, reading him is an entrance into a vast unexplored universe were wonder and dread coexist in equal measure, Ctullu for example is not a monster per se, bad things (And rarely good things) happen to human by mere chance as they are merely pawns or expectators of an inticrate cosmic game of chess, the gods don't want to destroy us or eat us has part of an evil scheme, we're just ants and they ocassionaly step on us. Is great that in modern times this author has received the credit that deserves.
The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill is Stephen King's homage to The Colour Out Of Space
Good commentary does evoke the sense of the story...and may nudge people who haven't read it to seek it out and experience it for themselves. (I always thought of the colour as something that is more experienced than seen, meaning it'd hurt your eyes (like trying to look into a black light directly too long), so it was more an effect of a blurring in the atmosphere ---a wavering sort of thing---more than a color, and would inflict a mental/sensory confusion, or vague nausea. But I did sort of mentally assign it ghostly faint hues, like radium clock hands glowing dimly in the dark (I thought the "music" heard in the end encounter in the lighthouse in ANNIHILATION felt like what the colour would look like...tho that probably doesn't cohere very well with anything. (Maybe that's why it felt right?) thanks for your words/thoughts!
You're a master rhetorician David, you've got me hooked.. "The slow transition from what's known and understandable, into something bizarr, fantastical, and horrific."----How about applying to----->Critics?...
...."Let the 'good times' {uh-huh, yea (wink) sure} roll, let them knock you around.. let the good times roll, let them make you a clown.. Let them leave you up in the air, let them them brush, your rock'n'roll hair.. Let the good times roll..........Let the stories be told, they can say what they want.. Let the photos be old, let them show what they want..
(near all of them love you when you give them the tried and true universal.. once you step out of their playground's boundaries however------aaaahhhh!!!!NOOOO!!!-------."The Decent Into Madness"!-----) ----->and we see how few real friends remain----->"If the illusion is real, let them give you a ride.. if they've got thunder and appeal, let them be on your side".
Funny, how some few just KNOW (Lovecraft, for sure) from the very beginning.. Great idea for a weekly, I love it my friend.
This novella was incredibly gripping and awesome to read.
I read this book and found I had to push myself to get through it -- even as short as it is. Maybe it's above my reading comprehension level... but I could read an entire page or two and wonder what I just read. It may have been written in another language as far as I was concerned.... it clearly seemed the author was stringing together words that were very descriptive but I just couldn't wrap my head around it...
My favorites are Charles Dexter Ward and Shadow over Innsmouth
I'd like to see a truely faithful film version of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Not set in modern times, set as it is in the novel.
Please do At the Mountains of Madness at some point.
Thank you for the commentary.
I watched it last night at a one night screening here in Cincinnati.
I really enjoyed it. The changes made I felt didn’t take away from the story.
Excellent video and great series idea. The colour out of space is one of my favorites as well and nobody ever discusses it, so thanks for filling that void. I have been trying to get my wife to read this story for years. She isn't a fan of horror but I want her to get an idea of what Lovecraft is about and this seems like maybe she wouldn't hate. Oh and like others in the comments i request The Dunwich Horror.
Lovecraft’s stories are public domain, so anyone interested can get them free, electronically at least. I think this is the one I put on my Kindle: arkhamarchivist.com/free-complete-lovecraft-ebook-nook-kindle/
Keep in mind some are selling similar electronic compilations on the Kindle store and possibly other places. Not sure if that is legal, but you don’t need those.
The Colour out of Space was one of my favourites as well.
Happy level-up day, David!
I hadn't read Lovecraft in almost 30 years until I found a leatherbound book in a bookstore a few weeks ago: Tales of Horror. I can't put the book down. I love the way he writes (wrote). Being a huge WoW lore fan to me the colour is close the dark purple that represents the Void and the Old Gods (Great Old Ones).
You might want to check out William Hope Hodgson's book The House On The Borderlands.
The Colour out of Space is the creepiest story from all the stuff Lovecraft came up with. The majority is just plain out boring. I would love(craft) to hear what you bring up next.
Dude you gotta do The Cats of Ulthar and Shadow over Innsmouth!
this is my favorite story!
I just saw this today. This movie was! 👏
Excellent. And I'd love this to be a weekly feature.
I'd have to say The Outsider is my favorite and The colour out of space is up there in my top favorites
Yay for weekly Lovecraft! Can't wait for you to analyse my favorites.
The part described about the wife almost made me shit my pants. My heart was beating so damn fast! 😫❤️ SO SCARY!!!
Really good analysis David. I’m looking forward for this to being a weekly thing.
Holy shit did I love this movie !!!
Lovecraft: wait? There's colors that we can't see? What are they up to!!!
*Hyperventilates
Hey I normally didn’t read H.P. Lovecraft, the first one I read fully was Dagon which was meh the rest I couldn’t get past the language. But I read the story “the outsider” and I loved it! It reminds me of the descent into madness however instead the character ascends and learns the truth, all in all very interesting. I think I’ll check out more Lovecraft, I haven’t seen all of this video yet cause I don’t want spoilers but I love your analysis.
The Colour out of Space is a lovecraft story that always sticks out to me... it was definitive lovecraft but also a bit different from his usual fare. I gotta find a copy online or something because I haven't read it in a while but it sticks in my head and I want to re-read it really bad
It's in the public domain
1:10 blasted heath
Love Lovecraft. Thanks for the vid... I should go reread that story!!!
Have you read any Robert E Howard? His horror stories are great.
this was great!
Keep making this Lovecraft vids ! :)
BLASTED HEATH!
Mesa/Boogie or Peavey amp?
Blasted Heath ... but I’m with ya man... amazing story.
The movie Annihilation has a lot in common with The Colour out of Space.
Haven't seen it yet. Was it good?
It’s good enough that I would see it again. It’s definitely a head trip. I left the theater asking, “what did I just see?” There is a strong pro-evolution message to it that was hard to ignore. It also has a pronounced descent in to madness that I didn’t identify before listening to your video. It’s worth seeing once, in my opinion.
Alright I'll try to watch it.
If you do see it, I hope you do a review of it. I’d like to hear your thoughts about it.
It's more interesting than the color out of space movie
Hey David, loved the review! I just saw the Richard Stanley adaptation starring Nicolas Cage and was wondering if you had a chance to see it and had any thoughts.
No unfortunately I haven't seen it. It's very difficult for me to get to the cinema.
Does anyone know when and how we 'll be able to watch the movie?
Just saw a movie with Natalie Portman wich could have been Part two of the Story color out of space
The film am1200 takes inspiration from this
Could you talk about the extremely faithful (sarcasm sarcasm) nicolas cage adaptation?
I will.
If you like Lovecraft, then check out the CZcams channel Arkham Reporter
I didn't catch that you had started this until today. Colour out of Space is my absolute favorite story. I love listening to this with people as their first experience with Lovecraft. It really shows them what he is about, and has left them wanting more every single time. My favorite reading is here:
czcams.com/video/eoCG8CJlvVo/video.html
You also forgot to mention that the new dam is going to create a reservoir over the farm, with the implication that the colour could be infecting the entire area in the future. I just really love this story!
Word son
Umm,blasted heath.
I like your story analysis man, but I looked at your twitter and you seem a bit unhinged lol. Either way, I wish you well
There is a godawful movie made in 2010 (I think) available on Amazon that is absolutely terrible. It’s black and white and 100% completely boring. I’m talking really, really awful. DO NOT watch it. I hear they are making a new movie of the same title with Nicolas Cage and it is suppose to be full of body horror, but that is NOT the movie I am talking about.
My cat literally gave you a like lol