COLOUR FROM THE DARK

COLOUR FROM THE DARK (2008)
IT
Directed by Ivan Zuccon

CAST:
Debbie Rochon - Lucia
Michael Segal - Pietro
Marysia Kay - Alice

PLOT:
     One day, while drawing water from the well, Pietro and Alice accidentally free something from Earth's womb. A strange and alien color flashes underwater, at the well's bottom, then disappears. From that moment on, inexplicable events start happening all around their land.

REVIEW:
     When I was trying to gather a list of movies to watch this month, for what I'm calling Lovecraft month, I ran into multiple titles that I could watch and review. Some are more connect to the Lovecraft Mythos than others, while some are just trying to grab fans of Lovecraft attentions. So here I am trying to find movies that will fit more into the month better than others, hence is how I found about this movie. Now let's just hope it's not a waste of time.

     While the cast isn't well known except for Debbie Rochon to me, there is one glowing discrepancy. That us that every cast member has a different accent. Even though the setting is in Italy around the time the Nazi party was in full swing of occupying as many countries as possible, every character had a different accent. I'm not talking about local accents from around Italy, but I heard Irish, Spanish, and English accents. Something just didn't seem right about that to me, probably because it just doesn't go with the real history of the time.  Gerry Shanahan while having a Irish accent, did the best job of acting in the movie as the concerned neighbor and friend. He delivers his lines with believability and sincerity. Michael Segal does a good job as well as Pietro. You can tell he tried his best with his role of the land owner whose life is being turned upside down around him.

     I do have to say that this movie has problems. The main one being the story. It starts out a relatively quick, even with a jump scare in about the first three minutes. Then that's it for the scares. I was really disappointed with that specially if Director Ivan Zuccon started the movie this way. Another story problem is that even though the movie is loosely based on Colour Out Of Space, and the original problem stems from a 'rock' from space, this movie decides the whole problem stems from a religious source, and that the reason why the people start acting bad is because they are possessed. With explaining it that way, the mystery is ruined of why all the bad is happening and that the area surrounding the estate is going bad and becoming blighted. Also the movie tries to hard to be religious. From melting crosses to the Star of David being shown once, then never again. By putting to much of the story in this light, it destroys the unknown aspect that made the source material so good as well as showing the viewers a explanation corrupts the intent of the original story. As for loose plot threads this movie has plenty of them with the chief one being Alice's doll as it talks to her in dreams and in waking life and we never get to know why.

     While they are some decent special effect, both CG and practical, the CG quality goes up and down too often and the use of CG fog and smoke is used to frequently. The main time this comes into being is toward the end of the movie to as to cover up a land that isn't ruined, yet is supposed to be. Even though I love practical effects, and this movie does have its moments of coolness, if the intended sequence is to show someone being stabbed multiple times, at least ruin the poor actors' clothes as they should be in ruin. This should also go for that actors face as well after being stabbed at least fifteen times. Yet the one main detractor for the movie is it is just plain boring. I found myself looking at how long the movie had left on it's running time and wishing for a way to speed it up. For a movie that runs only an hour and a half it seemed to last twice that long. If you get a chance to see this movie, pass on it and go and watch something else.

BEST DEATH:
     Father Mario's deep eye problem.

BEST LINE:
     It wasn't me.
     It was It.

FUN FACTS:
     Official selection of The Oldenburg Film Festival in Germany 2009.

     Winner of the Brown Jenkin Award for Best Feature at the 2009 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

     Based on the H. P. Lovecraft story Colour Out Of Space.

     Director Ivan Zuccon has made several other Lovecraft movies including The Shunned House, The Darkness Beyond, and it's semi-sequel Unknown Beyond.