The Curse (1987)

This thing is so ridiculous and unintentionally funny that it would have been a cult classic if they had played up the humor. Unfortunately, every scene, even the most absurd, is played with a grave seriousness that makes this movie almost depressing. If you can manage to not sympathize with the plight of any of the characters (which is difficult in many cases), you'll find this a lot more entertaining. The Curse isn't a title I would have used for this, even though it's not unfitting. A cheesy 60s title like Space Plague would have been awesome. It's difficult to recommend this, but if you like cheesy horror movies it is definitely worth a watch.

This adaptation of Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space proves that adapting most of Lovecraft's work is just not feasible unless really done with utmost care.The horror in Lovecraft's story is completely contained within his writing style and as such cannot be easily translated to film.Especially when the film is so pedestrian and routine as this one, and leaves out significant elements of the story, or changes them, and/or updates it to a modern time period for the sake of budget. Just take one look at the "meteor" (like a weather balloon) and the "impact crater" (badly designed bulldozer scrape) and you'll see the budget restrictions.Practically everyone who has read this story and is a Lovecraft fan has imagined it as a film. The proper way to do it would be as what the HPLHS Films did for The Whisperer in Darkness, which would be B&W and set in the same time period as the story.And the use of B&W photography would be of prime significance since the actual "colour" from space is supposed to be a new type of color never before seen by human eyes.

A decent, but unspectacular late 80s cheesy low-budget b-grade horror feature starring Wil Wheaton (not too long after the hit movie "Stand by Me"). The peculiar plot is a very loose adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft short story, and from that the film's pacing can plod about (quite talkie and then there was the family dramas) and throw around some ridiculous and elaborate occurrences. It's the performances that drives this one home and some icky, if tatty make-up FX work latter on (not including some very low-end special effects), but other than that there's not all that much to it. The idea isn't bad, but the execution (outside some well-shot scenes) is sloppy (like the use of slow motion towards the end). A respectable Wheaton makes for an agreeably sympathetic performance and a lively Claude Akins is the opposite as his aggressively headstrong, bible totting step-father. There's good support in the shape of Kathleen Jordon Gregory, Cooper Huckabee, Steve Carlisle and John Schneider. The setting of a remote farm does create a claustrophobic hold, where there's never a sense of feeling secure and surprisingly the night time sequences did draw upon some atmospheric spells. A fruity, small scale Horror/Sci-fi production, which can be a little dull.

This movie had a somewhat good premise, just needed more. Then again is it not the story of almost every horror movie. They have something that could be good and screw it up with perhaps not enough killing, a story that goes off track or something that just causes the movie to derail. This movie needed more bodies to be killed of course I am a gore fan and while this movie has that it needed more killing. The story has a farm wife that is unfaithful and a very strict farm dad and two kids in tow. Well a meteor or something strikes and gets into the farm's water supply and what it does when consumed is not pleasant. Basically, the entire movie though is watching the farmer deteriorate both in body and mind. The son trying to keep his sister from eating or drinking the tainted food and water and his need to escape the farm. Like I said, add a bit more here and there and you have a winner as what happens to the family is rather disturbing. You feel for the boy and wish for him to escape, but you also wish the father would go on a major kill spree too.