I mean, I’m glad that somebody’s trying to adapt HP Lovecraft’s classic science fiction/horror story for the big screen, but it’s not the easiest story to show over the course of an hour and a half. It would have made a perfect Twilight Zone episode, or maybe a radio program, but there’s a distinct lack of physical action in the story. Which is fine for horror! In fact, it’s one of the things that makes “The Colour Out of Space” such a great story; the ‘monster’ is right there, right out in the open, and nobody can do anything about it.
But that’s hard to pull off in a visual medium; at least, it’s hard to sustain. You can get a half hour of good footage out of it, sure. But if you wanted to make a movie… then what do you do?
Via @WilliCaroline.
Moe Lane
PS: That’s how HPL spelled it.
As much as I love HPL and REH, it’s really Clark Ashton Smith they should be raiding for movies. His writing readily lends itself to adaptation to the silver screen.
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His stories are less apt to haunt you, but I would say he was the best craftsman of the three. He’s also very visual, and largely lacks the internal brooding and underlying philosophy that’s so hard to depict in a visual medium.
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Of course, my favorite of his was “Master of the Asteroid” (freely available online!) And it would be almost as hard to adapt as HPL or REH.
But quite a few of his stories would actually work *better* as movies than short stories.
I would not mind seeing some of CAS’s stuff get filmed. I would not mind that at all, in fact.