Day 21:The Curse

    The Curse is a feature film adaption of the H.P. Lovecraft short story The Colour Out Of Space. Said to be Lovecraft’s favorite of his short stories. It’s been adapted to film several times but perhaps it’s most faithful adaptation is The Curse. Does faithful make it any good though?

     The plot revolves around a family of farmers in a small town in Tennessee. One night a strange glowing object crashes just outside of the farm. After it’s discovery strange occurrences begin to take place. The crops grow plentiful but they are rotten or filled with worms. The water tastes funny and the animals have all grown aggressive. Worse yet, the mother has been acting strangely and growing more and more disfigured. The step father is a religious fanatic and refuses any doctors help. Can the children of the house find a way to escape from the curse of the weird glowing asteroid thing?

      Lucio Fulci is credited as producer and apparently he oversaw the gore effects. For some reason hes credited as Louis Fulci on my VHS. Fulci was a master of gore and you can see his influence. The special effects, particularly during the climax are fantastic. The practical effects are perhaps the films only saving grace.

       The Curse is a slow moving film. Perhaps that’s by design to build towards its anything but subtle finale. That might work if the acting and characters weren’t so bland. The story concept is a good one given the source material. But when adapted to a feature length movie the characters should be interesting enough to fill in the blanks. They aren’t and sadly the whole film drags as a result.

Body Count:5