Most holidays worth their while encompass entire seasons, such as Christmas, for example. However, as you may have noticed there is a corporate push every year for us to think about the next holiday even sooner. While this has many negative side effects I figure I may as well embrace it.

Since Labor Day is really only good for college football and movie marathons cinematically it is as significant as Arbor Day, which means the next big day on the calendar is Halloween and we can start looking toward it starting now.

Daily I will be viewing films in the horror genre between now and then and sharing the wealth. Many, as is usually the case, will not be worth it so for every disappointment so I will try and suggest something worth while as well.

The Curse

Granted, this like most adaptations of Lovecraft is quite changed but from those I’ve seen so far this has been the most faithful. Lovecraft is often described as un-filmable and it’s interesting to note that a few people will reportedly step up to the challenge in the near future, namely Guillermo Del Toro with At the Mountains of Madness (currently scrapped but rumors persist) and Ron Howard with a Lovecraft-inspired tale.

As for the film at hand it is based on “The Colour Out of Space,” which is quite an eerie tale scribed by the master of supernatural fiction and this movie captures that. Yes, there are some very cliché things in this film and David Keith couldn’t direct a PSA but yet this movie manages to work mostly due to the handling and quasi-faithfulness to the tale.

The movie is just freaky. It scared me quite a bit and I don’t scare easily. It’s not too proud to be grotesque. Had Claude Akins and Wil Wheaton not been in the cast it might have been just another hackneyed contrived 80s slasher film but their performances coupled with a unique and affecting score make it work.

I was quite uncertain as to whether I wanted to see this or not. Now I’m glad I did.

If you are interested it is available as a combo-pack on both Amazon.

9/10