My days of reading H.P. Lovecraft are long behind me and though I’m now innured to the literary tricks that he used to infuse his stories with mystery and horror and I’m wise to the more problematic elements in his characters, reading them is still a treasured childhood memory. Given how pervasive Lovecraft’s influence has been, it’s been mind-boggling that no one has thus far made a good adaptation of his work. Some have tried, but they’ve mostly been low budget, poor quality stuff. This particular film isn’t completely faithful to the short story but I think it’s good enough that we can consider it a success.

Nathan Gardner and his family live on in the woods in a farm on the outskirts of the town of Arkham. One night, a meteor, glowing in a brilliant weird color, crashlands on their property. The next day, the mayor, sheriff and a hydrologist who has been surveying the area for the construction of a dam come over to examine it but are unable to come to any conclusion. That same night there is a storm and multiple lightning bolts strike the meteor and seemingly destroy it. Yet this is only the beginning of the strange phenomena and the family’s troubles. They become prone to fugues and lose track of time. The youngest son is convinced that there is something down the well and talks to it. The wife Theresa absentmindedly chops off two fingers while cooking in a trance-like state and Nathan rushes her to the hospital. The hydrologist discovers that something is contaminating the water and tries to warn everyone not to drink it. But it is too late and the water seems to be mutating living creatures that drink it and warping reality as well.

This film adapts everything to a modern setting and all of the changes are very millennial as well. Theresa seems to be some kind of investment adviser who works online and Nathan tries to raise alpacas. The teenaged daughter Lavinia is bored to death of the place and fancies herself as a Wiccan witch. These changes make the characters more relatable to audiences and I love what a slow burn this film is. It takes its time in developing their personalities and keeps the weird stuff on the subtle side until the very end. At the same time, the film doesn’t hold anything back at the climax either. I’d always thought that it would be challenging to put an indefinable color out of space on screen or properly portray the otherworldliness of Lovecraft’s brand of horror. The tricks that director Richard Stanley employ here with flashes of weird color and completely over the top shots of alien landscapes aren’t perfect but work about as well as I could hope for.

Beyond just transposing the story to a modern setting, this adaptation also differs in that the original short story takes place over a much longer period of time as the influence of the strange color is more subtle. The color also doesn’t actually mutate living things and I don’t recall there being any monsters. I suppose that Stanley felt that he needed them for the film but I really dislike having creatures that can be physically fought in a Lovecraft-themed story. The point ought to be that the sheer alienness and horror of their existence itself completely overwhelms the human mind and precludes any possibility of combat. I especially dislike it in American horror films when the characters start pulling out the guns to deal with monsters because guns empower characters when the point of horror should be to render them helpless.

At least this one doesn’t try to be too much of an action movie, it does develop the characters enough to make you sympathize for them and most of all it does understand the source material. I have to admit that I got a little frisson of thrill at the last shot of a survivor who has lived through and seen things. This isn’t a perfect adaptation but it is very good and I’m excited that Stanley will be making more of these.