***** - Spoilers warning!!! - *****
This is my favourite horror story of all time - it really expresses to myself what horror should really be in literature: something that is to be feared but that cannot be conquered, and somehow that skirts along the lines of possibility.
In this way Colour out of Space absolutely succeeded, which I considered brilliant of the story.
Possibly the most disturbing part was how the whole scenario seemed highly related to radioactivity - ie, a highly radioactive meteorite impacting and covering the nearby landscape with a deadly radioactive fallout. When the scientists came and looked at it and saw colours no one had ever seen before, I was yelling in my head "fluorescence!" and when the material shrank overnight and then vanished, burning a hole in the bottom of the bucket, I kept thinking "radioactive decay with a very short half-life!".
Although the story was written around 1932 (if I remember right) - and therefore such issues of radioactivity were almost certainly well known by then - because he sets the story up a few decades earlier, it gives the whole story something of a prophetic feel.
Of course, he takes the story beyond mere radioactive issues - the swaying (fluorescing!) plant-life, and the thing in the well - just sets up such an overwhelming haunting atmosphere that it's absolutely brilliant.
But the absolute coup de gras is the actual living creature behind it all. This is perfect because at no point is it ever understood, or faced. A major part of the haunting atmosphere is the sheer mystery of what is happening, and sucking the life out of the poor farming family. There's no physical being to kill, destroy, or vanquish - and thus the fear cannot be overcome. After all, all it was was a colour out of space.
And the last couple lines - why the surveyer will never drink from the new reservoir - was a masterful last stroke.
I hear they did a film supposedly based on this story - a b-movie with flesh-eating zombies chasing around. Darn blaspemy, if you ask me.
This is my favourite horror story of all time - it really expresses to myself what horror should really be in literature: something that is to be feared but that cannot be conquered, and somehow that skirts along the lines of possibility.
In this way Colour out of Space absolutely succeeded, which I considered brilliant of the story.
Possibly the most disturbing part was how the whole scenario seemed highly related to radioactivity - ie, a highly radioactive meteorite impacting and covering the nearby landscape with a deadly radioactive fallout. When the scientists came and looked at it and saw colours no one had ever seen before, I was yelling in my head "fluorescence!" and when the material shrank overnight and then vanished, burning a hole in the bottom of the bucket, I kept thinking "radioactive decay with a very short half-life!".
Although the story was written around 1932 (if I remember right) - and therefore such issues of radioactivity were almost certainly well known by then - because he sets the story up a few decades earlier, it gives the whole story something of a prophetic feel.
Of course, he takes the story beyond mere radioactive issues - the swaying (fluorescing!) plant-life, and the thing in the well - just sets up such an overwhelming haunting atmosphere that it's absolutely brilliant.
But the absolute coup de gras is the actual living creature behind it all. This is perfect because at no point is it ever understood, or faced. A major part of the haunting atmosphere is the sheer mystery of what is happening, and sucking the life out of the poor farming family. There's no physical being to kill, destroy, or vanquish - and thus the fear cannot be overcome. After all, all it was was a colour out of space.
And the last couple lines - why the surveyer will never drink from the new reservoir - was a masterful last stroke.
I hear they did a film supposedly based on this story - a b-movie with flesh-eating zombies chasing around. Darn blaspemy, if you ask me.
