A decent, but unspectacular late 80s cheesy low-budget b-grade horror feature starring Wil Wheaton (not too long after the hit movie "Stand by Me"). The peculiar plot is a very loose adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft short story, and from that the film's pacing can plod about (quite talkie and then there was the family dramas) and throw around some ridiculous and elaborate occurrences. It's the performances that drives this one home and some icky, if tatty make-up FX work latter on (not including some very low-end special effects), but other than that there's not all that much to it. The idea isn't bad, but the execution (outside some well-shot scenes) is sloppy (like the use of slow motion towards the end). A respectable Wheaton makes for an agreeably sympathetic performance and a lively Claude Akins is the opposite as his aggressively headstrong, bible totting step-father. There's good support in the shape of Kathleen Jordon Gregory, Cooper Huckabee, Steve Carlisle and John Schneider. The setting of a remote farm does create a claustrophobic hold, where there's never a sense of feeling secure and surprisingly the night time sequences did draw upon some atmospheric spells. A fruity, small scale Horror/Sci-fi production, which can be a little dull.

"The Curse" 1987 by David Keith displays great horrific atmosphere and a nice cast with Wil Wheaton, Claude Akins , John Schneider , Malcolm Danare , among others . From the darkest part of the heavens , horror has arrived , a meteorite that lands near a small farm. The night of a storm , an unindentified, glowing object falls from space , it seems to be a meteor that crashes on earth and infects the water , food and near a farm in rural Tennessee , and , subsequently , the Alien parasites do gruesome things to a lonely family . With it comes a terrible curse for the astonishing family , while farm animals and fruits get infected . As the stiff father (Claude Akins providing nice acting) undertakes a crusade to rid the wife (Kathleen Jordon Gregory) and children (Wil Wheaton and his real-sister Amy Wheaton ) of these monstruosities , resulting in fateful consequences . It will consume you ! No one believe them ! Now , no one's left to save them. It takes your body. And your mind . Then it takes you straight to hell... It took seed ...now it needs to feed . A tale of crops , creatures and carnage !.

Terror movie with thrills , chills , scary events , strong violence and traditional but effective special effects . Concerning an outer entity , a huge, glowing meteorite falls on a farm and contaminates the grubby area , turning people and animals into slime-oozing mutants .Here stands out the colorful images and the gory and loathing FX with plenty of blood and grimy that deliver the goods enough . This is based on Lovecraft story titled ¨Color Out of Space¨, this notorious writer has been adapted in several films such as Dagon , The Dunwich Horror ,The Call of Cthulhu , Re-animator , Re-sonator , The Beyond , Valdemar Legacy I , Valdemar Legacy II , and many others . Stars Wil Wheaton as the good little boy who attempts to save his sister at whatever cost , Claude Akins as the fanatic religious as well as upsettling daddy and Malcolm Damre as the extremely nasty brother. The remaining ensemble cast includes , Steve Carlise , Cooper Huckabee and John Schneider , all of them giving decent acting . It was again adapted in 2019 as ¨Color out of space¨by Richard Stanley with fine performances from Nicolas Cage providing a really histrionic , gestual and almost farcical acting , Joely Richardson, Brendan Meyer and Julian Illiard.

The motion picture was professionally directed by David Keith. This filmmaker has made a few movies , in fact this "The Curse" 2019 resulted to be his first film, and his subsequent outing was ¨Adventures of Tennesse Buck¨. He's a good actor , in his starters , Keith had a supporting role in The Rose (1979) starring Bette Midler ; later on , he had a supporting role in Brubaker (1980), and co-starred with Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). He played a local thug in The Great Santini (1979), starred in The Lords of Discipline (1983) and held a prominent supporting role opposite Matthew McConaughey in U-571 (2000). After that , he played opposite Drew Barrymore in the science fiction horror film Firestarter (1984) , among others . Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable movie horror movie . The pic will appeal to H. P. Lovecraft enthusiasts.

IMDb rating almost kept me away from this jewel. That would be a big mistake. The first hour is a mystery drama with SF premise, and then in the last twenty minutes it grows into good horror. In my opinion, few scenes with lousy effects should have been skipped and without them movie would be more convincing, but even this way this is the best Lovecraft adaptation I saw so far and one of the best movies in its class, primarily because of excellent atmosphere it builds and succeeds to maintain on the level till the very end. This one definitely goes to my collection.

7/10 (8,5/10 within the genre)