Colour from the Dark, The Evil that Gets Inside You

1943 Italy! Beautiful and horrific. As part of the Axis, this country is thrown into war. Its seemingly noble young men are shipped to north Africa to fight the English...and then General Patton. This won't go well. Alas, Italy chose the wrong side...and consequences abound. All that evil Nazi Germany wrought is now shared with a submissive partner in crime. As most of Europe can be seen as complicit in the attempted extermination of the Jewish race, a weird and all encompassing evil is ready to spring forth...from a well. Hence Ivan Zuccon's 2008 adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story, "Colour from the Dark."

Evil has indeed enveloped a continent and most of the world. Young Alice (Marysia Kay), a mute girl, is drawn to the farm's mysterious well. Something in the well is ready...and a veritable portal to Hell seems to be opened. At first the madness and horror appear good. Crops become bountiful, and the in-firmed are healed. Lucia (Debbie Rochon) and Pietro (Michael Segal) run the farm and the new well water seems to have put eroticism into their marriage. As 1943 will eventually see the tide turning in World War 2, the flavor of the farm will also turn sour. Most notably, the beautiful Lucia will turn quite ugly as possession makes her into a satanic monster.

Theresa's transformation is a special f/x masterpiece and quite horrific (there's that word again). The beautiful Debbie Rochon will be turned into a vile monster. The evil from the well gains a foothold and turns aggressive. Gore and sexual perversion will take over this farm that once belonged to a sweet, hard working family.  A failed exorcism will unfold into a gore-fest and taboo sexual desires will explode. Anything good or sweet will be attacked and raped (in a figurative sense). Lucia's possession will not remain localized, and Italy may never recover. A backstory of a Jewish woman, who is exterminated, serves as a bleak reminder that the evil in the well may emanate from a more local source than Hell.

The fate of Pietro and Lucia's family and farm may be a metaphor for Italy's fate after joining forces with Hitler. Will our sweet and beset farm family be able to shake free of the evil from the well? Can anyone claim innocence for the horror that nearly wiped out the Jewish race in the 1940s? Is this film an attempt to warn us all of un-repented sin, either in a divine sense, or in our personal journeys? This is a humorless and grim horror tale with much gratuitous gore and uncomfortable eroticism. Not the feel good film of the 21st century, but perhaps an appropriate capsule of the horrors of 1943 Europe. See "Colour from the Dark," and then take a look into your mirror.