A Review of Color out of Space

It took me by surprise to hear that there has been a remake and modern adaption of HP Lovecraft's story, Color out of Space. It's not the first time and not the last try to adapt HP Lovecraft's stories. But none that have worked to at least have at least a neutral review. Most of the movies that are adapted go right for Cthulhu (and unfortunately that's a huge chunk of failed attempts).

I saw the reviews that were pretty kind to the movie, even Nicolas Cage's performance was praised. I had to see this for myself.

If you aren't familiar with this movie, I'll give you a snippet of a preview. A farmer's father and his family, live secluded in the woods. They live off the land and enjoy the aspects of their surroundings. Until a strange meteorite strikes their land and begins a change in not only their land but themselves as well.

The Ensemble of Actors that played The Family

First I have to talk about the reason why I watched this movie, Nicolas Cage.

True, we are used to it by now. Nic Cage just unleashes the literal cage in the same shtick. However, I didn't see that Cage took over the screen every time. It was an equal performance ensemble with the actors that played the family. He went from being a concerned father to a confused and exasperated father, to a brand of insane that only Cage could bring to a movie like this. Yes, usually that is when we know how Cage will perform the yelling and spazzy antics as the same approach to acting in certain films (especially those in horror and sci-fi). Strangely, it fits in a movie that has unexplained and unfathomable horrors. With the eerie ambiance, it has, with little comedic deadpan niches, Cage's over-the-top outbursts do help with his character's changes in insanity.

As a weird side note, his performance almost reminded me of Stephen King's character from Weeds/The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill. Which, if you think about it, is also very similar to Color out of Space.

Of course yes, he does unleash the cage in the end but it does do it justice. It's a movie where the unfathomable has no inkling of a hypothetical follow. We have to watch to see how it plays out to see how it affects the family. This was a good role for Nicolas Cage to play a concerned father, a weird yet preserved individual that has his character without just being the father figure, and the freak out at the end does make sense. His character had a good buildup.

I thought everyone had a perfect part to play, even Tommy Chong and he's only in a few scenes. The family wasn't like your usual formula in horror.

The usual " generic family with problems, so that you feel terrible when things go wrong to an innocent family that has the dimensions of a thin piece of cardboard in making a horror movie" cliche.

The daughter was great with her spiritual obsessions despite her skeptical projections. She's the one that puts up most of the effort to help protect from this outer space scare. The older brother didn't fade into the background when you saw how it was affecting him as he had to look after his siblings. I liked the fact that he got along well with his siblings to have bickering yet caring relationship. The youngest son had quirks that made him fearful of what would happen to him. The mom was very interesting to see how it looked like she was barely hanging on even before the turmoil of the terror began.

There is a genuine fear for this family, and it hurts to see their chemistry in the beginning. To know that terror will make a tragedy.

Directing

The pacing and creation of this movie did feel like it was going in the right direction. The trailer said that it was, "the return of Richard Stanley". It sounded interesting to hear just from the title card alone that it sounded personal and interesting as to why it said, "the return". During the movie, I looked up what else Richard Stanley did, since I wanted to know what caused a long hiatus and why this film worked well.

Richard Stanley was the director who was fired from the remake of the film, The Island of Dr. Moreau. that made perfect sense, That's why the sci-fi felt weird and wondrous. Of course, it's sad that Richard Stanley never got to complete The Island of Dr. Moreau (but then again, this film bombed anyway but his involvement would have made some improvements).

His return to the director chair did prove he can tackle a story like HP Lovecraft's. I can see this director doing other ventures into doing similar projects in Sci-fi/Horror. Everything had a balance, it was built up to the tension. The payoff was there. He did a great job, I can see why the movie had fair reviews.

Not the best, but film fans and HP fans were impressed enough to give the movie some solid ratings.

It worked out to his advantage considering Richard Stanley is already planning for an HP Lovecraft trilogy. First is Color out of Space and the next is The Dunwich Horror.

Let's hope he can strike gold again with the newfound faith in what he'll do for that adaptation.

The Visuals

For a movie called Color out of Space, it needed a lot of gumption to make that title worthwhile. It's like when Superman was made into a feature-length, live-action movie adaptation in 1978. It had to bring that same magic from the beginnings of a comic to impressive visuals to believe the Man of Steel exists. It had to astound viewers to see a man can fly and do phenomenal things.

With Color Out of Space, we needed to see something that could make us rethink the world around us and worlds outside of the Earth.

The slow and steady showing of these colors blended into flowers, bugs, air, water, etc. A combination of shades: a plethora of shades that bring purples and pinks to make something out of this world. the colors were edited together on objects or people, worked out fantastically, and believable to see something created like that just with a few shades of different colors. To make it fascinating and frightening.

Not gonna lie, the first time I saw the pink flowers being established as the first sign of the color's takeover. My first thought was, "Holy crap, they ripped off Sailor Moon R: Promise of the Rose"

HP Lovecraft has always made these stories to create the imagery in your head. He describes what this threat is, and it's up to our imagination to create that image in our heads. To see how that vision can be brought out of the book, would be similar to our imaginative interpretations. It had to go big or go home when it comes to creating something from the mind of HP Lovecraft.

The modern twists paid off to have this slow build-up for the takeover of this threat that worked its way from the soil to the water, to the sanity.

In Conclusion

Color out of Space, is indeed a wild ride. It's worth the watch even if it's just once. It's nothing groundbreaking, it was a gamble to adapt this story and it paid off to feel neutral about it. Nothing was underwhelmed or overwhelmed in performances, storytelling, and visuals. The reviews I read, did turn out the way that happened after I watched this film. There are bizarre comedic moments that can be interpreted as intentional or accidental. It's worth it to watch for the effects to create this threat from a color. It's worth it to see Nicolas Cage have a passive yet panicked performance. It's a film for those that want something weird and serious at the same time.