Outside of “Rats in the Walls” and “Herbert West: Re-Animator,” I’ve never read anything by H.P. Lovecraft because my simpleton brain won’t process his era-specific writing style. Oddly, my education of what a Lovecraft story entails comes not from the man himself, but through other artists homaging his work, like John Carpenter’s In The Mouth of Madness or several of Stuart Gordon’s films, including From Beyond. One thing among them all remained consistent: Lovecraft writes of slimy, distorted, indescribable monstrosities from other worlds—both in a sci-fi sense and a more generally horrific one.
Because of this, I had no real idea what to expect as I sat down to watch Color Out of Space, which is not just Nicolas Cage’s latest foray into the horror genre following the astounding Mandy, but which also hails the return of celebrated cult director Richard Stanley after a twenty-year absence(!) from feature filmmaking. Except for a quiet and low-key documentary about mysticism and inter-dimensional travel called The Otherworld, the last time anyone saw the mythical South African filmmaker was as the subject of Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey Of Richard Stanley's Island Of Dr. Moreau, which, if you haven’t seen it, holy shit—do it. Stanley isn’t known to the mainstream, having made films that are quiet and very unique, like Dust Devil (compromised for a long time by the Weinsteins) and Hardware, recently released exclusively on Blu-ray from Ronin Flix. Stanley’s films have their own look and feel, which is what makes Color Out of Space both comfortably familiar and surprisingly nuanced.
One night, as the Gardner family disperses throughout the house for some alone time, a meteorite crash-lands on the front lawn of their isolated country home. Though it’s never made clear, this meteorite contains a radioactive or intergalactic element that causes nearby vegetation to double or triple its size, along with insects and reptiles who begin sporting wild, neon colors. Lastly, its exposure to human beings begins to change them in different ways, physically or mentally, eventually leading to the Gardner family’s deconstruction in weird and wild ways, including a scene with the family matriarch (Joely Richardson) cutting carrots in the kitchen that you’ll never be able to unsee.
Based on the first act alone, and outside of your usual number of eccentricities we’ve come to expect from Cage, Color Out of Space almost comes across as…normal. And measured. Certainly not the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from Cage or Stanley. But don’t worry: neither of them have refuted their aesthetics. The two join forces to bring to life a wild flick that begins with calmness draped over slight family dysfunction and soon boils over into gooey, alien terror and the kind of psychological breakdown of which only Cage is capable. Very successfully, Color Out of Space maintains Lovecraft’s consistent juxtaposition between creepy monsters, who physically come into being, and the broken mind of the character being haunted by them—either the kind of mind that’s already broken and unveils an unseen world of monsters, or the kind of mind that breaks once this veil is peeled back. Here, physical and psychological terror go hand in hand, and there hasn’t been a marriage this strong since the first act of David Cronenberg’s directorial career.
Despite the craziness of the synopsis, Color Out of Space unfolds at a leisurely pace, so if by now its Twitter reputation has preceded itself, it would be best for viewers to settle into the movie and expect something measured and patient, rather than something that goes instantly wacky. Like the literature it’s honoring, Color Out of Space reveals one piece at a time. Along with being measured, Color Out of Space is also ambitious. Stanley and co. clearly didn’t have a very large budget, but their sprawling story feels bigger than life. The CGI effects look damn good and comparable to what you’d see in modern theaters, and because they are particularly placed throughout the script, the scope feels bigger in recollection. Along with the CGI, though, are the practical effects, and they are remarkable, with one bit in particular being downright John Carpenter’s The Thingian. Stanley’s direction is assured, and even beautiful, but he always remains true to his aesthetic, which makes Color Out Of Space feel dreamy and strange, and, thankfully happening to someone else.
By now, Cage’s presence in films like this draw a certain appeal. Known as an operatic performer for his entire career, it’s always the horror and sci-fi genres that yield some of his most interesting work, and it’s thanks to the genres’ complete lack of boundaries. There are no rules, which means artists can go as big as they want and embrace the wackiest of ideas. An unrestrained Cage is the best kind of Cage, but that’s not to say that his performance here consists of his usual level of freak-out scenes (there are a handful of these, though, and they’re glorious). An unrestrained Cage also gleefully embraces the strange and quirky, which no one does better. In a really brief moment during the first act where Cage openly lambastes his hard-to-please deceased father, he slides into an overly pretentious voice (resurrecting the one he used as Peter Loew in the batty Vampire’s Kiss) and begins to mimic some of his father’s dismissive words used toward him over the years. What seems like a throwaway scene of character development comes back later with really interesting implications, in that, as “the color” starts to infect both the landscape of the family home and the family themselves, Cage slips in and out of this pretentious voice in the heights of his mania, subtly suggesting that his internal hatred for his father is not just beginning to manifest, but that he’s actually turning into his father. Ezra (Tommy Chong), a squatter who lives on the Gardner estate, is the one who observes that the “color” infecting the land has the power to upend everything—to take one thing and transform it into its utter opposite. At least as far as Cage’s character is concerned, he’s slowly turning into what he hates most.
Color Out of Space looks excellent on the 4K UHD release, obviously coming to life during the flick’s more mystical moments. “The color” permeates the screen during several moments throughout, replicating beautifully in high definition. Dialogue is cleanly presented and marries well with the ambience of the family’s isolated farmhouse. The interesting musical score by Colin Stetson, who had previously scored another horror hit, Ari Aster’s Hereditary, also fits in well to the soundscape and helps to heighten the strange new world of the Gardner farm.
After a shaky start, RLJE has been consistently acquiring interesting genre titles, especially over the last couple years, having given a home to the likes of Mandy, Gwen, and The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot. Unfortunately, their physical releases hardly overwhelm with supplemental content. That’s the case here as well, as this release offers only a trailer, a photo gallery (which I don’t think anyone ever looks at), and a twenty-minute “making-of” that catches input from all the film’s major participants, charting the production from the script all the way to post-production. There’s no commentary track with the director or a one-on-one interview, which is a shame given Stanley’s long absence from filmmaking (which, to the making-of’s credit, is briefly covered). I’m sure he’s spent a long time thinking about what his next project was going to be, and that he’s got a lot to say about it, but you’re not going to find that kind of deep-dive here. Having said that, eight-year-old Julian Hilliard (The Haunting of Hill House), who plays Cage’s youngest son, calls Color Out of Space “the best movie in history,” and how can you argue with that?
Fans of Lovecraft, Nicolas Cage, or Richard Stanley would be missing out if they didn’t check out Color Out of Space. Now that Stanley is “back,” he’s been thinking about the future, which is all Lovecraft all the time. Continuing his partnership with SpectreVision (the distribution company co-owned by Elijah Wood and which produced Color Out of Space), Stanley plans to revisit the Lovecraft landscape in an ongoing, shared universe of the author’s most celebrated titles, with the next being The Dunwich Horror. Based on Color Out of Space, I’m eager to see what else Stanley has up his sleeve.
Welcome back, sir. You were missed.
[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]
