Considering that the film takes its inspiration from one of the most famous short stories by the legendarily weird H.P. After the meteor comes the terror. Toronto Film Review: ‘Color Out of Space’ Cult director Richard Stanley's first narrative feature in decades is a fun, messy, deliberately over-the-top sci-fi horror. The Gardners themselves begin exhibiting signs of strange behavior as well: Nathan begins acting daffier than usual, flying off into rages at the drop of the hat; a seemingly dazed Theresa chops off the tops of a couple of her fingers while cutting carrots; Jack is constantly staring and whistling at a well that he claims contains a “friend.” Before long, everything in the area begins mutating in indescribable ways, and while Benny and Lavinia recognize what is happening around them, even they appear to be powerless to escape the grip of whatever is behind everything. Color Out of Space is an attack on the senses, at times thrilling and even scary, often gloriously grotesque and laugh-out-loud funny, but also overwhelmingly dull. “It’s just a … His movie perhaps has the makings of a cult classic. Film Review: Color Out of Space Is an Over-the-Top Spectacle on Heroin Doses of Camp Nicolas Cage goes full-blown Nicolas Cage in Richard Stanley's strange Lovecraft adaptation by Sarah Kurchak Lovecraft and genre fans alike. The most mysterious aspect of Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space is admittedly difficult to put onto screen. Adventurous multi-instrumentalist Colin Stetson scores the new horror film from director Richard Stanley, Color Out of Space, and it's a noisy, deeply enjoyable headphone trip. For the most part, however, the film is the kind of audacious and deliriously messed-up work that fans of Stanley, Cage, and cult cinema have been rooting for ever since the existence of the project became known. Lovecraft, and was directed and co-written by Richard Stanley (making his first stab at narrative filmmaking since being fired from his remake of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” after only a few days of shooting), there was very little chance that it was every going to be just another run-of-the-mill project. Color Out of Space review – Nicolas Cage goes cosmic in freaky sci-fi horror A repulsive alien organism is unleashed on Earth in Richard Stanley’s scary, hokey – and often funny – extravaganza Gorgeous, vibrant, and terrifying, Color Out of Space is packed with Lovecraftian creatures and cosmic infections galore. Lovecraft. ‘Color out of Space’ Review: Unrelenting Lovecraftian Horror | TIFF 2019 By Matt Goldberg Sep 08, 2019 If you want non-stop dread, body horror, and madness, Richard Stanley’s adaptation offers … Then things get gobsmackingly, gaggingly repulsive. The particular type of energy the actor brings to the screen often goes under-utilised, but with the release of Color Out of Space, it seems like it has a home.This time the film is not just Lovecraftian, but a straight-up adaptation of one of H. P. … Depending on your mood, Color Out of Space will either be an entertaining yet manic escapade of fun or a disappointing adaptation of Lovecraft's source material… Stanley also manages to work the film’s additional otherworldly element—Cage's performance—organically into the material, without losing any of its total strangeness in the process. Color Out Of Space is a fantastic adaptation of Lovecraft's story with a fun performance from Nicolas Cage. It’s a film with a fair few ludicrously funny bits, yet something endearing in how unashamedly earnestly it’s played straight, not for laughs. Both as an effective cinematic translation of Lovecraft’s particular literary skills, and as a freakout of the first order with sights and sounds that will not be easily forgotten, this is one of those films that I suspect is going to grow in significance and popularity in due time. he got fired from The Island of Dr Moreau. CineVue Christopher Machell. While father Nathan (Cage) is gung-ho about becoming a farmer and raising alpacas (“the animal of the future”) despite no discernible talent for either, wife Theresa (Joely Richardson) is preoccupied with recovering from a recent mastectomy, eldest son Benny (Brendan Meyer) is off getting stoned most of the time, teen daughter Lavinia (Madeline Arthur) vents her annoyance at the move by dabbling in the black arts with her paperback copy of “The Necronomicon” and young son Jack (Julian Hilliard) more often than not simply gets lost in the shuffle. The chief problem with “Color Out of Space” is that, at nearly two full hours, it is a little too much of a good thing at times, with some plot elements—chiefly one involving potentially shady dealings by the town’s mayor (Q’orianka Kilcher)—that could have easily been jettisoned. When a meteor lands in their front garden, the family witness flashes of a colour never before seen by the human eye (actually, purple). If you thought that was trippy, wait till you see Color Out of Space, in which Cage’s mug is once again sprayed with blood ... alpaca blood. In the original story, it is never properly described to us other than being of a shade never before seen on the typical color spectrum. The stories of H.P. Directed by Richard Stanley. That weirdness escalates one night when the sky turns an almost indescribable shade of fuchsia, and a meteorite crashes into their front yard. The film centers on the Gardner family, who have recently left the hustle and bustle of the city for a more bucolic life in a remote house near a lake in the deep woods of Massachusetts. ‘Color Out of Space’ Review: A Combination of Glorious Visuals and Poor Plot Progression Adapting the work of H.P. ‘Color Out Of Space’ review: Nicolas Cage cracks up in an all-out assault on the senses Richard Stanley's gore-filled adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft horror classic 4 “Color Out of Space,” apparently, is blindingly bright and magnificently malevolent. 60. The … Color Out of Space takes the impossible and makes it gorgeous. Obviously, once things go crazy in the second half, Cage brings out the weirdness full force (even randomly employing the wheeling vocal tic that he used decades earlier in “Vampire’s Kiss”). Parents need to know that Color Out of Space is a sci-fi/horror movie based on a classic short story by H.P. It's a clever adaptation, with fine use of visual effects and humor, but it also has some truly disturbing and unsettling images. The colour? The site's critics consensus reads: "A welcome return for director Richard Stanley, Color Out of Space mixes tart B-movie pulp with visually alluring Lovecraftian horror and a dash of gonzo Nicolas Cage." This is not a “happy” film, regardless of the psychedelic color palette. Purple … Nicolas Cage in Color Out of Space. Color Out of Space review: Nicolas Cage's alpaca-farming sci-fi horror is subtler than you might expect 4. Save A glowing meteorite transforms the homestead of Cage's alpaca farmer. Color Out of Space, director Richard Stanley's first narrative feature in almost 25 years, is the best Lovecraft adaptation since From Beyond in 1986. For fans of oddball cinema, a Cage-Stanley collaboration is the stuff dreams are made of. Stanley proves himself to be up to the challenge, and hits upon a wild color scheme that honors Lovecraft’s intentions by bathing everything in a genuinely otherworldly tinge. But what is interesting is that, instead of making Nathan into a completely normal guy who does an immediate 180 as a result of the strange occurrences, he and Stanley instead see him as a guy who is already a bit off right from the start, albeit in endearingly oddball ways. A repulsive alien organism is unleashed on Earth in Richard Stanley’s scary, hokey – and often funny – extravaganza, Last modified on Thu 27 Feb 2020 13.52 EST. Peter Sobczynski is a contributor to eFilmcritic.com and Magill's Cinema Annual and can be heard weekly on the nationally syndicated "Mancow's Morning Madhouse" radio show. FILM REVIEW. After the cult success of Mandy in 2018, Nicolas Cage’s distinctive brand of chaos found a new niche: cosmic horror. The Sister Sacrifices Logic, Tension as Its Twists Unravel, Visions of Friendship: Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin on The Climb, The Lynchian Aspirations of Losing Alice Underwhelm Rather Than Intrigue, CW Reboots Walker but Forgets to Give Him a Personality. The American author H.P. The Colour Out of Space, H.P. To be fair, Cage holds it in for the first hour, giving us his version of liberal, caring dad. Color Out of Space walks an impressive tonal tightrope, deftly drifting between moments of real tension and a bizarre sense of humor that persists even through some of the film’s scarier moments. With Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft The Colour Out of Space is a science fiction/horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1927. Adapted from a story by HP Lovecraft, this is a freaky-deaky, retro-cosmic science-fiction horror about a meteor that slams into Earth unleashing an extraterrestrial organism. Color Out Of Space is full-strength stuff, even if it perhaps inevitably loses something in firming up the novelist’s abstract notions. Above all, Color Out of Space is solid. A batch of new and heretofore unseen flowers begin blooming while Nathan’s tomato crop comes in weeks ahead of schedule; the family’s phones, computers, and televisions are constantly being distorted by waves of static that render them all but useless. However, the addition of Cage to the already heady cinematic brew definitively puts it over the top, making it the kind of cult movie nirvana that was its apparent destiny from the moment the cameras started rolling. In that respect, it does not disappoint. Lovecraft wrote intense, peculiar, visionary cosmic horror stories, mostly for pulp magazines – The Colour Out of Space first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1927 – but edged closer to mainstream consciousness after his death in 1937, thanks to the work of a circle of devotees who kept him in print. And yet, none of these films may be able to top his latest effort, "Color Out of Space," in terms of sheer nuttiness. Lovecraft been born a lot later, and — you know — had a sense of humor. The whole thing looks as if it was dreamed up under the influence of a quality batch of LSD. For the more adventurous viewers, Colour Out of Space is a visually spectacular, insanely exhilarating, and unfathomable piece of work that could only have come from the minds of … Color Out of Space review — stylised weirdness, but it ultimately feels rather empty. And from someone like Richard Stanley, who can be a bit of an odd figure at best, it’s an incredibly human story. Lovecraft has proved incredibly difficult for many filmmakers over the years. In the bonkers 2018 thriller Mandy, Nicolas Cage gave one of his Cage-iest performances yet, face splattered in blood as he pursued a cult leader who’d tortured his girlfriend. A secluded farm is struck by a strange meteorite which has apocalyptic consequences for the family living there and possibly the world. Friday February 28 2020, 12.01am, The Times. But I’ve got to admit I was sucked in and genuinely scared, too. To successfully adapt one of his works, a filmmaker needs either an unlimited budget to try to bring his horrors fully to life, or the kind of unlimited imagination that allows them to take Lovecraft’s suggestions and go off in their own unusual directions. Color Out of Space feels painfully long and, even more so than Mom & Dad, it loses more than it gains from Nic Cage’s unintentionally campy performance. 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