The final film I saw at this year’s MonsterFest was Color Out Of Space (2019), which I was very keen to see as a new adaptation of the HP Lovecraft story by cult director Richard Stanley (Hardware), his first film in many years after being booted off the 1996 flop, Island Of Dr Moreau. More intriguing was the casting of Nicolas Cage in the lead and it being another SpectreVision production (Elijah Wood’s company), which produced the modern Cage classic, Mandy. Here, it’s about a family living in a property out in the forrests of Massachussetts who are caught up in the aftermath of an alien meteorite crashing into their land, causing havoc in the way it infects surrounding nature and influences those in close proximity into behaving strangely. The first half is a slow burn, and appealing actors make up the wholesome family unit (including Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Brendan Meyer), though the family drama isn’t as richer as something like Hereditary. I loved the cinematography and setting, which along with Colin Stetson’s throbbing soundtrack, help coat everything with a curdled, foggy atmosphere. Once things kick off with mesmerising light shows, strange mutations, unpleasant body horror and multiple voices by Cage’s character going off the rails (indulging his Vampire’s Kiss/Bad Lieutenant altered vocal technique once again), I was wrapped up in its escalating tension and horror, all of it conveyed in a rather stately, psychedelic style. Lovecraft’s story is definitely a rosetta stone to the horror genre as several aspects adapted here recall other movies influenced by its imagery (Carpenter’s The Thing, the work of Stephen King, the Netflix film Annihilation, etc). Elliott Knight is good as the surveyor who bears witness to the unfolding terror and its great to see Tommy Chong turn up as a pot-smoking hermit. Recommended; hope it gets a wider release soon!
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