Based on the short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft, Colour Out Of Space follows a town struck by a meteorite and the fallout is catastrophic.
This was the final film on the closing night on the Auckland leg of the Terror-Fi Festival and the H. P. Lovecraft and Nicolas Cage fans came out in droves, practically selling out Avondale's Hollywood theatre. Color Out Of Space is a fun, theatrical mixed bag.
This is the first feature film from director Richard Stanley, since his controversial firing from 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau. With an estimated budget of US$6 million, Color Out Of Space has well-executed production values considering it has Nicolas Cage, Tommy Chong (of Cheech & Chong fame) and Joely Richardson on the cast list, and quite a large amount of special effects and CGI required.
This is firmly categorised as a B movie, and while it does have a crazy all-out Nicolas Cage performance in it, with an interesting premise, and gorgeous colour palettes, it also is another film that has a loose narrative direction that affects the pacing of the film. For those crazy Nicolas Cage fans that loved the desert dance in Wild at Heart, his multi-tasking sex in Drive Angry, his priest performance in Face/Off, or Wickerman's "Not the Bees!", Color Out Of Space has enough outrageous and hysterical Nicolas Cage (and alpacas!) to cater to those needs.
The film is reasonably faithful to the correctly spelt source material Colour Out Of Space by H.P. Lovecraft, varying slightly in the names, additional characters, and some of the methods of reaching the main plot points; but it does hit all of the expected marks from the source.
If you haven't read the source material before seeing the movie, however, you may be a bit let down by the lack of direction in the film. While the daughter Lavinia (played by Madeleine Arthur) and Ward the hydrologist (played by Elliot Knight) do have objectives, it is not until the third act when anything is acted upon. It creates a very slow-paced narrative of "wait-and-see" that drags from time-to-time as there is little moving the story forward. The majority of the characters are passive spectators in the film and are, therefore, less engaging to watch.
The antagonist in the film is an irregular force that switches between accidental and purposeful adversary. With no motives and no proper communication, there is little to hook the viewer in with, beyond a general curiosity as to what will happen because so little has been revealed. This does create a sense of unpredictability (unless you have read the source material) which is refreshing to see in modern cinema but poorly executed in this instance.
The antagonist brings with it a fascinating visual style, as it begins to affect the world around it. Caught somewhere between horror and whimsical fantasy, this aggressive and potentially violent faery world is full of vivid neon colours, but frequently comes across more weird than creepy, with some visual influences from Annihilation and The Thing. It allows for some creative creature design, though, it is rather underutilised.
This is a difficult movie to critique, as it fosters neither an extreme love or hatred. It simply exists in a manner that works well in many respects and doesn't in others. The tone changes and mutates along with the cast as the film progresses, but with no final destination set out, you can only judge each individual moment, as opposed to how it helps the film portray its message. Because there is no message to be had. There is no escaping what happens. There is no hope or control. There is no reasoning. There are just things that happen.
Color Out Of Space attempts to divert attention from the lack of narrative direction by increasing the odds and danger level in the third act, but it simply escalates into madness. An intriguing concept that is visually beguiling (and Cage's obsession with alpacas leads to many laughs), but there is no sense of purpose, and as such, no sense of satisfaction at its conclusion. Grammarly considers my tone skeptical, and you know what, I think they got it right.