Color Out of Space

Vampire Owl: Does space have preference for any particular colour?

Vampire Bat: The colour here does look pink during the alien invasion.

Vampire Owl: Oh! I had considered it to be blue after the release of Avatar.

Vampire Bat: So, you didn’t think that it is black after Alien released.

Vampire Owl: No, blue just gave a better feeling, and nothing could rise over Avatar until Avengers: Endgame broke its box-office records.

Vampire Bat: But here, we have a pinkish colour which is almost pink.

Vampire Owl: We can take that for now, and leave it after the movie ends, because then it will always be blue.

Vampire Bat: Well, this one is from a story by HP Lovecraft, a master of horror. So, it is better to accept this colour as the alien shade.

Vampire Owl: I can’t do that. I have tried the same before with Stephen King.

Vampire Bat: Well, you can at least watch the movie and make the final decision.

[Gets an orange cake and three cups of black tea].

What is the movie about? :: Theresa Gardner (Joely Richardson), a financial advisor has been losing her clients after she was diagonised with breast cancer, and had a long treatment. As she settled down in a rural are with a farm where the family attempted to grow tomatoes and have alpacas for milk, she also had limited access to the internet, leading to a further problems in her career. Her husband Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) had received the huge farm from his father, covering a grand area which extended towards the river on one side, and one the other side, it was almost impossible to find the borders. Their son Benny Gardner (Brendan Meyer) has been hanging around with Ezra (Tommy Chong) a local recluse who has been drinking a lot of alcohol and smoking weed all the time after he stopped being an electrician, and settled down in an area surrounded by woods. Nathan and Theresa are disappointed at the same, but there is nothing they can do.

So, what happens with the events here? :: Benny is not the only one affected by her mother’s disease and their move to the ancestral property, as their youngest son Jack Gardner (Julian Hilliard) is not even interested in talking to anyone else other than his pet dog Sam as he kept to himself all the time. Their only daughter Lavinia Gardner (Madeleine Arthur) becomes a Wiccan, and starts pagan witchcraft with the help of guides on black magic, hoping that one of those rituals close to nature can cure her mother’s remaining cancer cells completely. She keeps wearing strange and revealing Wiccan or Gothic clothing, and has coloured her hair in shade of violet, often traveling on a horse, much to the dismay of her parents. It is then that Ward Phillips (Elliot Knight) a hydrologist, surveying the water for an upcoming hydroelectric dam arrives there, and meets Lavinia in the middle of a pagan ritual involving a lock of hair.

And what else is to follow in this rural setting, making things different and divergent? :: One night, they are woken up by a Pinkish colour and a huge sound, which seems to be not of this world. While Lavinia feels it to be something magical, Benny finds it to be something from another planet, and they all finally agree that it is a meteorite after seeing a pink piece of the same lying on their lands. It is not exactly pink, with the colour feeling to be rather unearthly, and there is also a foul smell related to it. The very next morning, the meteorite is no longer glowing and is crumbling to dust. The mayor and the sheriff of the nearby town of Arkham also arrive to see it, followed by the television channels. But by that time, there is not much of the alien object remaining, seemingly having crumbled to death, leading to nobody taking it seriously. But on the next day, it is continuously struck by several bolts of lightning. Ward finds something wrong with the water there. How has the meteorite influenced the land, water and people around there? Is it safe anymore?

The defence of Color Out of Space :: HP Lovecraft is known to have blended science fiction with horror well, and it can be seen here too – use of science to reinforce the terror can be seen here, and it is displayed well in the movie. Use of recognizable monsters, jump scares and gory stuff is not longer the case, as a we go for the weird. It leaves a lot to be imagined too, as the fear feels more than what is seen here. The primordial forces from different worlds are stronger and beyond control, with no chance to escape, as no conceptions of reality can go beyond them. We are left with no power in front of things we don’t understand at all – it is the kind of horror from where nobody leaves alive. The colours are beautiful to watch on screen, adding to the lovely visuals of the countryside, but is supposed to be terror inside. Nicolas Cage does the usual job here and nothing more, but he is the one we trust every time. Madeleine Arthur remains cute even when going on the witch mode, and comes up with the next best performance, followed by Elliot Knight in this different horror thriller science fiction with colour itself as the alien life-form.

The claws of flaw :: As you already know, Colour Out of Space is not your usual type of horror thriller with a science fiction background present too – it is not for everyone, with all the weirdness, and a certain amount of disgust related to the same. The strangeness that one can feel in this movie goes rather too much for many people, and for Lovecraftian works transformed into movies, this might be found to be natural. This is the kind of tale which came before Alien and its sequels, and so, right now, we expect this movie adaptation to be even better – we don’t see that much of an extra effort which is put in here. The horror could have been added with something more, making it even more suitable for the age. There are times when one feels a comic effect, which should have been avoided, considering how terrifying, an inescapable this situation seems to be. One also has to doubt the use of Nicolas Cage here, who is not at his usual self. The final moments could have been better managed too.

How it finishes :: The movie is based on The Colour Out of Space, which is a science fiction as well as horror short story by the famous American author HP Lovecraft, who has come up with special interpretations in his tales regarding humanity’s place in the universe. His popular tales like The Call of Cthulhu, The Rats in the Walls, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time have all been needing film adaptations, due to them bringing something a lot different than what we have had during those times. There has been many previous adaptations of his works, especially this particular story, but most of them haven’t been that popular, at least at this part of the world. This one has the ability to be more popular, even after some time after its release, because it has Nicolas Cage at the centre of things, and supported well, this one will rise above the others – this surely is one interesting journey, and you can go through that Lovecraft divergence nicely here.

Release date: 7th September 2019
Running time: 111 minutes
Directed by: Richard Stanley
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Madeleine Arthur, Joely Richardson, Q’orianka Kilcher, Tommy Chong