H.P. Lovecraft, I am told, wrote the short story “The Color out of Space” after he leaned that ultraviolent is a thing and the idea that there were colors that the human eye couldn’t see blew his mind. Then he wrote a story where a color no human had ever seen before came down from space and did a lot of Lovecraftian sort of things. So, methinks Lovecraft didn’t quite understand the whole “humans couldn’t see those colors” thing.
Regardless, 2020 gave us a new cinematic adaptation of the story starring Nicholas Cage, so there’s a good chance that if nothing else, it’s going to be batspit insane.
The Gardner family has set themselves up with a small alpaca farm. Father Nathan (Cage) is something of a big dork but is basically just Nicholas Cage doing his thing. Mom Theresa (Joely Richardson) is still doing business from their home online. Teenage daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) is a wannabe Wiccan spellcaster. Teeenage son Benny (Brendan Meyer) is a stoner. Youngest son Jack (Julian Hilliard) is basically your standard precocious small child.
Yes, they named their sons “Jack” and “Benny”.
But then one night a meteor comes down and buries itself near the family well. A purplish light pulses out from time to time, and the water, when looked at the next day by a visiting hydrologist (Elliot Knight), has something in it He advises the family and hippie squatting on their land (Tommy Chong in a very Tommy Chong-ish role) not to drink the water until he gets back. Of course, even if the humans refrain from drinking the water, other living things don’t, and the land soon blooms with mutated plants and animals. Each member of the Gardner family reacts differently to the influence coming out of the water, and despite anyone’s best efforts, this is a Lovecraft adaptation, so we can know only two things for sure: this family is probably doomed and whatever is happening will defy any attempt to explain it all.
Indeed, each member of the family changes into something else in unique ways. Cage’s Nathan may change the least physically (he gets a rash after taking a shower and that’s about it), but none of the Gardner’s get off easy as time bends and contorts, physical bodies warp, and a tree may be a predator. Elliot’s hydrologist acts as the audience surrogate, the witness who watches as the different members of the family slowly go insane as the mystery “color” twists them in mind as much as in body. That sort of thing allows Cage to go into his patented “crazy” mode, and I got a kick out of that. I dug crazy Cage in 2018’s Mandy, and while Color out of Space is a very different kind of crazy from Mandy, there’s a certain joy to be had whenever Nic Cage gets to go a little nuts on screen.
Heck, as a friend of mine pointed out, Cage as an actor is usually known more as “Nicholas Cage” than he is by whatever his character’s name is, and for the most part, I think that’s true. Cage does apparently love his work, so I won’t be complaining about that too much. He doesn’t really repeat himself all that often (National Treasure movies being something of an exception), so if he looks like he’s having fun, I generally am too.
Grade: B
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