Early this year we saw the return of director Richard Stanley with his adaption of Lovecraft’s
short story The Color out of Space. Richard has been out of the director’s chair for
over 2 decades, and finally he was given the chance to direct a feature film again. Color
out of Space was produced for roughly $10 million and was given limited screenings in late January
of this year in the USA and in the UK in late February. Box office wise it hasn’t done well
but its key market is home video and streaming. The 4k Bluray was recently released in the USA
and is coming to the bluray in the UK on the 6th April, with a fancy collector’s edition from HMV.
Since its release it has been given mostly positive reviews from the critics,
with many praising its photography, performances, direction and musical score by Colin Stetson.
The short story Color out of Space was written by H.P Lovecraft in 1927, the tale is set in the
fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, where a meteorite crashes and poisons every living being
nearby, and mutates the vegetation, animals and people. The animals and humans are driven mad,
insane and eventually die. .This was one of Lovecraft's personal favourites of his short
stories and critics generally consider "The Colour Out of Space" one of his best works,
and the first with his trademark blending of science fiction and horror.
Director Richard Stanley's mother, Penny Miller, was a huge fan of H. P. Lovecraft.
She read Lovecraft's works to Stanley when he was young. At the age of 12 or 13, he
read "The Colour Out of Space", which he claims " has always been a part of [his]
psychological makeup". But he rarely agreed with the views of the author as
H.P Lovecraft had such as a horrible view on mankind and was very racist in his material.
Richard Stanley nurtured the idea of bringing his version of H.P.
Lovecraft short story "The Color Out of Space" to the screen since 2011,
but had difficulty finding financing. Things changed in September 2015,
when it was announced that production company SpectreVision had come on board to produce.
Nicolas Cage was looking for other projects and SpectreVision who Cage worked with on Mandy they
suggested Color out of Space and he loved the concept and was very familiar with Lovecraft’s
work. Producer Josh Waller who also cameos in the film as the shieff announced that they would begin
production in early 2019. With shooting taking place in Portugal doubling for New England.
Some of the cast members hadn’t heard of Richard Stanley, as he had been off
the radar for so long, so they had to google him, they read up on his exploits
on the set of The Island of Dr Mearou, reports of Richard being a bit mental,
his use of witchcraft and heavy pot smoking and were a little amused by his antics and
im sure some were probably unsure if he could do the job. Richard said he was little worried
about returning to directing and dealing with a large crew but once he was behind the camera he
was back into the swing of things and all the shots he needed came to this head very quickly.
Richard strived to do a lot of in camera effects, once the animals and humans begin to mutant in
true body horror fashion, he used animatronics, propsetiics and miniatures to achieve the effects
he wanted with a elements of CGI applied to polish off the visuals. For scenes that were
impossible to do within camera, computer effects were used such as the mutated mantis that emerges
from the well, the use of light as it moves around the farm and visions of the alien world.
As the book details a color that has never been seen before by humans,
its essentially an alien color they chose to represent it with magenta,
a color that does not exist from a single wavelength of light as part of the color
spectrum of visible light. Rather, it is an extra spectral color that ends up dominating the movie.
For the films plot, Nathan Gardner played by Nicolas Cage has moved his family to a rural
farm where he attempts to grow tomatoes and raise alpacas for their milk. His daughter,
Lavinia played by Madeleine Arthur, performs rituals in hopes of restoring her mother's
health as she is recovering from breast cancer and she is spotted by Ward played by Elliot Knight,
who is surveying the quality of the water as there is plans for a hydroelectric dam.
Theresa played by Joely Richardson, is a financial adviser, who is losing clients due to the poor
internet signal in their remote location; her son Benny played by Brendan Meyer hangs around with
Ezra played by Tommy Chong, a local hermit and spends his time with him getting high,
his youngest son Jack is withdrawn and only interacts with their family dog.
One night the family are surprised by a vibrant glowing light as a meteor crash lands in their
front yard. The rock emits an unearthly Color and it lets off a horrific smell. The next morning,
the meteor is no longer glowing and is crumbling to dust. Ward,
along with the mayor and the sheriff arrive to check it out but don’t take
Nathan’s concerns seriously. Later, Nathan and Lavinia witness the meteor being struck
by several bolts of lightning and things begin to subtly change around them.
Jack becomes obsessed with a well which stands a few feet from where the meteor
landed and begins to hear voices coming from it. The plants around the house begins growing,
and insects mutate. As Theresa prepares dinner she falls into a trance and loses
her concentration and cuts her fingers off, as Nathan takes her to the hospital,
the kids are left alone and things begin to take a turn for the worse.
When this film was announced I was intrigued for two reasons, one a proper Lovecraft adaptation and
the other the return of director Richard Stanley, Richard’s career has fascinated
me since watching the documentary Lost Soul about the making of the Island of Dr Moreau,
the film that would’ve put him on the map but he was replaced as director and the production fell
into chaos and the eventual completed film was a mess and Richard’s career was left in
tatters and he disappeared from Hollywood. I’ve discussed more of Richard and his work
in my review of Hardware the film that most people know and is regarded as a cult classic.
The first thing that strikes you when you watch it, is the beautiful photography the film has,
its just rich with colour and has great depth to the visuals, with its heavy use of magenta
it does really give the film a fantastical and cosmic look, but as we’ve seen many movies in
recent years trying to capture the look of the 80s especially when it comes to the horror genre
they make use of similar colours to give it this retro look, that you could argue takes away some
of its uniqueness with it striving to create an alien colour but as the colors become more
intense near the end, it really becomes a visual explosion of colors which is very impressive.
I’ve seen a number of films over the years that deal with the themes and
ideas of Lovecraft’s work, especially John Carpenters In The Mouth of Madness
and the recent film Annihilation just borrows ideas from color out of space,
but I don’t think I’ve seen a true adaptation of his material and Color out of Space seems
to the closest to following the work of the famous author. With it being a short story,
it does make it difficult to expand to a feature film length, thankfully for the most part Richard
Stanley and co writer Scarlett Amaris have managed to do that despite there being some issues.
The meteorite hits the farm very early on but it takes a while for its effects on the family to
develop, we get a sense they’re falling into a daze, time is passing by without them knowing,
they begin to lose their temper over little things then suddenly they calm down like their fit of
rage never happened. Once the mutations come into full swing, it’s like seeing John Carpenter’s The
Thing, as the mother and son become infused into one, it’s pretty nasty and disturbing imagery and
seeing the Alpacas become all twisted and mashed together it certainly delivers on the horror.
Its not a straight out horror as it does throw in humour, thanks to Nicolas Cage who provides
his usual over the top style, he comes across as cool and calm then suddenly swings into fits
of anger, that is sometimes threatening but also humorous and he gets some of the best dialogue,
the role just seems to fit him so well. The other cast members such as Madeleine and
Brendan who play his oldest kids really bring across a believability to their performances
as they attempt to get their heads around the situation and try to understand how
the effects of the light is starting to affect them and everything around them.
The score by Colin Stetson really impressed me, Colin had has worked on a number of low budget
features and TV shows, and also credited as working Red Dead Redemption 2. Mainly
working as saxophone player, his to score to Color out of Space is full on electronic,
in pure 80s fashion, very atmospheric and haunting creating an unsettling soundscape
to the film with sound effects worked into the music, giving the impression that he
is going for something experimental and it works wonders also it has elements of music
that feel ripped out of a fantasy film as well. Definitely worth checking out.
The recent 4K version which comes bundled with a bluray, comes with deleted scenes and a short but
enjoyable making of which covers its early production through to its shooting and its
visual effects designs. The deleted scenes on the disc expand on a few keys scenes but don’t
really add much to the story and you can tell why they were cut to keep the running time down
to an acceptable length, I do feel however the films running time is a tad too long,
10mins could’ve been trimmed to improve its pacing in the middle act. Sadly it’s a missing
a commentary by Richard Stanley, the guy is a talking machine and it would’ve been great to
have more of insight from him discussing the story and the return to filmmaking .Im sure there will
be collectors editions released in future but for now the special features are a bit light.
When it comes to the picture, the 4K transfer doesn’t have HDR applied to it, its just a pure
4K image, im not sure why HDR wasn’t applied to it but it could be the case of messing with the
colors causing un wanted saturation, your guess is as good as mine. So in comparison to the regular
1080p, the 4k transfer does obviously offer a bit detail in the picture, with the film
being natively shot in 4K you don’t have to worry about it being an upscale. The film comes with a
DTS HD master audio mix, no Dolby Atmos, but that shouldn’t cause concern as the surround
sound mix is very impressive with an effect use of the surround sound channels making the score
and sound effects full immerse you into the film. A very good effort from a low budget production.
I certainly recommend the film if you’re a fan of the genre and Lovecraft’s work, despite the good
efforts to expand a short story, it does feel a bit thin areas as we the audience are just waiting
for another disaster to happen for the family, there doesn’t seem to be a great urgency as things
get worse, the pace doesn’t speed up, which does dilute some of the tension and is unfortunately
the weakest aspect of the film but it shouldn’t effect your overall enjoyment of the film.
Color out of Space I would say is Richard Stanley most commercial movie without a doubt of his small
catalogue of features with it being based on a popular story and having Nicolas Cage in the
lead. The film demonstrates Richard still has a strong visual style and is a competent director,
he doesn’t appear rusty or out of touch. it’s a huge shame his career was cut short
by Hollywood and the politics that come with filmmaking, there are many years lost where we
could’ve seen him move onto larger projects and bigger budgeted features to really push
his creativity. Hopefully this movie is a turning point for him to continue his love
of Lovecraft with further adaptations and for him to explore other genres for movie fans to enjoy.