Color Out of Space review: Nicolas Cage's alpaca-farming sci-fi horror is subtler than you might expect 4. But I’ve got to admit I was sucked in and genuinely scared, too. Although the meteorite itself soon crumbles away, strange things begin happening in its wake. Although Color Out of Space is based on a 1927 short story by the shovel-faced horror writer H.P. It pulls no punches in telling a compelling story filled with carnage and despair, all while looking quite beautiful. The Color Out of Space is a real treat for H.P. Both as an effective cinematic translation of Lovecraft’s particular literary skills, and as a freakout of the first order with sights and sounds that will not be easily forgotten, this is one of those films that I suspect is going to grow in significance and popularity in due time. It's a clever adaptation, with fine use of visual effects and humor, but it also has some truly disturbing and unsettling images. Directed by Richard Stanley. After the cult success of Mandy in 2018, Nicolas Cage’s distinctive brand of chaos found a new niche: cosmic horror. The chief problem with “Color Out of Space” is that, at nearly two full hours, it is a little too much of a good thing at times, with some plot elements—chiefly one involving potentially shady dealings by the town’s mayor (Q’orianka Kilcher)—that could have easily been jettisoned. The Gardners are not crazy or hostile in any way, but it also becomes quickly obvious that their isolation has begun to drive them all a bit batty. Gorgeous, vibrant, and terrifying, Color Out of Space is packed with Lovecraftian creatures and cosmic infections galore. It’s not perfect but … Lovecraft wrote intense, peculiar, visionary cosmic horror stories, mostly for pulp magazines – The Colour Out of Space first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1927 – but edged closer to mainstream consciousness after his death in 1937, thanks to the work of a circle of devotees who kept him in print. As a result of his work in these early scenes, there is an unexpected degree of poignance that he brings to the proceedings later on even as things go fully gonzo. ‘Color out of Space’ Review: Unrelenting Lovecraftian Horror | TIFF 2019 By Matt Goldberg Sep 08, 2019 If you want non-stop dread, body horror, and madness, Richard Stanley’s adaptation offers … But what is interesting is that, instead of making Nathan into a completely normal guy who does an immediate 180 as a result of the strange occurrences, he and Stanley instead see him as a guy who is already a bit off right from the start, albeit in endearingly oddball ways. Friday February 28 2020, 12.01am, The Times. Lovecraft, and was directed and co-written by Richard Stanley (making his first stab at narrative filmmaking since being fired from his remake of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” after only a few days of shooting), there was very little chance that it was every going to be just another run-of-the-mill project. I laughed out loud at the hokiest bits. Lovecraft. The film centers on the Gardner family, who have recently left the hustle and bustle of the city for a more bucolic life in a remote house near a lake in the deep woods of Massachusetts. Color Out of Space feels painfully long and, even more so than Mom & Dad, it loses more than it gains from Nic Cage’s unintentionally campy performance. • Color Out of Space is released in the UK on 28 February. For the more adventurous viewers, Colour Out of Space is a visually spectacular, insanely exhilarating, and unfathomable piece of work that could only have come from the minds of … By Dennis Harvey When a meteor lands in their front garden, the family witness flashes of a colour never before seen by the human eye (actually, purple). Stetson's score shifts levels of reality in aural terms and conjure up the kind of terrors that are even harder to shake than the numerous and undeniably eye-popping physical mutations on display. It wobbles a bit in certain areas, but is satisfactorily executed and presented. The colour? Color Out of Space review – Nicolas Cage goes cosmic in freaky sci-fi horror A repulsive alien organism is unleashed on Earth in Richard Stanley’s scary, hokey – and often funny – extravaganza With Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight. Color Out of Space review — stylised weirdness, but it ultimately feels rather empty. His movie perhaps has the makings of a cult classic. Color Out Of Space is a fantastic adaptation of Lovecraft's story with a fun performance from Nicolas Cage. ‘Color Out Of Space’ review: Nicolas Cage cracks up in an all-out assault on the senses Richard Stanley's gore-filled adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft horror classic 4 In the original story, it is never properly described to us other than being of a shade never before seen on the typical color spectrum. Lovecraft been born a lot later, and — you know — had a sense of humor. FILM REVIEW. The chief problem with “Color Out of Space” is that, at nearly two full hours, it is a little too much of a good thing at times, with some plot elements—chiefly one involving potentially shady dealings by the town’s mayor (Q’orianka … he got fired from The Island of Dr Moreau. Color Out of Space is an attack on the senses, at times thrilling and even scary, often gloriously grotesque and laugh-out-loud funny, but also overwhelmingly dull. The whole thing looks as if it was dreamed up under the influence of a quality batch of LSD. ‘Color Out of Space’ Review: A Combination of Glorious Visuals and Poor Plot Progression Adapting the work of H.P. And from someone like Richard Stanley, who can be a bit of an odd figure at best, it’s an incredibly human story. The Colour Out of Space, H.P. If you thought that was trippy, wait till you see Color Out of Space, in which Cage’s mug is once again sprayed with blood ... alpaca blood. To successfully adapt one of his works, a filmmaker needs either an unlimited budget to try to bring his horrors fully to life, or the kind of unlimited imagination that allows them to take Lovecraft’s suggestions and go off in their own unusual directions. However, the addition of Cage to the already heady cinematic brew definitively puts it over the top, making it the kind of cult movie nirvana that was its apparent destiny from the moment the cameras started rolling. Love it or loathe it, Stanley is trying to do something distinctively his own after all those years in the cold. The director is Richard Stanley, who hasn’t made a feature film since he got fired from The Island of Dr Moreau (1996). The particular type of energy the actor brings to the screen often goes under-utilised, but with the release of Color Out of Space, it seems like it has a home.This time the film is not just Lovecraftian, but a straight-up adaptation of one of H. P. … Stanley also manages to work the film’s additional otherworldly element—Cage's performance—organically into the material, without losing any of its total strangeness in the process. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the wild hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Color Out of Space holds an approval rating of 86% based on 176 reviews, and an average rating of 6.71/10. Color Out Of Space is full-strength stuff, even if it perhaps inevitably loses something in firming up the novelist’s abstract notions. Ed Potton. He experienced a paperback revival in the 1960s and … CineVue Christopher Machell. Color Out of Space, director Richard Stanley's first narrative feature in almost 25 years, is the best Lovecraft adaptation since From Beyond in 1986. For fans of oddball cinema, a Cage-Stanley collaboration is the stuff dreams are made of. Color Out of Space marks writer and director Richard Stanley's return to filmmaking after 25 years, here adapting the short Movie Review - Color Out of Space (2020) Marvel My favorite movie of the year so far. The B-movie king is in rare form in Color Out of Space, a sci-fi thriller that might have been titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Magenta” had horror icon H.P. Cage plays Nathan Gardner, an artist who moves with his wife (Joely Richardson) and three kids back to the farm where he grew up, to raise alpacas. When these requirements are missing, the results can be fairly dire, as anyone who saw “The Curse,” a dire low-budget 1987 adaptation of Color of Outer Space, can attest. The American author H.P. After the meteor comes the terror. The Gardners themselves begin exhibiting signs of strange behavior as well: Nathan begins acting daffier than usual, flying off into rages at the drop of the hat; a seemingly dazed Theresa chops off the tops of a couple of her fingers while cutting carrots; Jack is constantly staring and whistling at a well that he claims contains a “friend.” Before long, everything in the area begins mutating in indescribable ways, and while Benny and Lavinia recognize what is happening around them, even they appear to be powerless to escape the grip of whatever is behind everything. COLOR OUT OF SPACE Review — Walks the Line Between Arthouse Film & B Movie by Scott Feinblatt January 17, 2020, 10:30 am Starring: Nicholas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur The … (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft The Colour Out of Space is a science fiction/horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1927. It’s a film with a fair few ludicrously funny bits, yet something endearing in how unashamedly earnestly it’s played straight, not for laughs. In most cases, the problem is that Lovecraft’s stories tended to focus on indescribable horrors and much of the impact for the reader came from taking the vague hints that he did parcel out and then picturing it in their own minds, where their imaginations had no limitations or budgetary restrictions. Color Out of Space takes the impossible and makes it gorgeous. Not content to rest there, he builds upon that weirdness with an equally vivid soundscape, including a creepily effective score by Colin Stetson. Obviously, once things go crazy in the second half, Cage brings out the weirdness full force (even randomly employing the wheeling vocal tic that he used decades earlier in “Vampire’s Kiss”). According to IMDb, the seemingly inexhaustible Nicolas Cage has no fewer than six additional movies in various stages of production that are currently scheduled for release in 2020, ranging from high-profile studio outings to the kind of demented head-scratchers that he somehow manages to sniff out in the manner of a pig finding truffles. Stanley proves himself to be up to the challenge, and hits upon a wild color scheme that honors Lovecraft’s intentions by bathing everything in a genuinely otherworldly tinge. Review: COLOR OUT OF SPACE by Patrick Bromley. Lovecraft have inspired, directly or otherwise, any number of films over the years but with very few exceptions (chiefly Stuart Gordon’s cult classics “Re-Animator” and “From Beyond”), most of them have not been especially good. In the bonkers 2018 thriller Mandy, Nicolas Cage gave one of his Cage-iest performances yet, face splattered in blood as he pursued a cult leader who’d tortured his girlfriend. Considering that the film takes its inspiration from one of the most famous short stories by the legendarily weird H.P. Adapted from a story by HP Lovecraft, this is a freaky-deaky, retro-cosmic science-fiction horror about a meteor that slams into Earth unleashing an extraterrestrial organism. Peter Sobczynski is a contributor to eFilmcritic.com and Magill's Cinema Annual and can be heard weekly on the nationally syndicated "Mancow's Morning Madhouse" radio show. Above all, Color Out of Space is solid. The phantasmagorical nature of his work is highly effective on paper but often less compelling once depicted on screen. And yet, none of these films may be able to top his latest effort, "Color Out of Space," in terms of sheer nuttiness. This is not a “happy” film, regardless of the psychedelic color palette. Purple … Nicolas Cage in Color Out of Space. In that respect, it does not disappoint. 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