Color Out of Space Review

★★★☆☆ The madness of Nicolas Cage is unleashed in trippy sci-fi/horror.

Turns out Nicolas Cage and Lovecraft go together like beef and red wine. Who knew?

The casting of Hollywood’s favourite insane actor proved an inspired move with Cage’s dependable brand of flailing, screaming and general gurning acting as an effective distraction from Colour Out of Space’s uncomfortably unfathomable exploration of the unknown.

Richard Stanley dazzles with a dizzying assault on the senses. His first feature film three decades after his disastrous attempt at adapting The Island of Dr. Moreau is an intriguing mystery that morphs into a hellish kaleidoscope of otherworldly madness.

While it’s a treat visually, the story — a modernisation of H.P’s short of the same name — doesn’t land nearly as strong. Cage and his family — featuring the always excellent Joely Richardson — are well-developed. There’s even room for a bizarre-but-it-kind-works cameo from Tommy Chong.

But the story and characters are secondary in focus to the film’s atmosphere and slowly developing horrors, something that hurts our ability to care about what’s going to happen to them.

Fans will probably try to tell you that’s the point. Maybe it is.

But to me, it felt too often that the Lovecraftian ethos of not having to explain anything was used liberally as an excuse to paper over its glorious, Cage-infused cracks.

Originally published at michaelkenny.uk