Colour Out Of Space — Colour Out Of Space(Blu Ray)
Colour Out Of Space appeared in February 2020- and it was the fifth feature-length film from South African director Richard Stanley, who was responsible for the early 1990’s cult classic like sci-fi horror crossbreed Hardware, and stalking desert demon in human form horror film Dust Devil. So it’s certainly well filmed & produced picture- though the nearing two-hour runtime is a little flabby.
The film focuses on Nathan Gardner(Cage), his wife Theresa(Joely Richardson)- whose recently been fighting cancer- they have three kids a pot-smoking teen son, a witch teen daughter, and a big spec wearing younger son. The family has recently moved from the city to Nathan's dead father house- which is set in miles of woodland. Nathan is trying his hand at smallholding rearing alpacas, growing peaches & tomatoes. One night a meteorite crash lands near their house, and it slowly but surely starts to leak its alien poison into the land, their livestock, their crops, and the family themselves.
The whole thing starts fairly low key & atmospheric with drifting and moody shots of woodland, with the original stories slightly adjusted text been read over the top by Ward Phillps(Elliot Knight) a young hydrologist who we shortly meet as the family’s daughter is performing a ritual to cure her mothers cancer. As the film progress the more atmospheric edges shift back- for first typically OTT outbursts from Cage, day glow spurts of pink & the garden slowly-but-sure getting a pink tinge. With later the family/ alpacas getting more & more effected- with along the way gooey body melting & more pink tinged psychedelics- all heading towards a very tripped-out finale.
Cage is on good form here, starting off charming enough-but as the film continues his more manic & deranged traits come to the fore. The rest of the family are good enough- though at times feel a little contrived. We also have an aging hippy male neighbour. There’s no doubt that the more moody edges of the film are well done, as are the effects- with many of these seem practical. As mentioned in my introduction the film does feel at times a little lopsided, and unsure what it’s trying to be- and that in itself self is interesting, but only of course if your in the mood for something that’s tonally wonky.
Moving onto this region B Blu Ray- and as one would expect with a modern film you get a great print- which of course enhances both the classy atmospheric and twisted more psychedelic-to-gory moments. You can choose either an English or German language track, as well as English or German subtitles. On the extras front, we get around eleven minutes of cut scenes- these feature German subtitles. We also get trailers in both languages.
In finishing it’s always great to see a new adaptation of H.P Lovecraft’s work- and I must say Colour out Of Space is one of the more classy-though-at-times-crazed visual retellings on Lovecraft’s work.