‘What touched this place cannot be quantified or understood by human science…’
Nic Cage’s tax problems have been a blessing in disguise in many ways. Having to commit to pretty much any project on offer to him over the last decade has actually resulted in a period of cinematic freedom that would have been unavailable to Cage if he were still an A lister. This has led to a number of interesting projects such as 2018’s trippy horror flick Mandy, as well as a slew of daft but entertaining action movies. Colour Out of Space combines those two worlds in as much as it is an experimental waltz through body horror and psychedelica that still retains B movie sensibilities. For every inventive use of cinematography there is a groan inducing line of dialogue. And through it all, we have our hero… ENUNCIATING words in EVERY sentence… SEEMINGLY. AT. RANDOM.
What a guy…
The Gardner family are already a little… off. Nathan (Cage), the patriarch of the family, is inclined to teach local visitors the best method of milking an alpaca. Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) is conducting a wiccan ritual when we first encounter her. Theresa (Joely Richardson) even shakes off the advances of Nic Cage early doors, something that I imagine is scientifically unlikely. Things become even more bizarre when a meteorite strikes the family farm.
Based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, Colour Out of Space is a brash, bold attempt to combine family dynamics with an interdimensional invasion. While director Richard Stanley doesn’t quite succeed on either count, he has a lot of fun along the way. For a film that clearly didn’t have a huge budget, the mayhem and gore are well presented, often without the use of CGI, and one particular scene that finds Cage blowing the heads off a herd of mutant alpacas will stay with me until the day I myself go to the great alpaca farm in the sky.
When taking stock of Cage’s later years, Mandy is undoubtedly the best film in his arsenal, but Colour Out of Space is probably the most flat out entertaining. An extravagantly excessive film for cinema’s most extravagantly excessive actor.