Overview
The Gardner family moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard, melts into the earth, and infects both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly colour. To their horror, the family discovers this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches—including them.
Nic Cage in Lovecraft? I’m in!
Lovecraft on film is very patchy at the best of times, but Color out of Space is one of his tales that has managed to be successfully adapted a few times (and unsuccessfully once or twice). In this new adaptation the tale of cosmic horror is brought to vivid life by Richard Stanley (who gave us the 2000AD rip-off film Hardware back in 1990) with Nic Cage as Nathan Gardner, a farmer and father of the Gardner family. When a strange meteor hits their property, things start to get a bit strange for the Gardener family as the land and crops begins to change around them, and pretty soon they begin to be affected also.
Cage is not quite full-Cage for once, and subdues his usual over the top antics until the plot actually calls for them later on in the film.
Fans of Lovecraft will find a lot to love in this adaptation, as the film taps well into the tone and themes of the writer’s work, whilst bringing it up to date to a modern setting.