Color Out of Space (2019)
A colorful tale of terror.
Next week is a hopeful main course that’s been waited for for weeks - this week is a movie that was going to be last week’s movie but I wanted to not bundle up the genres too much. Cosmic horror. The very terror that is indescribable, assaulting the mind and driving any attempt at describing it to sheer madness. Yeah, movies don’t always fair the best when it comes to capturing the very things that escape description - but that doesn’t mean they haven’t had any good entries. Lovecraftian movies are abound if you look about for them - and I’ll admit that it’s a gamut of good and bad - but tonight’s movie has a secret weapon - Nicolas Cage. It’s not all dark and lifeless out there, tonight we check out Color Out of Space.
So there are some good things about this movie, and there are some bad things about this movie - and honestly, as we all know, I won’t be able to tell you how much if it is because of a source, given I haven’t read any Lovecraft works. The closest I’ve gotten is references in video games, another movie or two based on the works, and some board games. Is it good? No idea - but in all honesty, I feel when it comes to something that’s so well versed on the terror of the unknowable, the books probably end up doing a better job when it has the benefit of easily leaving things up to the readers imagination. I mean, just think about the premise of an indescribable color - how would you even show such a thing? As a visual element, is it even possible to create something that’s so baffling as a color someone doesn’t just go “that’s neon purple!” or “garbage green” as soon as their eyes grace it? Of course, I won’t hold it against the movie when I watch it, I just want to point out that if someone comes up yelling '“the literature is so much better!” that I would be predisposed in this case to probably believe them, regardless of how good the movie ended up being.
Story wise, it’s sort of classic what I think a Lovecraftian work would be - simple, normal life devolving into absolute insanity from seemingly the most baffling space occurrence. A family is out in the woods for some good country living raising some Alpacas. You’ve got the laid back stoner kid, the rebellious goth kid, the young kid whose still into dinosaurs, their parents and a man doing a water survey. A rock falls out of space, and things start to get real weird. I mean, real weird. Alien plants start growing about, people start having weird things happen to them, animals start getting melty - and that’s all just the start. It deals with that precipice of insanity that I always saw as a staple of if not the main inspirations but the genre by and large - and in turn the story feels appropriate. There’s plenty of characters, and although maybe they don’t all have massive arcs or anything of that sort, they all do a pretty good job of acting off of each other as the situation sees fit - be it out of it or crazy, or even the base-line normal.
Most of those characters are quite well acted as well. Yeah, you could argue that the youngest actor isn’t impressive and I’d give you that. Most the rest will have at least one moment to shine, with arguably the best going to the daughter (who seems to get a good portion of the screen time), the water tester (who has less screentime), and that sudden appearance of Tommy Chong. Now, everyone does a fine job, but those are just the ones I’d pick out as the best - because obviously if I just name Nic Cage as the best you’d automatically be turned on or off to the movie. He does a pretty relaxed job here - he does have crazy moments, but it’s never that wacky Ghost Rider peeing-fire kind of crazy, or absolute acid-trip that was Mandy. It’s a pretty good job out of Cage here.
If one had a beer, it’d be the most hillbilly scene in the movie.
Character-wise, it’s not quite as awesome as the actor front. As mentioned before, there isn’t really a ton of character development across the board. It’s less about actually developing characters and more about tearing them down to madness. That said, there is a nice range on the father character as he flips around a little during the course, and the daughter gets the most feeling about having character on account of her feeling like a main character given her screen time amount. The color itself does feel a bit like a character, although it’s mostly a happening than it is a character - despite if it feels really focused down at times. It’s not bad, and they still manage to get some drama through the family unit and apply some dynamics to help the goal of deconstructing sanity - but it might not quite be impressing people looking for game-changing award winning character design.
Effects are pretty good. When it wants to be grotesque, it gets pretty nasty. It’s mostly all that The Thing sort of mutated monstrosities sort of thing, but there’s also some things like chopped fingers (which will probably get the most cringed reaction out of people) as well as some other cuts and gunshots in there. In the less violent route, we also have some alien-looking plant life, less aggressive mutations on people, and the color itself. Some of this, although done well, looses out a bit for the theorized reason mentioned at the front end - an unimaginable color in this case just happens to be glowing purple. It’s used well, is frequently if not always taken into account when it comes time to light scenes that involve it, but still is certainly a color that most all watchers would look at and go “hows that hard to describe?” Same thing when it comes to the mutated monstrosities - grotesque creatures I wouldn’t want to encounter in the real, but not so mind breaking to describe “it’s like a bunch of animals melted together.”
Audio is nice. It fits that sort of sound genre that I like, although also doesn’t float around with me too long afterwards. With all the bright purple going on, it also feels quite fitting whenever you hit those retro synth sounds. Balance amongst everything is great, and line deliveries are done quite well to boot. The narration that happens certainly makes it feel like it came from a book, where narrators are often reflecting on a story before it’s told to us, wrapping up both ends of the strange story even if it isn’t all that necessary.
Well, color me suspicious of the water quality in this town.
This isn’t a movie for everyone. Might not even be for most people - but for the people out there who are starved for some Lovecraft inspired films, there’s worse you could do. I’d say that I still prefer In the Mouth of Madness when it comes to the genre, but fully admit this one isn’t bad and has a better soundtrack. It’s nice to see Cage reign himself in, even when the movie itself can be so nuts, and the actors as a whole do a good job with what they got. The more violent bits might not set well with some people, and I’m sure some would argue that the source material that spawned this was better - and I wouldn’t necessarily say they were wrong without having read it. Still, for those who want it, it’s a decent enjoyable movie.