Movie Review: Aliens, Alpacas, a Witch and Nicolas Cage, All In "Color Out of Space"

What else do you need to know?

Nothing says fun at the cinema like a movie that makes metaphorical the radioactive rot of cancer treatment and the primordial terror of mutating into your own parents.

That’s exactly what you get with Color Out of Space (forgive the American spelling of colour), the first narrative feature in 23 years from director Richard Stanley, who was almost run out of the film industry after the failure of The Island of Doctor Moreau. (They ultimately made a documentary out of it, called Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, and when they make a doco about the infamy of your movie, and they call it Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, you know things went poorly.)

Thankfully, time did not soften Stanley. That movie contained talking human-animal hybrids, but this one contains alien alpacas and Nicolas Cage, so you tell me which one sounds like the wilder swing? It even opens on a witch, played by the big-eyed Madeleine Arthur, who you last saw as the already-witchy, Stevie Nicks-y friend from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Honestly, describing Color Out of Space feels like SNL's Stefon recalling his favourite New York nightspots, because this place has everything.

It’s based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name (though he had the decency to use the correct spelling of "colour" in his title). Updated from its original 19th century setting to the present day, we meet the Gardner family as they try to build a new life on a farm in Arkham, Massachusetts. There’s dad, Nathan (Cage), who’s traded in his old job—and the expectations of his cruel father—to breed alpacas, and help his wife, Theresa (Joely Richardson), recover from a mastectomy. Teenage daughter Lavinia (Arthur) misses the city, and passes the time practicing the occult (for good). And her brother Benny (Brendan Meyer) is in charge of tending to the farm, which grows a little complicated when a meteorite strikes their property, infiltrates their water source, and starts turning things a little… psychedelic.

Color Out of Space is the only film I can think of where a visiting hydrologist (played by Elliot Knight) has to rise to the challenge of saving a family getting slowly poisoned by alien-tainted H2O (which, as realised by Stanley, has the same effect as it being laced with LSD). Theresa becomes a nuclear aberration; Nathan starts transforming into his dad; Lavinia and Benny lose all track of time. As for what happens to the alpacas, well, they’re not gonna get a return on Nathan’s investment, that’s for sure. I haven’t mentioned one other character, because what becomes of them is so bizarre and disturbing, I’d hate to ruin your appetite. Some things are better left unspoiled.

The special effects in this independent flick are a bit janky, yet Stanley is able to use camera tricks, manipulations and imperfections to create a hallucinogenic tone that whisks the viewer to a far-off (and far-out) world of horror. The performances from the four key stars are deeply felt and (intentionally) funny, and though you may not believe me for saying it, Cage’s turn from fun dad to screeching madman is actually pretty well calibrated, while also delivering the primal delights we crave from him.

Color Out of Space comes from the same producers as 2018’s Mandy, another phantasmagorical nightmare starring Cage, and no doubt there’s a hope it will replicate that film’s success (which was capped by the highest prize of all: being named the best picture of the year at Student Edge). Unfortunately, Stanley’s feature doesn’t hit the emotional or mind-bending highs of Mandy. However, it’s undeniably its own special thing, and that weird little monster is something worth seeing, for sure.

3.5/5

Color Out of Space played Monster Fest in Australia. It's available on DVD and Blu-ray, and on demand via Telstra, Google Play, iTunes, Fetch TV, Foxtel & Umbrella Entertainment from 6 May 2020. Rated MA15+ for strong supernatural themes and bloody violence.