I’m marking it down. 9:50 PM on Thursday, the 30th of January. The night I saw COLOR OUT OF SPACE. The cinema was virtually empty, and I had my row all to myself. Row 3, the first row of the climb. I was trying to temper my enthusiasm over the fact that I was about to see a new Richard Stanley picture after so many years of him being in virtual isolation after he sequestered himself in the Pyrenees. I tried to temper my enthusiasm, but I didn’t need to. I was about to get rocked. And after I was rocked I just drove home in silence, the only sounds being those of my car and the night continuing to exist around me.
The movie takes place in the woods out in the sticks somewhere in the eastern US. Nic Cage and family reside here when one night, a meteorite strikes their yard. From that point on the movie is just a violet mindfuck of Lovecraftian proportions, and appropriately so since this is a Lovecraft story adaptation. Nic Cage makes some Nic Cage choices that really worked for me (seriously, that maestro’s resurgence is turning out to be legendary). The rest of the cast is also wonderful, and everyone is a delight to watch.
If you know anything about the works of Lovecraft, you know that he likes to describe things in ways such as “unspeakable,” “indescribable,” and “impossible.” This movie uses visual language that honors and interprets that. It attempts to communicate what something impossible and indescribable may look like to the human eye. Minor spoiler: there’s lots of magenta.
COLOR OUT OF SPACE is filled with Easter eggs planted by Stanley that reference his early career, without detracting from the story being told… Gah! It’s difficult not spoiling anything, please go to the movies and see this thing! Spectrevision allowed Richard Stanley to prove once and for all, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is a visionary and a voice that deserves his place among the interesting artists and creators that we celebrate every day.
See COLOR OUT OF SPACE asap, so you don’t miss out on this exciting movie that climaxes like 1000 whales with human faces breaching the silver waters of the ocean and all crashing back down in unison.
-Elliot Ian Ross
Spook du jour 