In the wake of his wife Theresa's mastectomy, Nathan Gardner moves his family, including children Lavinia, Benny, and Jack, to his late father's farm. One night, a brilliantly colored meteorite crash-lands in their front yard near the well. The next morning, hydrologist Ward Phillips, who is surveying the area for a dam development, along with the mayor and the sheriff of the nearby town of Arkham, arrive to see the meteor. Nathan and Lavinia later witness strange phenomena around the meteor, until it suddenly disappears.
Ward notices that the groundwater has taken on an oily sheen and tests it. When his test strips begin to glow brightly with the color of the meteor, he advises the Gardners not to drink it. The family quickly becomes contaminated: Jack becomes fixated on the property's well, observing strange plant growths and insects, as well as claiming to communicate with a 'friend' inside the well. When Theresa is preparing dinner, she vacantly cuts off two of her fingers. Nathan rushes her to the hospital and Benny goes outside to put the farm's alpacas back in their stables, but does not return until late at night, claiming time had passed instantaneously for him. Meanwhile, Lavinia attempts multiple times to contact Nathan, but they are unable to hear each other through the phone. Upon the parents' return, Nathan lashes out at Benny and Lavinia with uncharacteristic rage. Further stresses, including all the crops becoming desiccated, place the family in crisis.
Later, Lavinia tries to perform a ritual using a copy of the Necronomicon and offering her blood to save her family, mutilating herself in the process. Theresa suddenly hears Jack and Benny screaming after entering the alpaca stables and rushes to their aid, as the "Color" begins appearing outside. A bolt of the Color strikes and fuses Theresa and Jack together into a hideous mass. Finding all their electronic devices dead, the family is stranded and Nathan and the children carry Jack and Theresa into the attic to shield them from sunlight, which harms them. Benny reveals that the alpacas were similarly mutated and fused together by the Color and Nathan euthanizes them with a shotgun. Beginning to lose his sanity, Nathan also attempts to euthanize Theresa and Jack, but is unable to bring himself to do it.
Lavinia and Benny attempt to leave the farm on horseback, but the horse flees. Benny then insists that he hears the family's dog inside the well, but upon climbing in, he is assimilated by the Color. Nathan, now fully deranged from the Color, locks Lavinia in the attic with Theresa and Jack, who have turned monstrous, attacking her. Ward and the sheriff return to the farm after a nearby resident discovers a fused mass of animals, and arrive just in time to break into the attic to save Lavinia. Nathan shoots and kills the monster, no longer viewing them as his family.
Ward rushes Lavinia outside as the Color emerges from the well, and Nathan attempts to shoot it. The sheriff mistakenly believes Nathan is aiming at Ward, and shoots him. Lavinia insists on staying with the dying Nathan, so Ward and the sheriff leave to rescue the neighbor Ezra. At Ezra's cabin, the pair find Ezra's desiccated corpse and Ezra's voice coming from an audio recorder, claiming that the Color is attempting to remake its environment into something familiar to it. Ward and the sheriff flee a burst of the Color, but a mutated tree catches and kills the sheriff outside the cabin.
Ward returns to rescue Lavinia, but finds her fully possessed by the Color, which explodes out of the well and forms a funnel into the sky. Ward is shown a vision of where the Color hails from, a psychedelic exoplanet inhabited by tentacled alien entities, before Lavinia disintegrates. As space and time begin to unravel, Ward enters the farmhouse and is pursued by a murderous apparition of Nathan. He hides in the wine cellar as the Color's distortion of reality destroys the property, leaving Ward the only survivor as he climbs out of the remains of the farmland, now a colorless ashy "blasted heath".
In an epilogue, an older Ward stands on top of the finished dam as a reservoir covers the former property. He says that few people remember the incident, but having witnessed the Color's effects, he will never drink the water. He concludes that the Color was a messenger from realms beyond human understanding. As he leaves, an insect mutated by the Color flies by.
Cast
Nicolas Cage as Nathan Gardner, farmer, father of the Gardner family.
Joely Richardson as Theresa Gardner, businesswoman and mother of the Gardner family.
Julian Hilliard as Jack Gardner, the youngest son.
Elliot Knight as Ward Phillips, a hydrologist and surveyor for a Dam development company.
Tommy Chong as Ezra, a hippie "squatter" who lives on the Gardners' land.
Josh C. Waller as Sheriff Pierce, chief of police to the nearby town of Arkham.
Q'orianka Kilcher as Mayor Tooma, the mayor of the nearby town of Arkham.
Production
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Richard Stanley's mother, Penny Miller, was a fan of H. P. Lovecraft.[11] She read Lovecraft's works to Stanley when he was young.[11] At the age of 12 or 13, he read "The Colour Out of Space", which has "always been a part of [his] psychological makeup".[11] When his mother suffered from cancer, Stanley read Lovecraft's works to her in her declining years.[11]
Stanley initially announced the project in 2013, showcasing a proof of concept trailer online.[12][13] In September 2015, it was announced that Spectrevision would be producing the film with a projected start date of early 2016.[14]
Color Out of Space premiered on September 7, 2019 in the Midnight Madness portion of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.[23] On September 6, 2019, it was announced that RLJE Films acquired U.S. rights in a low-mid seven figure deal. "Color Out of Space" was financed by Ace Pictures and XYZ Films handled international sales on the film.[2]
Following select preview screenings on January 22, the film was released in 81 theaters in the United States on January 24, 2020.[24] With previews and the first weekend box office, the film grossed $358,154 over the four days.[25]
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Color Out of Space holds an approval rating of 86% based on 210 reviews, and an average rating of 6.80/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "A welcome return for director Richard Stanley, Color Out of Space mixes tart B-movie pulp with visually alluring Lovecraftian horror and a dash of gonzo Nicolas Cage."[26] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[27]
Chris Bumbray from Arrow in the Head rated the film a score of 7/10, praising the film's performances, visual style and effects while noting the film's length. Bumbray summarized his review by writing, "While it's maybe a touch slow and arty for hardcore horror fans, Color Out of Space is still a handy comeback for Richard Stanley, who hasn't lost a beat."[28] Mary Beth McAndrews from Daily Grindhouse gave the film a positive review, writing, "[Richard Stanley's] film successfully captures the madness of Lovecraft's work and is a dazzling modern interpretation. [...] Lovecraft is notoriously hard to adapt, but Stanley walks the fine line between horror and existential dread to create a successful adaptation".[29]
Deborah Young from The Hollywood Reporter offered the film similar praise, writing, "Hitting the main plot points with well-designed SFX and some impressive night photography, Stanley's film manages to be frightening indeed, even with star Nicolas Cage's semi-farcical leavening adding some nutty laughs."[30] Jonathan Barkan of Dread Central awarded the film three and a half out of five stars, praising the film's visual style, special effects, and soundtrack, while criticizing the film's first and third act. Nevertheless, Barkan summarized his review by stating, "Gorgeous, vibrant, and terrifying, Color Out of Space is packed with Lovecraftian creatures and cosmic infections galore. It's not perfect but goddamn is it a wild ride."[31]
Dennis Harvey from Variety gave the film a mostly positive review, noting the film's uneven tone and Cage's "arbitrarily oddball" performance, while praising the film's otherworldly imagery, cinematography, and direction.[1]The Skinny's Katie Goh gave the film a rating of three out of five stars, stating that: "Colour Out of Space is at its best when Stanley goes for this subtle and intelligent filmmaking, gesturing at the horror rather than pushing it in our faces".[32]
Howard Gorman from NME praised Stanley's welcome return, underlining the core "intense, unpredictable and harrowing moral tale," and Cage putting in his "most nuanced" turn in the last decade.[33]
Nicolas Kim Coppola, known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. Known for his versatility as an actor, his participation in various film genres has gained him a cult following.
Arkham is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts, United States. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.
Richard Stanley is a South African filmmaker, known for his work in the horror genre. He began his career making short films and music videos, and subsequently directed the feature films Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992), both of which are considered cult classics. He was the original director of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), but was fired early into principal photography due to creative differences, an episode recounted in the 2014 documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau. In 2019, he returned to feature films after more than 20 years, directing the H. P. Lovecraft adaptation Color Out of Space.
At the Mountains of Madness is a science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931. Rejected that year by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length, it was originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories. It has been reproduced in numerous collections.
"The Colour Out of Space" is a science fiction/horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts. The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, poisoning every living being nearby: vegetation grows large but foul-tasting, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.
"The Dunwich Horror" is a horror novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos.
"Pickman's Model" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, written in September 1926 and first published in the October 1927 issue of Weird Tales.
Lovecraft Country is a term coined for the New England setting used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, which combines real and fictitious locations. This setting has been elaborated on by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The phrase was not in use during Lovecraft's own lifetime; it was coined by Keith Herber for the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu.
Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.
The Shadow Out of Time is a novella by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. The story describes time and space travel by mind transfer, where a person in a given place and time can switch bodies with someone who is elsewhere or elsewhen. As with other Lovecraftian works, this story features otherworldly alien beings that are not simply variations on humans or other familiar terrestrial animals.
"From Beyond" is a horror genre short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in 1920 and was first published in The Fantasy Fan in June 1934.
The Space Vampires is a British science fiction horror novel written by author Colin Wilson, and first published in England and the United States by Random House in 1976. Wilson's fifty-first book, it is about the remnants of a race of intergalactic vampires who are brought back from outer space and are inadvertently let loose on Earth.
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, was a writer of weird fiction and horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington. His works typically were published as W. H. Pugmire and his fiction often paid homage to the lore of Lovecraftian horror. Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi described Pugmire as "the prose-poet of the horror/fantasy field; he may be the best prose-poet we have" and as one of the genre's leading Lovecraftian authors.
The Resurrected is a 1991 American horror film directed by Dan O'Bannon, and starring John Terry, Jane Sibbett, Chris Sarandon and Robert Romanus. It is an adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Originally intended for a theatrical release, the film was shown at various film festivals before being released direct-to-video in 1992.
The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society or HPLHS is the organization that hosts Cthulhu Lives!, a group of live-action roleplayers for the Cthulhu Live version of Call of Cthulhu. Founded in Colorado in 1984, it is now based in Glendale, California. Their motto is Ludo Fore Putavimus.
The Dunwich Horror is a 1970 American supernatural horror film directed by Daniel Haller, and starring Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell, and Ed Begley. A loose adaptation of the short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft, the film concerns a young female graduate student who is targeted by a man attempting to use her in an occult ritual taken from the Necronomicon. The screenplay was co-written by Curtis Hanson, while Roger Corman served as an executive producer on the film.
Madeleine Arthur is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles as Mae in the Netflix suspense thriller series Devil in Ohio, Hannah Hadman in the workplace comedy series Blockbuster, and Christine in the To All the Boys film series.
Willy's Wonderland is a 2021 American comedy horror film directed by Kevin Lewis from a screenplay written by G. O. Parsons. The film stars Nicolas Cage, who also served as producer, along with Emily Tosta, Ric Reitz, David Sheftell and Beth Grant. It follows a quiet drifter who is tricked into cleaning up an abandoned family entertainment center inhabited with eight murderous animatronic mascots who are possessed with the souls of a cannibalistic killer and his colleagues.
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