H.P. Lovecraft has cast a long shadow over cinematic horror and the industry at large. With an entire subgenre dedicated to the unknown cosmic horrors that the late sci-fi author gained notoriety depicting, the fears of Lovecraftian horror are found in those things beyond human perception. Though Lovecraftian horror can be difficult to translate to film, since the phenomena described in his writing is often beyond human comprehension, that has not stopped filmmakers since the 1960s from borrowing from Lovecraft’s bread and butter: alien entities driving people crazy.

Mainstream horror/sci-fi movies like Alien, The Thing, and The Mist borrow heavily from Lovecraftian design but it’s modern filmmakers like Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead who have most dedicated their craft to a Lovecraftian tilt, with films like Resolution, Spring, and, most notably, The Endless, all playing with huge cosmic truths and the fragility of humanity sanity when confronted with these larger-than-life ideas. Similarly, Alex Garland 2018 sci-fi psychological thriller Annihilation shares a ton of DNA with Lovecraft’s short story ‘The Coulour Out of Space’, from which this movie is obviously adapted, in that both feature an almost-malevolent alien asteroid mutating all it touches, tethered to a strongly psychedelic aesthetic profile. Director Richard Stanley’s adaptation is much more direct than Garland’s but features a heavy dose of reconfiguration in its own right. Lovecraft was a notoriously thin character writer and Stanley does what he can to bulk up the players in the story. Color out of Space introduces us to the Gardner family, who have recently escaped the hustle and bustle of big city life and taken up residence in the fictional sleepy town of Arkham, Massachusetts. Things don’t go according to plan.

The Gardners are made up of Nicholas Cage as patriarch Nathan, a failed artist turned alpaca milk and meat producer and amateur farmer; Madeleine Arthur as daughter Lavinia, her teenage rebellion expressed through her Wiccan practice; Joely Richardson as matriarch Theresa, the family bankroll who battles bad wifi and breast cancer; little Julian Hilliard as the kid-who’s-young-enough-to-probably-be-an-accident Jack; and Brendan Meyer as Benny, the family stoner.

When a meteorite crash lands on their far-flung homestead, the earth beneath the Gardner family begins to change. First, new strange purple flora pops up. Crops seem to flourish, although their flesh is inedible and almost definitely infectious. It becomes clear that it is the iridescent purple-pink-fuschia color itself that is the enemy and, well, turns out it’s pretty hard to fend off a color. The Gardners themselves are disoriented and quick to madness, Color Out of Space wisely tapping into Cage’s manic unhinged side and letting him waffle between kindly family man and screaming mental patient. Throughout the past decade, Cage has really let his career take on a life of its own and, following in the footsteps of Mandy, Color Out of Space is a suiting capstone of sorts to his no-holds-barred, deranged filmography of late.

Meaning, those looking for a horror-adjacent movie where Nic Cage drinks alpaca milk right from the teat and blasts heads off alien-creatures with a shotgun, look no further, the esoteric Color Out of Space providing plenty of that, right alongside plenty more ooey-gooey Cronenbergian body horror. The effects are a mix of slightly-better-than-direct-to-video CGI and some very solid practical visual special effects with Steve Annis confidently creating a gorgeous technicolor nightmare. As the effects of the asteroid begin to warp lifeforms, the gross-out FX really rise to the occasion, with Stanley displaying a clear adoration for Robin Bottin’s work in projects like The Thing and Total Recall and leaning into the benefits of layers of makeup over humdrum computer animation.

Examples of Lovecraftian horror are often depicted on film with shaky cam, a blur of neon light, and peaking sound design and Color Out of Space has its fair share of that too. The world of the Gardners and Arkham may be irrevocably changed but this movie isn’t really breaking any new ground. But latched onto a bonkers Cage performance and blasted with campy bouts of gruesomeness, Color Out of Space becomes a fun and laugh-out-loud funny illustration of cinematic Lovecraftian horror at its most unabashed, genuinely Lovecraftian. Stanley had not made a feature film since being fired off 1996’s infamous bomb The Island of Dr. Moreau and it seems that with his latest he’s learned a serious lesson about not taking anything too seriously. Casting Nic Cage is always a confident first step towards that.

CONCLUSION: Just as weird and trippy as you would expect from a Lovecraftian movie about a malevolent color, ‘Color Out of Space’ uses familiar genre staples and the always-game and always-cray Nicholas Cage to adapt a classic to mostly solid returns.