Movie Review: Color Out of Space

First off for the H.P. Lovecraft fans: It's OK, even if it is a heavy adaptation of the original story.  Back to the review.  You know the basic plot, ripped off by everyone from the makers of The Blob to King & Romero: meteor falls to Earth near a remote farmhouse and there's something inscrutable and evil inside that takes over the farm, and maybe keeps growing.  And then there's something that takes up residence at the bottom of the nearby well...

The main story within the original Lovecraft short story unfolded over nearly two years in the 1880s, as uncovered by a hydrologist in the 1920s.  Here, all the action has been moved up into the present day and compressed into a few weeks.  Lots of major characters remain, in a mutated form (how appropriate), and do approximately the same things here.  It's all close enough to the base storyline to be a recognizable, credible adaptation.  The major difference is that where The Colour in the original drained nearby living things of their life force leaving behind ashen grey disintegrating husks, here The Color changes and merges nearby living things into monstrous forms.  It fits better with 21st century horror movie expectations, I suppose, but it seems to be a mutation of the story line too far.

Another problem is that we see Nicolas Cage and family going all crazy, and we know it's somehow The Color behind the change, and well water is implicated, but it's never explicitly linked the way it is in the short story.  At one point in the original, the father relates to a concerned friend checking on the family how "...can't git away...draws ye...ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use..." for about half a page.  It's a drained rant from a drained character that seems custom made for Cage to deliver.  Instead, here we get a similar explanatory rant from a squatter played by Tommy Chong, but it more sounds like a stoner's ramblings than the exposition the viewers deserve.  That, plus we get Crazy Cage, bellowing about alpacas and blowing up monsters with a double-barreled shotgun.  Is it The Color's direct effect, or is he just acting out over the stress?  Not clear at all in the movie version.  Maybe this is the director's intent?  If so, it's a fumble.

But that's all the bad parts.  The rest is faithful in spirit to the original, albeit dragged kicking and screaming a century into the future.  Parts are almost charming, especially some of the teenage hijinks and slightly out-of-control parenting.  So... yeah, if you're a fan of the original, give it a watch.  Even if it is a heavy adaptation, the eldritch bones of the original story remain intact.

Three out of Four Stars