Color Out Of Space (2019) Dir: Richard Stanley
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I remember hearing about this Richard Stanley directed film shortly after it came out, and being told it was very good. I never got around to it, but when I saw it was on Prime, it seemed like a good opportunity to see what it was like.
I'll begin with the positives. I thought that the film used colour in a pretty interesting way. Some of the lighting was a bit much, but the majority of it was fine. The visual effects weren't great, but the film had a minnow-sized budget, so I wasn't all that bothered by it.
Unfortunately, my list of criticisms is far longer. For one, the story wasn't at all well composed. There were so many random features of it that felt weird for the sake of being weird. This too applied to the general cinematography of it, though this was at least interesting to look at.
The horror elements weren't at all scary, they were just weird, and not in a particularly good way. Some of it was disturbing, sure, but it all felt without purpose. The film also featured some pretty explicit self mutilation, which was not nice to watch.
Nicolas Cage is known to overact, but this was one of his most egregious examples of it. It was like someone gave him stimulants before each take and told him to improvise most of his lines. I like Cage, but this was terrible acting from him.
Madaleine Arthur was the only one whose performance I actually enjoyed. Her emotions felt believable at least, and her acting was the most consistent. She was also the most likable actor by far - she made her character feel compelling, unlike most of the others.
In regards to the rest of the cast, Elliot Knight was the most watchable, though not by much. The likes of Joely Richardson, Brendan Meyer, Julian Hilliard, Tommy Chong and Josh C. Waller did not at all compel me with their respective performances, unfortunately.
Overall, it became very apparent very quickly, that this was a film written purely to be weird. It wasn't scary, it wasn't particularly well-written, and it didn't seem to have a whole lot of anything to say, other than; "look how weird this is!" It's safe to say I was disappointed.
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