Theresa (Joely Richardson) and Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) move their family into a large rural house while Theresa is recovering from cancer. The rural location, however, is meddling with Theresa's work and their kids; Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), Jack (Julian Hilliard) and Benny (Brendan Meyer) are still adapting to the change. Lavinia also makes the acquaintance of Ward (Elliot Knight), a hydrologist doing a survey of the water table in the area.
One night a brilliantly coloured meteor hits nearby, resulting in a strange light around the area and the eruption of bright and alien vegetation. The family begin to experience further strange behaviours amongst themselves and their animals and things begin to become more and more alien.
A bit of a slow start delivers an eventual impressive pay off as things wind up and up throughout the run time. With some fun and disturbing body horror, a great amount of Lovecraft's work still in there and some beautiful and eerie visuals, the whole film is both entertaining and pretty.
The only factor that didn't seem to work for me was Nicolas Cage as the dad. The whole rest of the family seem to gel so well together as a believable unit but his style and tendency towards OTT acting felt out of place and jarring in what was otherwise a fantastic fantasy horror.
[Image: SpectreVision, et al]
Hani
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