Color Out of Space (2019)

"Color Out of Space" (2019, Richard Stanley, SpectreVision, RLJE Films) is an adaptation of the short story of the same title by H.P. Lovecraft.


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

The Void (2016)

"The Void" (2016, Steven Kostanski, Jeremy Gillespie, Cave Painting Pictures, Astron-6) is a Canadian monster movie set in a small town's hospital at night.

We open to an exciting and horrific scene where a man called James (Evan Stern) flees a house while two other men, Vincent (Daniel Fathers) and Simon (Mik Byskov), kill a screaming woman. James is later found by local Deputy, Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole), who takes him to the nearby hospital.

James turns hysterical upon entering the hospital and is sedated by Dr. Powell (Kenneth Welsh). Soon Vincent and Simon appear hunting James. They are closely followed by a Marshall (Art Hindle) and a group of strangely garbed cultists brandishing knives. Aside from being surrounded by creepy, hooded figures, the group are terrified to find that some of them are becoming less than human...

I really wanted to like this movie. The marketing had made it look like an updated answer to Carpenter's "The Thing", but unfortunately, the reality was nowhere near as comprehensive.

The initial build up is excellent: dark, atmospheric and brutal. There's enough going on to get you involved as a viewer, and the characters have just enough screen time to establish their personalities before the real horror begins. The effects are really fun and the action moves... Until it doesn't.

Around the third-way mark we move away from Carpenter and into Clive Barker terrirtory where the plot takes a sudden "Hellraiser"-esque turn and things become bogged down in trying to be artistic and weird instead of scary and weird. Although there is an enveloping theme established, it felt like there had been two concepts and the directors decided to try merging both with disjointed results.

While I commend the technical aspects of the film and the creatures, the story-telling really let it down and we ended up with a muddy, bloody mess that isn't sure if it wants to be a Lovecraftian epic or a gritty, 80s gorefest. With a bit more of a decisive direction, however, the Astron-6 guys will undoubtedly bring us some really great stuff.

[Image: Cave Painting Pictures]

 

Hani

From Beyond

"From Beyond" (1986, Stuart Gordon, Empire Pictures) is a cult, sci-fi, body horror film based loosely on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft.

Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel) is a genius scientist with unusual fetishes who has developed a machine which allows people to see outside of the known reality by stimulating the sixth sense. Unfortunately, the machine's effects are addictive and, despite discovering that the other realm can access ours using the machine, Pretorius cannot allow himself to stop. His assistant, Dr. Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), is bitten by a creature from the other side and tries to stop the experiment, seeing it's destructive nature, but a larger creature comes through the void and kills Dr. Pretorius.

Dr. Tillinghast is locked up in an ward for the criminally insane, suspected of Pretorius' murder and no one will believe his outlandish story. No one, that is, until he meets determined blonde, Dr. McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) who, with her associate, Detective Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree), take Tillinghast back to the house to repeat the experiment and prove his innocence and sanity.

A funny cult film which enjoys close links to "Re-Animator" in casting, direction, behind the scenes team and special effects. While dated, it still stands as a fun, gross B-movie and captures the Lovecraft vibe. There's some funny patter between characters ridiculous dominatrix outfits, questionable science, floating eel creatures, humorous decapitations.... there's a lot going on in this film.

I like a bit of dated special effects and I have to appreciate the Lovecraftian creativity of this film's effects: they are both very fun and very squidgy. Definitely my kind of film. "From Beyond" is also really watchable and has an easy to follow plot that doesn't veer too off story like some other B-movies. It's silly, humorous and ludicrous in equal measures. Sheer campy horror frolics not to be taken seriously.

[Image: Empire Pictures]

Hani