I had heard that this is a ‘love it or hate it’ film, but gave it a try nonetheless. Actually it is even more ‘difficult’ than that…
Nicholas Cage plays Nathan. Nathan and his family moved out of the big city into some upstate no-man’s-land. Nathan and his wife Theresa have two adolescent children and a younger one. Lavinia is a witch (Wicca), a somewhat sad storyline as it seems that Stanley did not investigate the subject enough. even though he tries to make it seem that he did. Then we have the nerdy Benny and the youngest Jack.
Some day a meteorite falls into the family’s garden and from then on things get weird. The story is based on a story of H.P. Lovecraft which explains a few things. Initially the garden gets an early spring, but then it seems that there is also something in the water with more negative effects. Slowly, the family members get madder and madder and the aliens / force gets weirder and weirder.
So, there is the (as mentioned) somewhat sad character of Lavinia, a fairly corny first half and the overly typical horror elements. As the film gets weirder, things get mildly interesting though. There are some truly weird findings, the color madness brings psychedelic scenes. Actually many things ‘around the acting’ are the most interesting.
Not really weird enough to be a weird film. Not typical enough to be a standard horror or thriller or scifi. “Color Out Of Space” hangs somewhere in the middle. Also ‘rating wise’.
