Nicholas Cage is known as much for his great performances as his terrible ones. In trying to understand the mysterious entities that inhabit the universe, mankind will ultimately succumb to madness, the fate that befalls the Gardner family. Thankfully, Color Out of Space sticks to what makes the genre unique and refuses to abide by Hollywood rules, instead remaining faithful to Lovecraft’s key principles. Additionally, the villains of cosmic horror are usually so powerful and beyond human comprehension that they inevitably end up defeating the protagonists, a rare occurrence in today’s blockbusters. Much of the tension comes from what remains unseen and unknown, which is at odds with the Hollywood norm of spending millions of dollars on flashy special effects. Lovecraft’s story of the same name, the film follows a family’s spiral into madness when a mysterious meteorite bearing an alien entity crashes onto its farm.Ĭosmic horror can be a particularly hard genre to pull off cinematically because the suspense relies on what is shown to-or withheld from-the audience. Now, 24 years later, Stanley is evidently taking another stab at sci-fi horror with Color Out of Space.

Moreau, but he was fired a week into production. After years of the horror movie scene being dominated by supernatural entities and crazed serial killers, the niche genre of cosmic horror seems to be making a proper debut on the big screen, with recent films such as Birdbox, Underwater, and now, Color Out of Space, the latest to join the ranks.ĭirector Richard Stanley’s last big project was supposed to be the 1996 sci-fi horror film The Island of Dr.

The color out of space story