One of the most awaited movies from this year’s film festival season was Color Out of Space (2019). Not only because it comes under the aura of one of the most spectacular movies of the decade Mandy (2018), sharing the star, the always beloved Nicolas Cage, but also because it is always exciting to see a movie based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft. The movie was during this year 2019 part of the line up of Toronto International Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, Slash Film Festival, London Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, Monsterfest Film Festival, and also Stockholm International Film Festival this past weekend. And now, it is scheduled for a theatrical release.
In Color Out of Space (2019), an iridescent meteorite plummets from outer space and into the property and foundations of a remote New England estate, a malignant force begins to insidiously permeate the lives of an unassuming family. The effects are gradual – time begins to dilate, nature assumes an otherworldly hue – and all things bright and beautiful eventually mutate and corrupt under its influence. The movie has been qualified as all-consuming, dispassionate menace manifests itself in a series of grotesque, body-horror, and psychedelic spectacles, worthy of its ineffable literary origins.
Richard Stanley makes a long-awaited comeback as a movie writer and director with this film. Better known by his cyberpunk cult classic Hardware (1990), and writer of a long list of interesting horror movies, including The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), The Abandoned (2006), and Replace (2017), this is his first fiction feature film as a director since Dust Devil (1992). Together with Nicolas Cage, Color Out of Space (2019) is starred by Q’orianka Kilcher, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight, Tommy Chong, Julian Hilliard, Brendan Meyer, and Melissa Nearman.
Color Out of Space (2019) has been produced by SpectreVision, the company founded by actor Elijah Wood and Dan Noah, responsible of other outstanding titles like the mentioned Mandy (2018), but also Daniel Isn’t Real (2019), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), The Greasy Strangler (2016), and Open Windows (2014). The producers have announced their intention of expanding the cinematographic H.P. Lovecraft with new adaptations of the books. They have stated that the adaptation for The Dunwich Horror, a short story originally written in 1928 and published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales, is their next production insight, and Richard Stanley is rumored to be taking part of the project. He expressed his interest in developing the movie, sharing his concept of “as a kind of proper backwoods degenerate, Great God Pan crossed with The Texas Chainsaw family”.
Dan Noah stated “Lovecraft is possibly the most adapted horror author ever. But there’s really never been a totally faithful adaptation of any of his works. I think there are a few that are sort of close. Stuart Gordon’s films are wonderful, but they are more Stuart Gordon than they are Lovecraft. We had been hellbent on finding the Lovecraft adaptation that truly captured cosmic dread without the camp”.
So we are probably going to see in the next years more movie adaptations of the privileged and dark mind of the beloved American horror author. And hopefully, the Cthulhu Mythos is taking an important spot in those. But, for the moment, let’s stay in the present. Color Out of Space (2019) is scheduled to be out in theaters on 24 January, 2020, and here you can see its first official trailer:
Related posts:
Nicolas Cage to star Lovecraft adaptation “The Colour Out of Space” 
Sitges Film Festival 2019 – Day 9: The supernatural takes possession in “The Cleansing Hour” and “Color Out of Space” 
Another movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West: Reanimator” 
Nic Cage’s grimace festival in the first trailer for “Mom and Dad”