99. Color Out Of Space; movie review

COLOR OUT OF SPACE
Cert 15
106 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong bloody violence, gore, threat, horror, language, sex references

It's another year and another utterly crackers movie starring Nicolas Cage.
People often ask which actors I would like to meet and it strikes me that the answer should be Cage - not because I love all of his films but I need to know whether he is this wacky in real life.
Cage has cornered the market in unhinged characters to such an extent that he only had a four-week opening in his diary to film Richard Stanley's Color Out Of Space.
No matter - he managed to pick up the baton of weirdness with typical zest.
Cage stars as a father-of-three whose family has moved to the countryside to start a new life on an alpaca farm.
His wife (Joely Richardson) runs a high-pressure finance business from her in-house office while he is trying to run the family life by cooking badly-tasting meals.
Anyway, it's all run-of-mill stuff until a meteorite crashes on to their land, showering the home and farm with a piercing bright light.
They report the incident to the scarcely caring authorities but then the craziness begins, prompted by electric pulses coming from the extraterrestrial arrival.
Actually, for the first half, Color Our Of Space seems like a pretty average alien invasion thriller.
Cage and Richardson play parents who are trying to bring up their family in new surroundings, Madeleine Arthur plays a 'difficult' teenager who has a penchant for witchcraft, Brendan Meyer portrays her brother as a doped-up video game nerd and Julian Hilliard is their little sibling.
Elliot Knight is added to the dynamic as a 'cute' official checking the local standard of water and Tommy Chong is the local hermit.
Even when odd things start to happen, it seems comparatively light for a Cage movie.
Indeed, only his presence alerts the audience to the mayhem of the final 30 minutes and one scene which is unlike anything I have seen at the movies.
Is it utterly bewildering? Yes.
Is it mainstream viewing? No.
Will cinephiles (such as me) feel compelled to see it? Yes. And I suspect many will really like it.
Certainly, I won't forget it.
To write anything more would ruin the plot.

Reasons to watch: Nic Cage going crazy - again!
Reasons to avoid: Progressively more bonkers

Laughs: None
Jumps: Two
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? Nicolas Cage has developed his own, totally unique way of getting into character, which he calls “Nouveau Shamantic.”

Final word. Nicolas Cage: "I loved that there’d be a collision between the family drama and the horror genres. When that’s done well, it can be some of the most exciting filmmaking there is, like The Exorcist. It’s the idea that family is unravelling due to alien or supernatural forces and that gives the actors a lot of room to explore striking and unusual behaviour.” NME

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