Color Out of Space (film)

In the wake of his wife Theresa's mastectomy, Nathan Gardner moves his family to a rural farm where he attempts to grow tomatoes and raise alpacas for their milk. One night, a brilliantly glowing meteor crash lands in their front yard. The rock emits an unearthly Color which distorts the world around it and causes Nathan to detect a horrific smell. The next morning, the meteor is no longer glowing and is crumbling to dust. Ward, along with the mayor and the sheriff of the nearby town of Arkham arrive to see it. Later, Nathan and Lavinia witness the meteor being struck by several bolts of lightning.

Ward notices that the groundwater has taken on an oily sheen and tests it. When his test strips begin to glow brightly with the Color, he advises the Gardners not to drink it, but he cannot persuade the mayor to do anything since she does not want to scare off the dam developers.

Jack becomes obsessed with a well which stands a few feet from where the meteor landed. Strange, brightly colored vegetation begins growing around it, mutated insects fly out of it, and Jack insists he can hear a man in there. Ward visits Ezra, who plays a tape recording for him of what he says are people moving around underground. A news crew arrives to interview Nathan about the meteor, but it has mysteriously vanished and Nathan comes off looking like a drunken fool.

Later, while Theresa is preparing dinner, she absentmindedly cuts off two of her fingers. While Nathan rushes her to the hospital, he leaves Benny in charge, but things quickly get out of hand as Benny finds the alpacas uncontrollable, Sam runs away and Jack is traumatized by something he saw in the well. Nathan excoriates Benny and Lavinia, lashing out with uncharacteristic rage. He tries to take a shower but is interrupted when a squid-like creature emerges from the drain. The next day, after Nathan tries to harvest his tomatoes - which have all turned out misshapen and inedible - he and Theresa get into a fight when the internet goes out again and she loses a client.

The next night, Theresa hears Jack and Benny screaming in the barn and rushes to their aid. To their horror, something awful has happened to the alpacas, and they try to flee the barn only to be struck by several bolts of Color lightning which fuses Theresa and Jack together into a single, deranged mass. Unable to start the car or call for help as all electronic devices have stopped functioning, Nathan and the other children carry the monster into the attic where they struggle to decide what to do about the miserable, gibbering thing. Nathan, enraged at what the Color has done to his family, gets a shotgun and enters the barn, where he finds all of his alpacas fused together, and he destroys the resulting creature. He returns to the attic, orders his children to leave, and prepares to put down his mutated wife and son, but he cannot go through with it.

Lavinia tries to perform a Wiccan ceremony to save her family, mutilating herself in the process. She and Benny conspire to run away from the farm with the horse, which bolts. They plan to walk but Benny believes he hears Sam whining down in the well and insists on going down after him. The Color bursts from the water and disintegrates him. Losing his grip on sanity, Nathan locks Lavinia in the attic with the monster, which has now grown aggressive and attacks her. Ward and the sheriff arrive and break into the attic, and Nathan kills the creature, saying that he could no longer recognize it as his family. As they exit the house, the Color erupts out of the well and drives Nathan insane. He tries to shoot the Color, but the sheriff mistakes Nathan's aim for Ward and shoots Nathan, who dies in Lavinia's arms. Lavinia declares she will not leave, and neither will anyone else, because the Color will not allow it.

Still intent on leaving, Ward and the sheriff go to pick up Ezra, but only find his desiccated corpse and a recording he left behind, where he surmises that the Color is attempting to remake Earth into "something it knows." A now sentient tree ensnares Pierce and kills him by ramming a branch down his throat.

Ward arrives and attempts to rescue Lavinia, but the Color explodes from the well and roars into the sky in a towering funnel. Lavinia touches him and shares with him her vision of where the Color hails from – a horrific sector of outer space inhabited by disturbing, tentacled alien entities similar to itself – and as he is traumatized, she dissolves into dust from her corruption. Attempting to save himself, Ward hides in the farmhouse, where space and time begin to unravel around him as he is confronted by jumbled visions of the Gardner family, and attacked by a murderous apparition of Nathan speaking in all of the family's voices, and narrowly hides in the wine cellar as the Color vanishes into the sky, tearing down the house and leaving the surrounding farmland a "blasted heath", covered in ash and drained of all color and life except for Ward himself.

In an epilogue, a traumatized Ward stands on top of the finished dam, and says that knowing what he knows about this place, he will never drink its water, and affirming his fear that more beings like the Color may find their way to Earth as well.

• Nicolas Cage as Nathan Gardner
• Joely Richardson as Theresa Gardner
• Madeleine Arthur as Lavinia Gardner
• Brendan Meyer as Benny Gardner
• Julian Hilliard as Jack Gardner
• Elliot Knight as Ward Phillips
• Q'orianka Kilcher as Mayor Tooma
• Tommy Chong as Ezra
• Josh C. Waller as Sheriff Pierce

Richard Stanley's mother, Penny Miller, was a huge fan of H. P. Lovecraft.[11] She read Lovecraft's works to Stanley when he was young.[11] At the age of 12 or 13, he read "The Colour Out of Space", which has "always been a part of [his] psychological makeup".[11] When his mother suffered from cancer, Stanley read Lovecraft's works to her in her declining years.[11]

Stanley initially announced the project in 2013, showcasing a proof of concept trailer online.[12][13] In September 2015, it was announced that Spectrevision would be producing the film with a projected start date of early 2016.[14]

After many delays, it was announced in December 2018 that Nicolas Cage had signed to play the lead role and that filming would begin in early 2019 with co-producers SpectreVision and ACE Pictures.[15][16] In January 2019, the production announced additional cast members including stars Joely Richardson, Tommy Chong, Elliot Knight, Julian Hilliard and Q'Orianka Kilcher.[17][18] Filming took place in Portugal [19] in February 2019.[20]

Color Out of Space premiered on September 7, 2019 in the Midnight Madness portion of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.[21] On September 6, 2019, it was announced that RLJE Films acquired U.S. rights in a low-mid seven figure deal. “Color Out of Space” was financed by Ace Pictures and XYZ Films handled international sales on the film.[2]

Following select preview screenings on January 22, the film was released in 81 theaters in the United States on January 24, 2020.[22] With previews and the first weekend box office, the film grossed $358,154 over the four days.[23]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Color Out of Space (film).

• Color Out of Space on IMDb