Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Richard Stanley
Cast
Nicolas Cage,
Joely Richardson,
Madeleine Arthur,
Elliot Knight,
Tommy Chong,
Brendan Meyer
Genre
Horror,
Mystery,
Science Fiction,
Thriller
A Lovecraftian story of cosmic terror about a family who moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard and infects both the land and the family with a strange, otherworldly color.
The Film Stage
The final result is a movie that feels as paranoid, cruel, ludicrous and radiation-poisoned as its characters; the kind of movie that is on an irregular and grotesque wavelength of its own making and will leave people not just in disbelief about what they just saw but what any of it meant, if it meant anything at all.
The A.V. Club by Katie Rife
Stanley does a remarkable job keeping the film grounded in emotional reality all things considered, but it’s admittedly an idiosyncratic movie about unconventional people made by an offbeat director.
The Playlist by Charles Bramesco
Stanley ratchets up the off-kilter humor while playing down the deep melancholy present in the short story’s original text. This observation could be seen as a knock on the director’s approach, but for audiences going in with zero expectations beyond a good time, the interlaced humor feels like nothing more than playing to Cage’s unique strengths.
Slant Magazine by Jake Cole
The film is a vivid depiction of how a confrontation with the unknown can so easily shatter the fragile bonds that hold us together.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
A satisfying shot at bringing a classic of the sci-fi/horror genre to modern audiences. ... Hitting the main plot points with well-designed SFX and some impressive night photography, Stanley's film manages to be frightening indeed, even with star Nicolas Cage’s semi-farcical leavening adding some nutty laughs.
Movie Nation by Roger Moore
The B-movie king is in rare form in Color Out of Space, a sci-fi thriller that might have been titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Magenta” had horror icon H.P. Lovecraft been born a lot later, and — you know — had a sense of humor.
Washington Post
As untidy and un-profound as “Color” may be, Stanley swings for the fences, when almost any other director-in-exile would have tried to get back in Hollywood’s good graces with an act of penance. Score one for the eccentrics of the world.
Variety by Dennis Harvey
Entertaining but uneven, the result is a deliberately over-the-top sci-fi horror exercise that loses some focus as the action grows more psychedelically unhinged — its oscillating tone not necessarily helped by Nicolas Cage growing likewise, in one of his less inspired gonzo-style performances.
CineVue by Christopher Machell
If there is any real complaint to be levelled at Color Out of Space, it’s that it has more ideas than it knows what to do with.
Consequence by Sarah Kurchak
With its wacky space shit, off-kilter gore, creepy atmospherics, and hammy breakdown, most of which happen all at the same time, Colour Out of Space is, inarguably, one hell of a trip. It’s just not a trip that everyone is going to enjoy taking.
Consequence of Sound by Sarah Kurchak
With its wacky space shit, off-kilter gore, creepy atmospherics, and hammy breakdown, most of which happen all at the same time, Colour Out of Space is, inarguably, one hell of a trip. It’s just not a trip that everyone is going to enjoy taking.
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