Richard Stanley Returns With Sci-Fi Head-Spinner Color Out Of Space
Richard Stanley is a filmmaker arguably less famous than infamous. Though he’s directed a pair of thrillers, three docs, and a string of music videos, he might be best known for being fired from the helm of the 1996 studio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. The outrageous behavior that got him sacked and the wild choices he made afterwards are detailed in the jaw-dropping 2014 documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. Beyond being a fascinating look into the madness of moviemaking, that doc helped spur a fresh fascination with Stanley and his unique vision for cinema. Which made Color Out Of Space, Stanley’s first narrative feature in 25 years, instantly intriguing. That this science-fiction thriller is an adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft short story and stars the one-and-only Nicolas Cage? That is all gravy. Gooey, gonzo gravy.
In Color Out Of Space, Stanley and co-writer Scarlett Amaris leave faint traces of the original premise: a surveying outsider visits to a remote family farm, where he discovers an alien contamination that mutates the whole place into a nightmarish hellscape. But its details have been radically transformed. For one thing, the tale of a farmer’s family doomed by a fateful fallen meteorite, is transported from the 1920s (when it was penned) to modern day. There, the family Gardner complains about poor WIFI when they’re not tending to their alpaca prospects, which…
