Color out of Space
with *takes deep breath* Nicholas Cage, Joely Richardson, Tommy Chong (!), and various other people.
Ol' Bulging Eyes is Nathan Gardner, who has moved his family to his huge familial farmhouse somewhere deep in the woods to raise alpacas and grow veggies following his wife Theresa's mastectomy. As one would. 3 kids; teenage emo wiccan daughter Lavinia, slightly younger stoner doofus Benny, and much younger space cadet moppet Jack. One random day, Lavinia's doing a wiccan ritual at a riverside when along rolls Ward, a hydrologist who's strolling through the forest doing vague water table testing and macking on teenage chicks. They shyly part ways, and we get a night of the dysfunctional Gardner family in action. They're annoying, but not necessarily toxic...until later that night when a meteorite crashes into their backyard and infects it with a neon-fuschia/purple/indigo color. Everyone's nonplussed the day after when it sinks into the earth and disappears, but then strange goings-on start happening. People lose track of time, electronics stop working, animals start acting strangely and
changing...and that's just the beginning. Important note: when a hydrologist tells you not to drink the water, listen to him.
Adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story; ends up kind of like a combination of The Thing and Annihilation. Both of which are far better movies. You feel for some of the characters going through it, and it's not a bad ride to as you're going along, very interesting visually, but there's a problem. It's got a receding hairline, wears comfy flannel sweaters, and shouts uncontrollably. You see Nicholas Cage's name on a marquee, and you take your chances but this time...whoa. He really lets himself go into new dimensions of overacting. It's so damn annoying. It's the Trump Presidency of Nicholas Cage performances. Every time you think he can't go lower, he grabs a shovel and starts digging. Distractingly bad. Almost single-handedly ruins the movie all by itself.
Also interesting, this was the first movie directed by Richard Stanley since he was fired from the debacle of The Island of Dr Moreau and f***ed off to spend months living in the forest around the set. If you haven't looked up the history surrounding the filming of that movie, do so now. It's more entertaining than any dozen movies starring Nicholas Cage you're likely to see.
Goddammit. Last week it was roadworks, now this.