But I want to follow up that statement by saying that I am not a particularly artsy film-fan and this might have just been one of those experimental movies that I am not intelligent enough to enjoy. For me, this film didn't really seem to have a point and when it was over I was just thinking to myself "WTF was that?"
As far as my limited brainpower can tell, this is meant to be some sort of horror film but done differently in a style called "Lovecraftian" which simply means that it is science-fiction not in the spaceships sense but of powers that are unknown to humankind and therefore are scary. That part of it I can appreciate I guess. I enjoy that sort of thing.
Basically a mysterious meteorite or meteor crashes into Nicholas Gardner's yard (played pretty poorly by Nicholas Cage) and then a few days later or so the meteor just up and disappears after a few people come out to look at it. To exactly zero people's surprise, strange things start happening to the Gardner family afterwards. This is where the film gets to be a bit difficult to follow because there doesn't seem to be any coherent sequence of events where one thing leads to the next. I suppose some of the gore and images will appeal to some people and some of the interesting camera angles and cinematography will appeal to those looking for something a bit different but for me anyway, Nick was the wrong choice for this role and I think I base that solely on the fact that Cage has been in what I consider to be too many movies.
Seemingly random things happen that I suppose have their scary moments but for the most part the events that take place in the film don't really seem to have any basis in any sort of central evil something or other, if that makes any sense. It doesn't make sense that whatever this strange power is would be targeting the Gardners, who are the only ones seemingly affected by it, nor does whatever the evil presence is seem to have any motive for attempting to harm anyone. We are given glimpses into what the "color" actually is but it is never really defined. I suppose this is where the film is trying to be "artsy" giving the audience an opportunity to define this on their own and I guess that I just wasn't in the mood for it on the particular night that I was watching it.
Again, my reasoning for feeling this way has a lot to do with the fact that I do not consider Nick Cage to be a good actor and his style kind of annoys me in many of the films he is in.
Another thing is that I don't understand if someone just owed Tommy Chong a favor or something but his presence in the film at all is extremely pointless. He plays a bit role and it is just awkward when he is on screen. He plays some sort of hippy squatter that for reasons that again, are not explained, is just somehow permitted to squat on the family's land and nobody seem to really even acknowledge that he is even there. He is just part of the story for a second, and then he isn't. It's dumb.
The entire film has some pretty cool moments with puppetry and some gore that was probably pretty difficult to pull off and I enjoyed that aspects of it, but for the most part the convoluted and sometimes nonsensical story combined with Nick's wooden acting just made this for a difficult film for me to get all the way through.
Should I watch it?
I hesitate to bash this film too much because of the fact that I will admit that there are some films out there that are probably meant for a certain type of audience member and I just don't happen to be that person. Color out of Space isn't necessarily a BAD movie, but it just wasn't my style. I do appreciate that it was something a bit different but at least in my opinion, different isn't always necessarily good. For some people this might be worth seeing just to see Cage try and in many people's opinion fail, in attempting to not be Nick Cage.
Go ahead and give this one a go if you are really searching for entertainment but I wouldn't go out of your way to find this one. It had a rather low budget and failed to pull in even $1 million at the box office which is a pretty lowball figure for the usually quite bankable but boring Nicolas Cage.
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