Movies based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft can be a squirrelly bunch. Some, like the HPLHS’s The Call of Cthulhu have almost no budget, but are labors of love that capture what draws us to Howard’s weird tales. Others, like Re-Animator, use his stories as a springboard, which don’t quite truly adapt the work, but once again, get the core ingredients right enough, so you end up with an enjoyable scary flick. And others, like Castle Freak, go off in their own direction, with debatable results.

Then there are the movies just “inspired” by his works, and going over that list could take days. So I’ll just move on (*cough The Thing, Cast a Deadly Spell *cough*).

The biggest problem with adapting HPL to film is that, to be honest, a lot of what pulls us to his work is, frankly, unfilmable. It’s all about the tone; the mood; it’s being inside someone’s head as reality comes unglued in ways that tears a character’s mind apart. It can be done, but it takes skill. It’s just a lot easier to make a big rubber monster, dip it in slime, then let it run wild as people scream “Ia! Ia!” while running around with Elder Signs painted on rocks. Though, sometimes, I’m there for that.

However, when someone really gets the material, and puts in the effort to make sure that its done right, you can get a true horror classic.

Color Out of Space is . . . not in that category.

This is actually the third attempt to adapt one of HPL’s most famous (and in my opinion, one of his best) works. Of the movies that have tried to tell this story (Die, Monster, Die! from 1967 with Karloff, and The Curse from 1987 with Wil Wheaton), this one is the third. And probably the best of the batch. Which, sadly, isn’t saying a whole lot.

The basics of the story are as follows. A nice farmer family living in the deep part of the woods have their life upended when a strange meteor crashes onto their property. It’s a strange, soft stone that slowly dissolves into the soil, and is a color that we have never seen before on Earth. This color acts like a strange radiation, mutating the land, the plants, animals, and then the farm family into bizarre, twisted, horrifying creatures

This version of the tale comes to us from Richard Stanley (The Island of Dr. Moreau) and Academy Award Winner© Nicolas Cage. With this pedigree, I was hoping that we would get the same level of otherworldly high weirdness we saw in Mandy. But we only get a few glimpses of that Cage here. He does a pretty reserved performance for most of the movie as Nathan Gardner, a man who has moved his family to this rural farm in the wake of his wife Theresa’s (Joely Richardson) cancer treatments, hoping that the quiet will help her recover, help their marriage, and that raising alpacas for their milk and fur will keep them afloat.

Their three kids are Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), their rebellious teen daughter who is dipping her toes into Wicca; Benny (Brendan Meyer) the stoner teen son; and precocious young Jack (Julian Hilliard), who is a bit nerdy, and a bit weird. We also have Tommy Chong as, well, Tommy Chong, living in a trailer at the edge of the farm.

Everyone does what they can with the roles, especially at the start where it follows the template of “city family moves to the country and tries to adapt” formula. Cage’s Nathan is obviously out of his depth, but Cage plays him with an awkward charm. You believe how much he still loves his family, and is trying to make his wife believe that her recent trauma hasn’t changed how much he cares about her.

Then the meteor shows up, and things get weird. But not weird enough. Weird in ways that make you go “huh?” more than going “augh!”

There are only two or three times where Cage gets to let out the really crazy side we’re waiting on, and while a more restrained performance is usually a good thing, it hinders more than it helps here. Especially when Lavinia goes full cultist crazy, carving runes into herself in an attempt to battle back against whatever is happening to her family.

When Cage isn’t the craziest character in your HPL movie, something has gone wrong somewhere.

Still, there are a few reasons to watch the movie. As I mentioned, the performances are pretty consistently good across the board, the effects are cool, and the choice to make the Color a pink/purple/violet works, providing some stunning visuals. And the scene where Cage is interviewed by the local news team about the strange visitor from another planet is hilarious.

As an adaptation of the original story, the movie hits most of the beats pretty well, and fans of the work should find the movie of interest. Fans of Cage will also probably enjoy this as well, even with it being one of his tamer performances. And horror fans will most likely think that it’s ok.

In the end, I thought that Color Out of Space was decent, but a little bit of a let down when all was said and done. I didn’t regret watching it, but it’s not a movie that I will be coming back to again any time soon.

If they had leaned harder into being weird, or let Cage get a little more . . . Cage-y as the world twisted around him, I would have enjoyed it more. It feels like it tried to split the difference, to be both a character study and Mandy-ish, and ended up being weaker because of not committing to being either a subdued character piece, or full Cage crazy.

Gary Mitchel is a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.

I believe that this is the first time where I’m getting to review a remake of a movie, where I reviewed the original when it came out. I’m not sure how I feel about this, except possibly old.

The original The Grudge was released way back in 2004, and I really enjoyed it. So even with Sam Rami / Ghost House behind this remake (after having made the original American adaptation of the J-Horror original), the usual remake unease, combined with by-the-numbers trailers, had me a little apprehensive about this remake.

I am very glad to report that my fears were unfounded. This remake is fantastic.

Like the original, the new The Grudge is about vengeful spirits who died in a rage, so now they unleash that fury on anyone who dares enter their house. This must be the reason for the push for drone-based delivery services, so you stop running out of employees.

Anyway, the tale starts in Japan, where live-in nurse Fiona (Tara Westwood) Landers is our ghost “patient zero”. She makes the mistake of dropping in on where long-haired ghost Kayako (Junko Bailey) and her child Toshio were murdered. After a scare by the undead duo, Fiona flees home to America, where she and her family, husband Sam (Dave Brown) and daughter Melinda (Zoe Fish) discover that you can run but you can’t hide from pissed-off ghosts, and now they become murderous spirits as well.

After this, the movie follows four interlinked stories about the poor unfortunates who made the mistake of stepping into the wrong residence. As in the original, these stories are told in an interweaving pattern, slipping back and forth between setups and reveals, building the tension until you’re ready to snap.

Our four tales (five, if you count Fiona’s gruesome opener) are about:

1. Single mom Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) who has moved with her son Burke (John Hanson) to town after her husband’s passing from cancer. Along with her new partner Detective Goodman (Demián Bichir), she investigates the discovery of the body of . . .
2. Lorna Moody (Jacki Weaver), a suicide assistance advocate, who has come at the request of William Matheson (Frankie Faison) about his ailing wife Faith (Lin Shaye). Meanwhile, they have visits from . . .
3. Detective Wilson (William Sadler), partner of Detective Goodman, who had entered the house while investigating the deaths of the Landers. His visits upset the Mathesons, whom had bought the house from . . .
4. Peter Spencer (Frank Cho), who is not only dealing with the stress of trying to sell the house for Fiona (whom he doesn’t know has perished at the ghostly hands of Kayako), but he and his wife Nina (Betty Gilpin) have just received some very unsettling medical news about their unborn child.

As you can see, this movie has a rock-solid cast. Riseborough, Lin and Cho are the standouts, and it’s always a pleasure to see Sadler. Riseborough is very sympathetic, smart and believable, Lin is great, and between this movie, The Exorcist TV show and Sleepy Hollow, Cho is putting together a solid horror resume.

The screenplay, by director Nicolas Pesce, manages to juggle the back and forth of the stories without becoming confusing or bogged down with “wait, what?” questions. All the characters are smart (or at least, don’t make stupid decisions just for the sake of moving the plot forward), and are sympathetic. I cared about each of these people, even as I yelled at them to not go into that house.

Also, setting the stories in 2004 & 2006 (when the original and sequel came out), was a cute touch.

Pesce’s direction has a very grounded feel. It reminded me of those matter-of-fact horror films of the 70’s, very easy to follow, well shot, and I love the way he handled the ending.

I also want to give a shout out to the music by the Newton Brothers, it’s great stuff. The end credits song “We Get What We Deserve” by them and Dead Sara has been on repeat in my playlist since I left the theater.

I know that a lot of people are kind of bagging on this movie, but I think it’s because it’s a remake, and as I said before, the trailers are not doing it any favors.

Personally, the movie works for me. But I really enjoy slow-burn horror (which this is). I liked the cast, it has a little gore, good scares, isn’t afraid to be mean, and I liked how it would slip the ghosts into various locations.

The only real complaint I have about the movie is that the ghosts have shifted from Kayako and Toshio to Fiona and Melinda. But as this is the story of their haunting, and Zoe’s performance is incredibly creepy, I can live with it.

Also, supposedly, this is more of a side-story than a reboot, telling the tale of the Landers ghosts, while Kayako and company are terrorizing Sarah Michelle Gellar. As you do.

So, yeah, The Grudge. If you like ghost stories, go check it out.