On Blu-ray/DVD: COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2020), IN FABRIC (2019) and RABID (2019)

COLOR OUT OF SPACE
(Malaysia/US/Portugal - 2020)

COLOR OUT OF SPACE would've been newsworthy enough on the basis of it being an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation starring Nicolas Cage in MANDY mode, but what really caused some excitement was the long-overdue return of Richard Stanley to narrative features almost 25 years after being fired from THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, effectively ending his Hollywood career. Stanley established some significant cult bona fides with 1990's HARDWARE and 1992's DUST DEVIL, but when he clashed with New Line execs and a particularly dickish Val Kilmer during the first week of shooting on MOREAU, he was shown the door and replaced by John Frankenheimer, the entire clusterfuck of a production covered in the acclaimed 2015 documentary LOST SOUL. Stanley made a few documentaries and short films, got a co-writing credit on Nacho Cerda's 2006 film THE ABANDONED, and helmed a short segment of the 2011 anthology film THE THEATRE BIZARRE, but COLOR OUT OF SPACE is, at long last, his triumphant proper return. Based on Lovecraft's 1927 short story "The Colour Out of Space" and previously filmed in 1965 as DIE, MONSTER, DIE! with Boris Karloff and as the Ovidio G. Assonitis-produced THE CURSE in 1987, COLOR is a frequently surreal bit of phantasmagorical horror that shares some stylistic similarities with MANDY (as well as Cage and some producers, including Elijah Wood), but also seems indebted to the disturbing metamorphosing aspects of ANNIHILATION (not to mention one sequence that's an obvious nod to THE THING) while name-checking various Lovecraft essentials, with several character names and mentions of Arkham and Miskatonic.

When a meteorite crashes on the front lawn of the farmhouse of Massachusetts (but shot in Portugal, of all places) alpaca breeder Nathan Gardner (Cage) and his cancer-stricken wife Theresa (Joely Richardson), strange occurrences become the new normal: the water supply is tainted, their personalities are affected, they blackout as hours pass in an instant, youngest son Jack (Julian Hillard) stands by the well, saying he's "talking to my friends." Nathan suffers from wild mood swings and lashes out at the two older kids, stoner Benny (THE GUEST's Brendan Meyer) and free-spirited Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur). And all the while, inexplicable purple-derived light and color formations manifest themselves and envelop the Gardner property, which grows more isolated from the outside world by the day. There's also hydrologist Ward (Elliot Knight), who's surveying the groundwater at the behest of the do-nothing mayor (THE NEW WORLD's Q'orianka Kilcher), and Ezra (Tommy Chong), an easygoing, harmless squatter living in a shack on the edge of the Gardner property, who records voices of "The people under the floor, man!" that match the creepy garbled gibberish and screams that are heard on the other end of the line ("It's in the static! It's in the moisture!") whenever anyone tries to make a phone call. Stanley establishes an effectively ominous, otherworldly mood amidst the hypnotic, cosmic colorgasms ("It's just a color...but it burns"), and after a too-slow buildup that sometimes overindulges Cage's required-by-law freakouts (resurrecting some of his VAMPIRE'S KISS schtick), COLOR OUT OF SPACE really catches fire in its second half, with some truly unsettling visuals, unexpected emotion, soundtrack appearances by Mayhem and Burzum, and absolutely no mercy in who it's willing to kill off. It also offers some humor, particularly in the way the local media portrays Nathan as a UFO crackpot when they arrive at the farm to cover the meteorite crash. Easily the most noteworthy Lovecraft adaptation since Stuart Gordon's DAGON back in 2001, COLOR OUT OF SPACE is solid horror offering with Cage bringing his A-game in his best film since MANDY, and while it doesn't top the visionary HARDWARE in the Best of Richard Stanley rankings, it sure is great to have him back. (Unrated, 110 mins)



IN FABRIC
(UK - 2019)

IN FABRIC is the latest retro exercise from British filmmaker Peter Strickland, whose obsessively-detailed '70s aesthetic was displayed in the giallo-tinged paranoia thriller BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO and the BDSM love story THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY. Strickland's films tend to be triumphs of style over substance and to that end, IN FABRIC is no exception, though it did get some buzz in horror circles last fall as "the killer dress movie" when the trailer went online, but A24 opted to keep it confined to arthouses and VOD. After seeing BERBERIAN and DUKE, I've concluded that I like the idea of Strickland's films more than I like the films themselves. Set in the early 1980s, IN FABRIC has some hypnotically stylish visuals and an incredible score by Cavern of Anti-Matter that sounds like it could've come straight from a 1972 fashion giallo with Edwige Fenech and George Hilton. Strickland nails the look and feel, but in terms of story, IN FABRIC is uneven, unfocused, and all over the place. Other than the look and sound, the film's biggest strength is Marianne Jean-Baptiste's performance as Sheila Woodchapel, a lonely bank teller recently left by her husband for a younger woman. She lives with her college-age son Vince (Jaygann Ayeh) and listens to him having sex with his intimidating, older goth model girlfriend Gwen (Gwendoline Christie). She decides to try the personals and treats herself to a new dress prior to her first blind date, purchased during a highly-publicized sale at Dentley & Soper's, a posh department store where she's attended to by eccentric saleswoman Miss Luckmoore (Fatma Mohamed). But after wearing the dress, she develops a rash, the dress destroys her washing machine, and while everyone's asleep, it hovers around the house on its own and even attacks Gwen at one point.

So far, so good, but then Strickland abruptly shifts gears around 70 minutes in, abandoning Jean-Baptiste's character to focus on nerdy washing machine repairman Reg (Leo Bill), who's about to be married to childhood sweetheart Babs (Hayley Squires). Reg's co-workers purchase the same red dress and make him wear it at his bachelor party, and the same strange cycle repeats--rash, wrecked washing machine, dress floating around the house--only with Reg being a little dorky, the second half is played more broadly compared to the ominous and eerie first half. Much of the humor comes from the bureaucratic, OFFICE SPACE-meets-Kafka-style nonsense that both Sheila's and Reg's bosses level at them, with Sheila being reprimanded by supervisors Clive (Steve Oram) and Stash (Julian Barratt of THE MIGHTY BOOSH) over a two-minute bathroom break, her handshakes "not being meaningful enough" and for smiling and waving at the manager's mistress when they bumped into one another on the street. Strickland also includes some scathing, satirical Orwellian jabs at capitalism, retail, and customer service in ways that seem more like he really wanted to make a Terry Gilliam movie but couldn't cut the cord from his Dario Argento/Eurocult/giallo fetishism, and to further muddy the waters, he throws in some HALLOWEEN III-inspired Dentley & Soper's TV spots that lull targeted viewers into a catatonic state. I really wanted to like this, and once again, I love what I see and hear but I'm still left cold by Strickland, who's starting to look like a one-trick pony, but it's admittedly an endlessly watchable trick. He's an extraordinarily gifted stylist, and other than Panos Cosmatos (BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW, MANDY) and maybe the team of Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani (THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS), I can't think of a current filmmaker who's better at taking their influences and using them to craft sequences and set pieces that better convey the dazed sense of half-remembered fragments of a shared dream. Strickland's got that part down, but on a narrative level, IN FABRIC is a complete mess that basically turns into an uninspired BLACK MIRROR episode by the time it's over.  (Unrated, 119 mins)


RABID
(Canada - 2019)

Twin cult horror specialists Jen and Sylvia Soska (collectively billed as "The Soska Sisters") have always cited fellow Canadian David Cronenberg as their major cinematic influence, a sentiment echoed in their breakout body modification cult film AMERICAN MARY. To that end, remaking Cronenberg's 1977 classic RABID probably seemed like a good idea, but RABID '19 is a crushing failure at almost every turn. The central premise--the spread of a new strain of rabies stemming from a woman who's just had experimental surgery following a motorcycle accident--is the same, but none of the other incidental changes do anything to justify the remake's existence. Shy, motorcycle-riding seamstress Rose (Laura Vandervoort) works for pompous and stereotypically flamboyant fashion guru Gunter (McKenzie Gray). She's treated like dirt by his models with the exception of Chelsea (Hanneke Talbot), her childhood foster sister since she was taken in following the death of her parents in a car accident. It's Chelsea who got her the job, and who tries to set her up with Brad (Benjamin Hollingsworth), but when Rose leaves a Gunter event after realizing Brad only asked her out at Chelsea's request and then overhearing two mean girl cokehead models (played by the Soskas) talking shit about her in the ladies room, she leaves the party in a frazzled state and is immediately hit head-on by another car.

Rose wakes up in the ICU after a week (with the attending physician played by Stephen McHattie, probably the first sign that her situation is about to go from bad to worse) to find most of the left side of her face has been ripped off in the accident, with her jaw needing to be sewn back on. She's recommended for treatment at the Burroughs Clinic, an exclusive facility that deals in regenerative medicine and "Transhumanism." Rose is the subject of an experimental stem cell skin graft procedure pioneered by (deep sigh) Dr. William Burroughs (Ted Atherton). She's initially apprehensive, but it proves to be a complete success. She's more beautiful than ever, she gets her job back, is creatively inspired, and Brad seems legitimately interested in her, but...she's a devout vegetarian and suddenly develops a strange craving for raw meat. She wakes up with faint memories of violent dreams where she's attacking men in a flesh-eating fury. Soon, the people with whom she comes into contact (including UFC star CM Punk, cast radically against type as a meat-headed asshole) begin exhibiting even more advanced symptoms of a virulent new form of rabies that becomes a citywide epidemic. RABID '19 devotes a lot of time to lampooning the vapidity of the fashion industry in trite fashion, but at the same time dutifully hitting all of the old-school Cronenberg bullet points of body horror and disease. It also offers shout-outs to a bunch of his other films as well, like NAKED LUNCH with the name-dropping of Burroughs, the clinical surgical horrors of DEAD RINGERS (including the brief presence of Heidi Von Palleske as a member of the Burroughs surgical team), and the shady experimental treatment facility of THE BROOD. The protruding armpit phallus from the original RABID (also notable in its day as the first mainstream crossover attempt of porn star Marilyn Chambers) finally appears in the off-the-rails third act, where RABID '19 completely falls apart, abandoning the Cronenberg worship and turning into a dumb tribute to the late '80s work of Brian Yuzna and Screaming Mad George. The pointless RABID '19 really overstays its welcome at 108 minutes and can't even get the little things right--wouldn't McHattie (PONTYPOOL) have made a more interesting Dr. Burroughs than the bland Atherton? The first line of dialogue heard here is a ranting Gunter asking "Why do we keep remaking old trends?" A valid question, and one asked with little sense of self-awareness by the Soskas, since RABID '19 certainly qualifies as part of the problem. (Unrated, 108 mins)

Retro Review: DAGON (2002)

DAGON
(Spain - 2001; US release 2002)

Directed by Stuart Gordon. Written by Dennis Paoli. Cast: Ezra Godden, Francisco Rabal, Raquel Merono, Macarena Gomez, Uxia Blanco, Brendan Price, Birgit Bofarull, Ferran Lahoz, Joan Minguell, Alfredo Villa, Jose Lifante, Javier Sandoval, Victor Barreira. (R, 98 mins)

Going back to his days as the founder of the Organic Theater Company in Chicago in the late 1960s, Stuart Gordon has always been a versatile director of stage and screen. But it's his association with the works of H.P. Lovecraft that have cemented his place in horror film history. Beginning in 1985 with the Empire Pictures cult classic RE-ANIMATOR, Gordon, along with screenwriter Dennis Paoli, and (with one exception) producer Brian Yuzna, created a quartet of Lovecraft adaptations that, while not completely faithful to the source, nevertheless generated a renewed interest in the influential horror writer whose work was never really discovered until after his death in 1937. Gordon's Lovecraft projects updated the settings and were very much the works of their maker, but RE-ANIMATOR and 1986's FROM BEYOND managed to brilliantly convey the essence of Lovecraft in spite of the liberties taken. Gordon moved away from Lovecraft for a number of years, directing 1987's DOLLS and a pair of sci-fi films with 1990's ROBOT JOX and 1993's FORTRESS, in addition to scripting Abel Ferrara's 1993 sci-fi/horror outing BODY SNATCHERS. He probably got his biggest commercial payday by creating, with Yuzna and their DOLLS screenwriter Ed Naha, the storyline behind the 1989 Disney hit HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS. Their script (originally titled TEENY WEENIES) was ultimately rewritten by Naha and Tom Schulman (DEAD POETS SOCIETY), and Gordon was replaced as director by Joe Johnston, but his "story by" credit remained and the film spawned two sequels, a TV spinoff, and a Disney theme park attraction.

Empire eventually folded by the end of the 1980s and was more or less reborn as Charles Band's Full Moon Productions, whose signature franchise remains the PUPPET MASTER series. Gordon and Paoli collaborated on Full Moon's 1991 Poesploitation entry THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM and would eventually revisit the Lovecraft universe for Full Moon with 1995's CASTLE FREAK (based on the short story "The Outsider"), which also reunited RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND stars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. Yuzna, meanwhile, directed the 1989 cult classic SOCIETY and kept the RE-ANIMATOR series going on his own by directing 1990's BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR and, much later, 2003's BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR. He also helmed 1991's SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION and 1993's RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3, along with a pair of Corbin Bernsen video store staples with 1996's THE DENTIST, co-written by Gordon, and its 1998 sequel THE DENTIST 2. By 2000, Yuzna set up shop in Barcelona, working with Spanish producer Julio Fernandez's company Filmax, creating a horror-focused subsidiary division called Fantastic Factory. Yuzna reconnected with Gordon and Paoli and Fernandez agreed to produce DAGON, the last (so far) of Gordon's Lovecraft feature film adaptations.

Based only partly on "Dagon" and more on "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," DAGON opens with young stock market wunderkind and Miskatonic University grad Paul Marsh (Ezra Godden) and his girlfriend Barbara (Raquel Merono) on a yacht with his business partner Howard (Brendan Price) and his wife Vicki (Birgit Bofarull). A powerful storm brews and the boat crashes into some rocks, sinking off off the coast of the nearly abandoned fishing village Imboca. Paul and Barbara make it to the shore and get help from a strange priest (Ferran Lahoz) with webbed fingers, who has two hooded men take Paul to what's left of the yacht. Howard and Vicki have disappeared, and when he returns to the village, Barbara is missing as well. The priest puts him up in a decrepit, filthy hotel where the desk clerk (Jose Lifante) has visible gills. The Imbocan villagers begin pursuing Paul through the hotel and the town, and he finds an unlikely ally in elderly vagrant Ezequiel (veteran character actor Francisco Rabal in one of his final films; he died before it was released). Ezequiel tells Paul of the dark secret of Imboca: it was once a poor Christian village ("Imboca" meaning "town of God") during his childhood until evil Capt. Camborra (Alfredo Villa) brought a curse on the residents, swaying them to worship "the great god Dagon," convincing them to turn their backs on Christianity and in exchange, Imboca prospered with an endless supply of fish and the discovery of gold in the surrounding sea. But the riches have a price, and Imbocans must pay in the form of blood sacrifices to Dagon, a hideous monster whose forced couplings with Imbocan women propagates a species that's half-human and half-sea creature.

Francisco Rabal (1926-2001)

There's a twist in the tale that comes much later, and it's not exactly stealthily foreshadowed by Paul's recurring dreams--even before the yacht sinks--of being underwater and seduced by a mermaid (Macarena Gomez) who turns into a monster or a strange formation of birthmarks visible around his ribcage ("Your dreams brought you here...every dream is a wish," he's told). After a slow build, DAGON has moments that are quite terrifying, especially in the way the relentless Imbocans never stop pursuing Paul no matter how fast he runs or how desperately he tries to hide. They're deformed but look mostly human, and move like aquatic beasts on land, shambling and slithering about in the background. Paul's tentative friendship with Ezequiel, who will eventually sacrifice himself in an attempt to save Paul, provides some legitimate emotion, especially in an unexpectedly moving scene where the Dagon-worshipping Imbocans are torturing the frail Ezequiel by skinning him alive as he defiantly shouts Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd...") in Spanish and is soon joined in English by Paul. Setting aside some CGI that's primitive in that distinctly "early 2000s" sort-of-way, Rabal is simultaneously the best and most problematic aspect of DAGON. Gordon gives reams of vital exposition to the actor, but a combination of the character being barely literate and Rabal's English being largely garbled and unintelligible is frustrating if you don't turn on the subtitles. At the same time, Rabal makes Ezequiel such a terrific character that, for a while, he becomes the heart and soul of DAGON, which helps make the Psalm 23 scene so powerful. The film closes with a heartfelt dedication to Rabal, "a wonderful actor and an even better human being."

DAGON went straight-to-video in the US in 2002, shortly before Gordon briefly reinvented himself as a bit of an indie auteur with 2004's bizarre oddity KING OF THE ANTS and 2006's EDMOND, a collaboration with David Mamet. Now 70, Gordon's last film to date is 2008's excellent black comedy STUCK, with white trash nurse Mena Suvari plowing into homeless Stephen Rea and promptly driving home and parking in her garage...with Rea still stuck in the windshield and bleeding out. Gordon did revisit Lovecraft once more, with DAGON star Godden, a British actor who briefly became the director's go-to Jeffrey Combs-alike, for "Dreams in the Witch-House" a 2005 episode of the Showtime series MASTERS OF HORROR. Just out on Blu-ray from Lionsgate's "Vestron Collector's Series," even though Vestron Video was long gone by 2002 (I guess it's "Vestron" in spirit), DAGON isn't the best of Gordon's Lovecraft works (that would be RE-ANIMATOR), but it's perhaps the most effective at capturing the vividly unique, nightmarish quality of Lovecraft's writing.