OK, it gets progressively sillier as it goes along and by the time we reach the apocalyptic climax Richard Stanley's "Color Out of Space" has stretched our credulity to breaking point but until then, as sci-fi/horror flics go, this has all the makings of a cult classic. It's based on a H. P. Lovecraft story and centres on a family of five whose remote forest home, (somewhere in the United States though the movie was made in Portugal), is hit by a meteor, complete with the requisite aliens that such movies have to have but unlike the big sci-fi disaster films of the past this is a decidedly low-key affair that is genuinely creepy in the best sense, at least until Stanley pulls out all the gory stops.
A fine cast, headed by Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson and very promising newcomer Madeleine Arthur keep things fairly realistic for most of the running time and by centring on a small group of people, Stanley is able to build the frighteners very nicely. Of course, you won't take any of it seriously but there are enough nightmare moments to make this one of the best sci-fi/horror hybrids of recent years and as Criswell might have said in "Plan 9 from Outer Space", 'Keep watching the skies'.
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