Sandy, Kevin and I watched this movie the other day. Wow. We were not quite expecting that. I saw that Nicholas Cage stars in it, so I figured it can’t be that bad, right? It wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t expecting him to be in this kind of movie, and I thought it was just a weird sci-fi movie. The movie is from an old HP Lovecraft story about an organism that falls from space and lands on this family’s farm. It turns everything into a really trippy psychedelic experience, and gets creepier and creepier the further into the movie you go, With today’s makeup and special effects, I thought they did a great job making it very disturbing. Sandy thought she might have nightmares after that one. Kevin was fascinated, and even watched it again the next evening with his friend. That just doesn’t happen, so I think that says a lot for it.

The background information I read about it on Wikipedia explained a lot. The director of the movie grew up on HP Lovecraft stories–his mother would read them to him when he was a child–and when his own mother was old and ailing he would read HP Lovecraft’s stories to her as well. They loved them. I know Stephen King also grew up as a HP Lovecraft fan, and was a big influence on his work.

The movie is worth a look, but not if you’re squeamish. It’s equal parts science fiction and horror. They avoid a lot of the potential exploitive gore with cutaways at just the right times, but it’s enough so you know for sure exactly what you missed and you can picture it vividly in your mind. This effect, I think, can sometimes be more disturbing than showing you everything on-screen.