Growing up, I stumbled into a rabbit hole of an H.P. Lovecraft anthology, and, in the grand tradition of cosmic horror, I would argue I’ve never been the same since.

A lot of Lovecraft’s general vibes and ideas have been adopted by our greater culture, especially with regards to horror, but it is somewhat rare to encounter a rendition of one of his actual works — let alone a competent one.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Our mixed views of the author today are one — he was wildly racist even for his time, although he did show some few signs of getting over that in his letters near the end of his life.

Perhaps even more damningly, though, is that a lot of the load-bearing superstructure of his work is contingent upon the unknowable unknown, and the reactions of various doomed characters as they interact with the core concept that, plainly, some things are just beyond us.

A friend recently introduced me to the 2019 rendition of “Color Out of Space,” starring a Nic Cage who clearly had a lot of fun losing his sanity, and I was stunned to find that it actually did the story justice.

Allow me to elaborate.

“Color” is, like much of Lovecraft’s work, a bit bleak. Some real messed up things happen to a random family for absolutely no reason other than they happened to live where a meteor lands. That’s it.

Without spoiling too much, one of the core conceits of the tale is that, as the cosmic infection from the meteor progresses, the characters begin to see colors they can’t describe, among other things.

That means that the foundation of the story is fundamentally unadaptable to a visual medium — while we can imagine unseeable colors, that doesn’t really work in a movie.

So…the color out of space is apparently a very saturated purplish-pink.

Just go with it. It works.

Once that problem was ironed out, the rest of the story translates pretty well.

The actors do a decently good job of portraying the unfortunate Gardner household, with Nic Cage, as the patriarch of the family, clearly relishing the role as only Nic Cage can do.

Madeleine Arthur’s performance as Lavinia was also particularly compelling and worth a shout-out.

A lot of the movie is serviceable, in a future-cult-classic kind of low-budget way, but “Color” shines in part because it absolutely nails the most important aspect of the story: the progression.

As the story begins, everything is normal — and once the meteor arrives, things change. At first, the changes are very subtle and missable, but as the infection spreads, the state of the characters and the world they inhabit becomes steadily more warped and confusing.

The movie’s ability to handle this evolution deftly accomplish something crucial: there is a strong sense of the cosmic tragedy unfolding to this family. You get to see them be a normal family with normal family problems, and then this horror that none of them invited completely ruins their lives.

The characters are, if not the smartest, at the very least not going out of their way to do classic horror movie faux pas. In fact, the characters throughout display a remarkable level of self-awareness and intellect — but, in an homage to Lovecraft, that very self-awareness and intellect renders them corruptable and incapable of actually making the irrational but correct decisions for their health and survival.

The emotional connection you make with the characters, and the level to which you agree with the decisions they make, has you very effectively rooting for them — unlike in many horror movies where the characters are so dumb that I sometimes find myself rooting for the monster…whatever that says about me.

Either way, the film hits that creeping dread out of the park, and that is, in my opinion, the thing that really makes “Color” such a compelling story.

Otherwise, it’s a fine film executed well. The effects are good, the writing is good and the music is good.

But, especially given the challenges of the source material, that is not merely an “eh, it’s an okay” — it’s a ringing endorsement.

For content warnings, there’s definitely some swearing, including some effs. The gore isn’t too bad, although there is some — and I am an absolute wuss, as I’ve said before. That said, the shots of said gore are handled masterfully — the camera shows you just enough for your imagination to be able to take it the rest of the way, so I would say that the movie is disturbing if not graphic.

Otherwise, if you’re a fan of Lovecraft’s works — or, indeed, of the cosmic horror genre that he contributed so heavily to — definitely pencil this one down to watch at some point. You won’t regret it.

“Color Out of Space” is available to stream on a vairety of platforms, including Shudder, Hulu, Disney+ and AMC+.

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Arianna McKee is the design and editorial page editor at The Express.