- Director: Richard Stanley
- Writers: H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Stanley
- Stars: Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 51 Minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/37f1Mpb
Synopsis
Credits roll as we see shots of creepy, cloudy, foggy woods. The narrator reads from the Lovecraft story the book is based upon.
Lavinia Gardner does a spell in the woods to cure her mother’s cancer. She also wants out of that town. Ward introduces himself as a surveyor for the county. She’s heavily into Wicca and related things, and he seems like a normal guy. She goes home, and we see that Theresa, the mom, is suffering from cancer, brother Benny is a pothead, and the father, Nathan, is just trying to keep everything running. Littlest brother wants to see stars by looking down in a well. We see that Nathan has a huge wine cellar.
That night, we see them all in bed. The dog starts whining, and things start vibrating. A bright light comes on outside, and all the animals go crazy. They all rush outside to find the a glowing meteorite has landed in their backyard. It smells… indescribable. Jack seems to be in shock, but he recovers quickly.
The sheriff comes out, and he doesn’t smell it at all. Ward says it’s a meteorite, because they needed a scientist to determine that. Ward meets Ezra, a crazy man who is a squatter on their farm. It comes up that they all drink water from the well, and sometimes it’s a little off. Ward takes a sample and finds something unusual with the water. It starts storming, and lightning strikes the meteorite repeatedly; it attracts the lightning.
After the rain, Ward starts seeing strange colors in the woods, and his car starts on its own. The next morning, the meteorite is completely gone, but strange flowers have appeared. Theresa cuts her finger off, so she and Nathan rush to Arkham hospital, which is an hour away.
Jack starts talking to voices he hears fro the well. He also starts drawing pictures of an oddly-colored monster. He sees a light and strange insects in the bottom of the well. Ward stops by to tell them not to drink the water, and then goes to see Ezra to tell him. Ezra hears them under the ground as well; he’s even recorded them. Ezra says they came on the rock. He talks crazy, so Ward leaves him.
Nathan almost runs over Ezra’s mutated cat on the way home. Weird things have been happening back at the farm. Nathan gets home and blows up at the kids for being a pain. He goes to take a shower and finds a jellyfish in his shower and a rash on his arm. The family starts arguing a lot. The garden starts putting out huge, but strangely-formed fruits.
Nathan drinks himself to sleep. Jack and Benny watch the strange landscape, and Lavinia cuts herself and does a spell. Benny and Jack go into the barn to check on the alpacas; apparently, these kids have never seen “The Thing” before. Well, now they have. Jack and Theresa are shot by the colored energy beam, and they’re hurt bad; that’s not the kind of thing 911 can fix, but the car won’t start, so the hospital is not the answer anyway. There’s lots of stuff for Nic Cage to scream and rant about.
Nathan shoots the thing in the barn repeatedly, while Theresa/Jack absorb each other in the bedroom upstairs. Nathan then tries to fix Theresa/Jack the same way he solved the alpaca problem, but he can’t do it. Benny decides it’s a good idea to climb down into the well looking for the dog who clearly isn’t down there. The funky color gets him.
Ward and the sheriff stop by, and they know something is wrong. They meet Nathan, who has completely lost his mind. Meanwhile, Lavinia is being attacked by the thing in the bedroom. The sheriff blasts the creature, and Ward rescues Lavinia. Nathan gets shot in the back by the sheriff.
The sheriff and Ward go to check on Ezra. Ezra’s long dead, but he recorded the creepiest message ever for them. A tree reaches down and gets the sheriff, leaving only Ward. Ward gets a vision of the Color’s homeworld, and then it comes out of the well.
Ward and Nathan, who is still dead, have a bit of a face-off in the wine cellar before morning. The city then builds a dam there, supplying the eastern seaboard with all the water it could ever need…
Commentary
There’s mention of Arkham hospital and the Miskatonic River. The weather report on the TV mentions Innsmouth, Dunwich, and Kingsport, all from other Lovecraft stories.
The visuals and music are good; the creature effects are excellent, and the acting is all good here. Nathan seems like a perfectly normal father before all the trouble starts, so his shift to an abusive madman is a little out of the blue. Still, he’s been drinking ice from the well, so it’s obviously done something to him internally.
It’s a long film that never really drags, the characters all work well, and the creature is mysterious enough to stay interesting all the way to the end. I really liked it.