I picked this Blu-Ray up about 6 years ago. And it has sat on my shelf patiently waiting. Last night that wait finally paid off. And it was amazing. However, I will say that my experience with this movie is not something anyone can replicate.

Let’s start with that then. About 20 minutes into the movie a storm started rolling in. Thunder lightly rumbling in the distance. Maybe 10-15 minutes later the rain started to lightly plink off the roof reverberating through the church. At this point in the movie, things are starting to escalate. Insanity is beginning to affect the Carson family. Their actions and reactions are much wilder than they should be. For the last 45 minutes of the movie, everything simply keeps ramping up. And the storm outside increases significantly in intensity as well. It’s after midnight, so the stained glass windows are darkened by night, only to be randomly lit up with lightning flashing across the sky. Rain is now pounding on the roof with such ferocity that I can no longer hear the dialogue in the movie (even with pushing the volume up to 100!) As the movie pushes past the climax and we enter the epilogue, the storm dies down. Light rain falling gently as the final moments of the movie play out.

It was an amazing experience.

But what about the movie itself? The Carson household consists of Nathan, his wife Theresa, and their children Benny, Lavinia, and Jack. This family is clearly a bit damaged. From the outside things look pretty good, but beneath the surface things are absolutely in turmoil. Nicolas Cage plays a very calm and collected father. Their life is interrupted when a meteorite lands in their front yard. The moment of impact caused chaos within the home, but the youngest child, Jack, was deeply affected by it. There happens to be a man in the area testing the water for contaminants, and he looks into the meteorite and the effect it may be having on the ground water.

After the meteorite lands, the flora begins to show a vibrancy it didn’t before. Starting with a pretty magenta colored flower growing by the well (I’m going with magenta for the color, maybe it is a different color, but for purposes of this it is now magenta!) The growth outside the home becomes a visual tracker as things begin to spiral out of control. Nature is tough to control in general, but this nature has been tainted by a cosmic influence that is well beyond the control of humanity.

There’s a kitchen accident, which we all saw coming for the entirety of the long drawn out scene where Theresa is cutting carrots until she cuts off her fingers. Nathan leaves the children and takes her to the hospital. When they return, it is clear that things have escalated with the meteorite influence. One interesting Nicolas Cage aspect to this movie is that as things play out, he shifts away from the calm and collected character and begins to exhibit the over the top acting he is known for. But it works marvelously here because it shows the affect of the meteorite.

There comes a moment around the hour mark or shortly after that where someone walks out from the home. The environment beyond the porch has changed wildly. And my first though on seeing it was this looks like something out of Willy Wonka’s factory. The magenta coloring has taken over everything. The grass is no longer green. Trees feel like Dr. Seuss has redrawn their anatomy. The sky has a foggy pink haze like cotton candy. This family now lives in some twisted crossover between Willy Wonka, the Lorax, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

But it isn’t just surface level changes. The cosmic horror is destroying them on a cellular level and a mental one at the same time. There is no fighting against this. Ripley can’t climb into a loader and grapple with the Queen. The damage is done and the soil itself is transformed. Lifeforms on that soil will not survive the experience unchanged.

And that is the fundamental concept of Lovecraftian horror. Looking into the gaping maw of cosmic horror will break your mind and reshape your genetic structure. The Carson family was ground zero of this incursion. And we are left with a realization that it won’t stop there. It will spread and there is nothing our species can do to slow it.

My experience with this movie absolutely makes it a 10 star event. Without the storm, I am sure this would have still been a 9 star movie. Maybe even still a 10.