Daphne Davenport was on pace to become another Laurie Anderson or Naim June Paik.
She describes her concrete-adjacent electronic-distorted found music as “influential”
rather than popular. Unfortunately, true fame will probably elude her, because
she is a character in a horror film. She hoped to discover some inspiring natural
sounds with her recording engineer husband Darcy, but they also find a sinister
wild child in director-screenwriter Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap, produced
by SpectreVision, which screens tonight as part of Scary Movies XIII.
Daphne
is the “artiste” and Darcy is her enabler. He spends hours doing the legwork, roaming
the Welsh moors, making field recordings of squishy-squashy natural noises,
which she samples into her industrial soundscapes. It is a reclusive life, but
apparently, they needed to get away from the London scene. They are also clearly
carrying a lot of baggage that they never discuss, but it comes to a boil when
the kid shows up.
Even
the Da-Da’s notice how cagily their visitor remains nameless. However, the wild
child brims with knowledge regarding the local animals and flora. The strange youngster
even seems to have a special connection to the rabbits, especially the dead ones.
Indeed, the nature child should remind Nat Kind Cole fans that “Nature Boy” is
actually an extremely creepy song. Yet, despite this squirreliness, Daphne
forges an unhealthy attachment to “the child,” which encourages not-so-subtle attempts
to undermine her marriage.
Soon, Darcy
starts freaking out over their little stalker’s behavior. He also passes out
and loses time after ill-advisedly walking into a fairy circle. Admittedly, the
little weirdo warned him not to do it, but he did so anyway, losing time and consciousness
as a result.
In some
ways, Rabbit Trap is like an Enys Men, flavored with an extract
of Blow Out, which makes it ten times more grounded. The folk horror runs
heavy in these parts. The atmosphere is thick and it has amazingly clear audio fidelity.
The grungy 1970s period details are also highly evocative. Frankly, this is a
world you wouldn’t want to visit, but it definitely sounds massively eerie.
Like
it or not, you will see a lot of this movie in the future. The GIF appeal of
Nic Cage covered in blood yelling crazy things like “could I get a little
cooperation here” is just too meme-perfect. People will inevitably lose sight
of the original context, but it was all done in service of a pretty good H.P. Lovecraft
adaptation. It also represents Richard Stanley’s first full-length narrative
feature directorial job since the Island of Dr. Moreau debacle in 1996.
Stanley and his star Nicolas Cage capture the madness and dread of Lovecraft’s
source material in Color Out of Space, a SpectreVision production, which opens this Friday in New
York.
While
Ward Phillips is out conducting a survey of the water table outside Lovecraft’s
fictional Arkham, Massachusetts, he happens across Lavinia Gardner conducting a
wiccan ritual. He is quite struck by her, so is keen to see again when the municipal
government calls him to inspect a meteor that landed on the Gardener farm (they
raise alpacas, which sounds very Nic Cage). Weirdly, the meteor disappears by
the time the media arrives.
The
Gardners (and the alpacas) also start acting strangely, presumably under the meteor’s
evil influence. Lavinia’s little brother Jack Gardner is more distracted and
absent minded than ever. Her mother Theresa gets so spacey, she accidentally
chops off her own fingers. Her father Nathan freaks out spectacularly, screaming
and raging against everything he resents in life. (Yes, he is played by Nic
Cage). Only she and her middle brother Benny seem relatively unaffected, at
least for now.
Initially,
Color feels a lot like the original Invaders from Mars in terms
of its almost pastoral tone, but it slowly evolves into Mandy on PCP.
Frankly, it is pretty impressive how smoothly and steadily Stanley manages the descent
into utter bedlam. Of course, Nathan Gardner is the sort of role Cage was born
to play. He dives in with both feet, but in this case, his acting methods
perfectly suit the film. In fact, this is the best case of Cage being Cage
since Mandy and Mom and Dad.
