There is never enough cosmic horror in film, but we’re about to get one very exciting new addition to the subgenre. Nicolas Cage is set to star in an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s celebrated horror story Color Out of Space, with Hardware and Dust Devil helmer Richard Stanley directing — his first feature in twenty year. Good lord, that’s a mad and brilliant project, who could be behind such a thing?

Why, the folks behind the mind-melting phantasmagoria that was Mandy, of course. Color out of Space comes from ACE Pictures and SpectreVision, the latter of which teamed with Cage on his spectacular 2018 revenge horror. Principal photography on Color out of Space will kick off next month with Joley Richardson, Tommy Chong, Elliot Knight, Julian Hilliard, and Q’Orianka Kilcher also starring.

Daniel Noah, Josh C. Waller, Lisa Whalen and Elijah Wood will produce for SpectreVision, with Timur Bekbosunov, Johnny Chang, Emma Lee and Peter Wong executive producing for ACE Pictures. Stacy Jorgensen will executive produce for SpectreVision.

Color out of Space is one of Lovecraft’s most well-known stories, and chronicles the appearance of a mysterious alien force that crash lands in a small town, mutating life and space-time. Here’s the official synopsis for the film, per the press release:

“Color out of Space is a story of cosmic terror about The Gardners, a family who moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard. The mysterious aerolite seems to melt into the earth, infecting both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly color. To their horror, the Gardner family discover that this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches…including them.”

This is an exciting one for a number of reasons. Obviously, there’s a hype level to Cage reuniting with SpectreVision after the searing madness of Mandy, but throwing Stanley into the mix is a next level move. Stanley’s early career burned bright and fast with the back-to-back release of cult favorites Hardware and Dust Devil in 1990 and 1992, but then came the famously ill-fated production the 1996 The Island of Dr. Moreau remake starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. Stanley directed for the briefest moment before being replaced John Frankenheimer in the complete clusterfuck that was captures in the 2014 documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau.

SpectreVision partner Daniel Noah said, “Lovecraft is the dark father of modern horror, and we have been searching for an adaptation that captures the true scope of his cosmic dread for years. Richard Stanley – a wizard in his own right – will at long last bring Lovecraft’s humbling power to the screen unfiltered.”

Here’s hoping this bonkers project gets on screen as soon as possible.