NICK UNCAGED

It took only so many filmmakers over the course of only so many years, but someone finally managed to unlock the unhinged madness of Nicholas Cage to deliver the role he was born to play.

A film so chaotic that it could only be helmed by the likes of Nick Cage, Mandy is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in cinema, perhaps ever.

  With an apocalyptic take on 80s heavy metal punk atmosphere, this dark action vehicle feels reminiscent of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, and that goes far beyond the film’s vibrant color scheme of lush visuals.
  The film also dabbles in a slow-burn psychedelic pool of gothic body horror that often feels ripped directly from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. 

  Together these genres are mashed and molded into a pulpy piece of arthouse schlock of visual wonder from the mind of a mad creator and love it or hate it, Mandy is a unique portrait of some kind of bizarre art that’s destined for a cult following, even if the burn is far too slow and the art feels obnoxiously pretentious.

  It’s almost unfair to even grade Mandy on a scale because of just how far out it is in terms of what it attempts to accomplish from beginning to finish. It’s a film that aims for the ‘cult-following’ title, targeted directly at cinephiles who dare to be “dark and edgy” and there will inevitably be moviegoers who will look right through the bullshit. Folks will complain about the lengthy runtime or the overly drawn out nature of the film’s ambiguity, but it’s these exact criticisms that sweaty nerds will come to defend, creating wonderfully irrelevant debate for the remainder of cult-film discussion for years to come. 

  For this reason alone Mandy has arguably already cemented itself as THE cinematic event of 2018, if ONLY from a cinephile’s perspective. And for that, love it or not, the film will stand out, if anything, for being entirely unique.

  Set very specifically in 1983, Panos Cosmatos creates a lush world of heavy metal vibrancy that almost never lets up from its fever dream tone of visual wonder, which often feels like the film was literally made during the days of 1983 hair metal. Swallowed by a grim tone that feels as if the world has ended and our characters are living in a literal hell on earth, the film exudes an apocalyptic darkness beyond its satanic cult of sick “Jesus freaks,” as they’re so blissfully described (Cage’s description of them as “a crazy evil” is more on the nose).

  Beyond just the dialogue and references to 80s books and pop culture that absorbs a cosmic energy surrounding myth, space, science, creatures, and gods, Mandy lives and breathes its “metal” personality so far beyond just wearing the darkness on its sleeve. 

  Filled to the brim with biblical dialogue this is a film that literally feels like a legend told in a Dio song. The talks of worshipped deities and creators drips from the mouths of vile characters were they from a wicked folklore; like a missing chapter from the Book of Revelation. It’s a notion that Cosmatos is fully aware of and it is embraced, if not milked to its every potential. And it’s metal as fuck.

  Save for the fact that the film is also tuned to an excellently pulsating synth-electric-rock soundtrack, the whole thing often feels inspired by Cosmatos’ vision of a heavy metal apocalypse. The vibrant color tones; the neon pinks and the enveloped scopes of literal contrast of light and dark, the film feels straight up evil; like it was ripped from the bowels of hell. In other words, it’s the perfect setting for a dark cult to play the part of the villains.

  In perhaps one of the most uncomfortably slimy performances ever portrayed in film, cult leader Jeremiah is given the role of a lifetime by Linus Roache, who with his pale, flabby skin, bleached locks and worn eyes is all but a human representation of the devil himself.
  Like Gríma Wormtongue, Roache is a slithering embodiment of evil and by means of eerie subtlety and sadistic pleasure, he channels his best Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet; a character so sinister and vile, just watching him will make you want to take a shower when it’s over. He feels like a villain directly from a bygone era of 80s horror movies and his performance is utterly terrifying.

  There’s one scene here in particular, once Jeremiah attempts to persuade Mandy in a trippy LSD-induced affair, and between the framing; the way the scene is shot, with the characters staring directly into the camera; their pupils dialated in the white-hot pink atmosphere; their faces molded into one, that’s so visually stunning yet so notably uncomfortable, the only aspect more viscerally horrifying is when Jeremiah asks Mandy “Do you like The Carpenters?” before playing a record of his own recorded song that’s ripped from the stuff of actual nightmares.

   On top of that, Jeremiah’s cronies are all played to astutely vicious attention were the actors mutants themselves, and with some of the Cenobite creatures dressed in their S&M leather, spikes, chains and spoken demonic voices, they might as well be.

  Among all these characters, it’s obviously Nicholas Cage’s leading man Red who’s the star of the show, and if there’s one major credit to give Cosmatos in terms of his casting, it’s that he channels a rage in Cage; the unhinged madness we’ve all come to know so well, and uses it so goddamn meticulously, it could be stated that this is not only Cage’s most fitting character he’s ever portrayed, but the role he was born to play.
 
  Granted, the film is essentially split into two acts; The slow-slow-burn in the beauty of Mandy, built upon the first half, and then there’s the brutal rage of Cage in the second half, and once we get to that payoff; once we DO get to see Nick bust out his post-apocalyptic weapons and seek vengeance on the monsters who wronged him, the film delivers on all kinds of much-needed ass kicking.

  Granted, Mandy’s plot is nothing original by any means and when it comes to revenge spawned by the terrible acts committed to a loved one, the film really doesn’t offer anything we’ve never seen before. But goddamn if this isn’t one the most stylized takes of bloody and chaotic vengeance ever depicted on screen.

  Keep in mind this is STILL Nick Cage we’re talking about here; It’s an other-worldly plateau of insanity. For instance, there’s a moment in the film before Red goes ape shit where the camera is still-frame on a bearded Cage in a bloodied, tiger baseball tee and tighty-whities, in his bathroom, chugging vodka out of the bottle, screaming bloody murder and crying at the top of his lungs. It’s a moment of pure misery for the character and yet Cage’s extremism is kinda played for laughs, if only because of how bottle-opened his pure, unadulterated rage is (which of course is a behavior which has spawned countless YouTube compilations from past Cage films).

  Naturally once Red DOES begin to go “hunting” as he describes, that’s when the film is able to breathe at the psychotic pace Cosmatos builds to from the opening frame, so much so that once we get to that transition, the film has already been basking in such bizarre horrors that it doesn’t matter what rules apply to the film’s shenanigans at that point.

  Cage melds together a cosmic axe while wearing aviators; he drives a blacked out muscle car and snipes monsters from the woods with steel arrows that can cut through bone “like a fat kid through cake,” as described in the film. He burns motherfuckers alive and slices off their heads as the dark blood of his enemies pours onto his screaming face. It’s the kinda stuff that could only fit into a story as chaotic as this and Cage harnesses a hellbent energy that fits Cosmatos’ vision flawlessly. 

  For fuck’s sake, there’s a moment where Cage, covered in blood, snaps a villain’s neck and the unhinged look of madness in his eye when he does it is the most spitting ‘Nick Cage’ he’s ever looked. It’s like Panos is channeling all the unnecessarily chaotic energy that Cage exuded in Face/Off, and pushes the man’s ability to degrees that suit his maniacal behavior effortlessly. 

  As if that moment weren’t enough, Cage follows it up by snorting a mountain of powerful cocaine off a mythical dagger and drinking a supernatural LSD smoothie before dueling in a chainsaw battle amidst a flaming junk yard arena (you really can’t make this shit up).

  Folks. This movie is fucking NUTTY beyond all reason, but it’s crafted to such a vibrant degree of hellish artistry that it could only be helmed by the likes of a filmmaker with a clear and chaotic vision, which makes the movie admirable as fuck, even if it suffers from being overly ambiguous.

  Will the film’s face-melting awesomeness be too much for mere mortals to handle? For some, absolutely. For others it may just be too over the top, if not too pretentious or artsy-fartsy, but that’s going to come with the territory for a film that as stated earlier is aiming directly for the cult following.

  The biggest difference between other attempts at earning the cult title is that Mandy is portrayed to such an impressive degree of artistic filmmaking that it doesn’t matter if its cult agenda is achieved or not. This is an oddly specific vision that’s designed to such weirdly eccentric levels, that at the very least it’s a really thick stab at fine filmmaking that’s straight up just not really seen too often anymore.

   Whether or not Mandy actually lives up to the hype, it’s something worth giving a damn for, because if nothing else, it’s most likely going to end up as the flat-out most ambitious film of 2018.

  P.S. The movie is also metal as fuck so fuck yeah for that.

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*10 points to metal movies

*50 points to the coke-snorting, chainsaw wielding madness that is Nick Cage

*100 points to Panos Cosmatos; to his vision and his ability to channel the rage of Cage