Mandy (2018)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Title: Mandy

Genre: Action, Fantasy, Horror

Director: Panos Cosmatos

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Richard Brake, Bill Duke, Ned Dennehy, Olwen Fouéré, Clément Baronnet, Alexis Julemont, Line Pillet, Ivailo Dimitrov, Hayley Saywell, Paul E. Painter, Sam Louwyck

Release: 2018-09-14

Runtime: 121

Plot: Pacific Northwest. 1983 AD. Outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire.

 

[TravisR]

This is another one of those movies that I want to see but I doubt it will play near me.

 

[JohnRice]

It's like Rob Zombie and Lars von Trier had a love child.

 

[Edwin-S]

Not my cup of tea.

 

[JohnRice]

Well, I regularly watch both Zombie and Trier, so I'd definitely give it a shot.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

So, I felt compelled to write something about this film after seeing it because, quite honestly, it is exactly the kind of cinematic experience we rarely get these days. There will be no spoilers here.

This is a film made by a wildly creative writer/director that just focuses on getting his vision up on the screen above all else. Meaning it is exactly what Mr. Cosmatos wanted to see. Is it going to appeal to everybody? Certainly not, which I think is a good thing. It could quite possibly appeal to many people but it is a horror film so you need to enjoy that genre at least and be comfortable with the fact that a lot...and I mean a lot...of blood is spilled in the picture...not so much to be gross and disgusting but kind of to show how bat shit the characters in this film have gone. The bloodletting scenes in the film are actually a mix of ridiculous and intentionally weird. So, if you laugh that's OK, there is humor here.

In the grand tradition of Spinal Tap, things here are turned up to 11...and the film actually tells you this with the funny little poem it opens with.

So, I can give you a sentence that works as a synopsis of the plot. A cult leader spots Red Miller's (Nic Cage) wife, decides he must have her, unleashes a gang of crazed motorcycle and ATV riding demons to get her, and mayhem ensues.

This does not cover the epic freak out and journey with the characters this film takes us on. Like many great films the plot itself is fairly simple and straightforward but the art is in how it is executed and that the filmmakers here are incredibly skilled at delivering the images, sounds, and effects that take us where they want us to go with them.

Having said these things I want you to know this is one seriously beautiful film to look at and listen to. The images and sounds are stunning and create a sustained atmosphere that held me entranced for the two hour run time. The best way I can describe what you are going to see is to say the entire picture is like a series of 1970s album covers come to life. These beautiful images are set to a fantastic score by the recently deceased Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson and the music of King Crimson.

Our DP here is Benjamin Loeb and he creates a candy colored world for these characters to inhabit with obvious nods to the colored lighting guys like Mario Bava and Dario Argento loved. His camera prowls through the forest and soars above it opening up gorgeous landscapes and night skies as well as taking us on a descent into hell through dark caverns and caves and down ladders and through tunnels revealing the bizarre ceremonial hiding places of the cult of the Children of the New Dawn. This is some fantastic photography.

This picture is all about mood and atmosphere and I honestly think Panos Cosmatos is a master at delivering these things. In his first feature Beyond the Black Rainbow he managed to sustain a great Kubrickian intensity until the characters left the Arboria Institute at which point the spell is broken and the film basically turns comical. I found this sort of jarring based on all that came before the final few minutes of the picture. It is obvious to me that Mr. Cosmatos likes to stir a bit of humor into his strange journeys and he does so here as well, mainly in some of the reaction shots and line readings we get from Mr. Cage. This time though he weaves that into the fabric of the story so that it works wonderfully to express how broken Red Miller has become.

And may as well talk about Cage here, who apparently has become a bit of a legend for his onscreen freak outs and he gives a great performance here going from reserved to unhinged to determined to complete his mission. He is basically very much a Warren Oates in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia for 2018...this being one of the many films that seemed to inspire moments in this film. Not in a "ripoff" kind of way just in how it seemed to me that Panos had likely seen this film and it seeped into his consciousness along with many others. So, he is not restaging scenes from other films but rather allowing however they affected him to emotionally color what he is doing.

I think a lot of interesting filmmakers are people with deep obsessions. From Hitchcock to Kubrick to Scorsese to Tarantino...these guys all display their obsessions through their filmmaking and so does Mr. Cosmatos. He obviously is deeply in love with music, books, movies, and spent many hours of his youth listening to records and staring at the album covers. He also seems to have absorbed a lot of movies and the way he uses what he absorbed to me is sort of fascinating. I mean we get the obvious horror influences of Bava and Argento and Texas Chainsaw Massacre mixed with things like Alfredo Garcia and even a moment that made me think of Michael Mann's Thief. The film is loaded with all sorts of stuff that brings you back to the period of the late 1970s through the early 1980s. I also thought that the woman that plays Mandy, Red Miller's wife, reminded me of Shelly Duvall and that seemed to me to be intentional. A nod to Kubrick's epic horror odyssey from 1980 (and period specific as Mandy is set in 1983).

This film sort of plays like it is an album to go along with the album cover imagery we get throughout the picture. He transitions from scene to scene through fade-outs and fade-ins as if they were the empty spaces on a record between songs. What he is after here is mood and atmosphere and he uses everything at his disposal to create these things. This includes the dialogue and the acting which are as stylized as the images and sounds. So, it is interesting how he uses the monsters in the film and how he uses the gore and bizarre scenes to actually express things about what is going on inside these characters.

So, in terms of what sort of horror film this is, it is not one about jump scares (there are none in the picture) nor is it really about the gore though there is plenty of it. It is a film that is about the characters and their emotional states and how love can be both beautiful and a nightmare. And Cage in all his epic weirdness and occasionally explosive acting is the perfect vehicle to deliver Red Miller. It may actually be one of his greatest performances. All the other actors in the film are excellent in their parts. The cult members are all odd and led by Linus Roache who gives his own bizarre performance as sort of the flipside to Cage's melting coin.

So, who will like this thing? Well, honestly I'm not sure. It is obviously strange to say that this is a blood drenched horror film/love story that is drop dead beautiful but also has Nic Cage doing battle with a biker demon from Hell wearing a huge strap-on blade penis...so, I mean if reading something like that does not put you off this might be for you.

It is definitely the work of some wonderful and very talented filmmakers and it makes my list as one of the best films of the year and probably one of the best horror films of the last decade or more. However, while it may climb way up into the pantheon of "cult" films in the coming years I feel like this will be a sort of love it or hate it deal. Also I think because many people have mixed feelings about Nic Cage that he may put some people off. I honestly don't think anybody else could have played Red Miller though.

After seeing the film I went and read a bunch of the reviews...it seems to be getting raves so at least the "critics" like it. I certainly want to see more from Panos Cosmatos though...I really like this guy.

 

[JQuintana]

Cage has become the "B" movie king over the last few years it seems.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Yes, his issues with owing the government back taxes and some bad financial choices (a fate Johnny Depp seems doomed to as well) has led him to doing film after film without giving much thought to the quality of the pictures and more of an eye toward collecting paychecks. However, Cage has not thrown in the towel and still wants to do good work. He hurls himself into the part of Red Miller like few actors could or would...and it works. Plus the range he plays here going from subdued loving husband to raging lunatic is pretty impressive. Cosmatos seems to know exactly how he wants to paint with Cage and so as a director he supports the performance Cage gives to maximum effect. I don't think Nic gets that from many of his directors. I've only seen a very small portion of his work since he started to churn out films like Eric Roberts but what I have seen (like his work with Paul Schrader or Oliver Stone of recent vintage) I thought was solid.

I think he gets a bad rap because he can go way over the top and he has quite obviously been doing work for paychecks with filmmakers that don't have any idea how to control or utilize him. His work with good directors though all tends to be both interesting and entertaining.

 

[TravisR]

So, who will like this thing? Well, honestly I'm not sure. It is obviously strange to say that this is a blood drenched horror film/love story that is drop dead beautiful but also has Nic Cage doing battle with a biker demon from Hell wearing a huge strap-on blade penis...so, I mean if reading something like that does not put you off this might be for you.

I'm not sure what it says about me but this sold me on the picture. Now I just have to hope that it plays near me.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

It is playing in a theater near me and appears to also be available on demand in some places. Like I noticed watching football on Sunday when I looked at Direct TV Cinema it is available through them. It also comes out on blu-ray at the end of October and is on sale for only $14.99.

It is pretty awesome up on a big screen as like I said above this is a stunningly beautiful film to look at and listen to so if the opportunity presents itself I would see it that way.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I should also throw in that they also use a lot of practical effects in this film and even have animated sequences (that look sort of period specific as well--think Heavy Metal type stuff) that represent Red's dreams/nightmares which I believe are shown this way because his wife Mandy is an artist that draws this kind of stuff. There was obviously a lot of work done to achieve what we see in this picture.

 

[skylark68]

I ended up pre-ordering the bluray. I'm really excited about seeing this one. Unfortunately the only theater playing it near me is over a 45 minute drive depending on traffic.

 

[JQuintana]

You can also just stream it from Amazon (rent or buy) or YT or Google Play Movies now vs. owning, especially if it turns out to be a dog.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

You can also just stream it from Amazon (rent or buy) or YT or Google Play Movies now vs. owning, especially if it turns out to be a dog.

Actually, when I was reading the comments of people that have seen it many seemed to claim they had "rented" it and I wondered where...so I guess you just answered that. I would not want to watch this film on a laptop though. I would want to see it on a big screen or in my home cinema. I have ordered the blu-ray as I felt this is a film that could be watched many times and I really enjoyed it.

I can imagine though, particularly today when so many films and hence audiences are obsessed with explanations, that a lot of people won't dig this one.

Bill Duke actually turns up in the film and primarily he is there to give an explanation...but that's it he's the only one that does this.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Here's a beautiful acoustic guitar version of one of Johannsson's compositions from the film...made me get my guitar down to sort myself out playing it...gorgeous!

 

[JQuintana]

Actually, when I was reading the comments of people that have seen it many seemed to claim they had "rented" it and I wondered where...so I guess you just answered that. I would not want to watch this film on a laptop though. I would want to see it on a big screen or in my home cinema. I have ordered the blu-ray as I felt this is a film that could be watched many times and I really enjoyed it.

I can imagine though, particularly today when so many films and hence audiences are obsessed with explanations, that a lot of people won't dig this one.

Bill Duke actually turns up in the film and primarily he is there to give an explanation...but that's it he's the only one that does this.

Just to clarify. Just because a movie is available to stream, it doesn't automatically mean it's only streamed on a laptop or phone. You can easily watch it on any TV. I can stream Amazon on my 55" 4K TV any time via the smart tv Amazon app. Or I could stream from a phone to a Chromecast or similar that is connected to any TV.

 

[JohnRice]

Just to clarify. Just because a movie is available to stream, it doesn't automatically mean it's only streamed on a laptop or phone. You can easily watch it on any TV. I can stream Amazon on my 55" 4K TV any time via the smart tv Amazon app. Or I could stream from a phone to a Chromecast or similar that is connected to any TV.

You beat me to it. Clearly, you can stream Amazon to pretty much anything. I use an Apple TV, but a lot of BR players can stream Amazon as well.

HD rental is $5.99, and I'm interested, so I might just give it a try. But I'm NOT going to spend $20 to "Buy" it when I can actually buy it for $15 or less on physical media that can't be taken away from me.

 

[JQuintana]

Well it technically can be taken away if you were robbed or God forbid house burned down with discs in it. Then you have nothing. With streaming at least there's pretty much a 100% chance you will still have full access to your media.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

With streaming at least there's pretty much a 100% chance you will still have full access to your media.

Except they can always go back and edit the film years later if there's something that becomes objectionable in the future.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Cage has become the "B" movie king over the last few years it seems.

We can all thank his massive, massive financial issues.