Mandy: Nicolas Cage comes out of retirement for an ultra-brutal metal revenge thriller, hacking through motorbike demons with a chainsaw – Cult.
Plot and background
Together with his girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), lumberjack Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) lives secluded in a quaint cabin by a lake. The two have built a little paradise for themselves. The peace is disturbed when crazed cult leader Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) drives by the cabin with his followers Marlene (Olwen Fouéré) and Swan (Ned Dennehy) and happens to catch a glimpse of Mandy.
Jeremiah is convinced that he must have Mandy at all costs, by force if necessary. The cult kidnaps Mandy, tortures her and finally kills her in front of Red, who has to watch tied up. When he manages to free himself, Red swears bloody revenge. A nose of coke and a self-forged axe later, Red embarks on a hallucinogenic metal revenge trip against the cult and hellish demons.
“Mandy” – Backgrounds
As recently as the summer of 2018, Oscar winner Nicolas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas”) had announced that he was retiring from the film business. That he would then announce his return only a few months later with a horror film was not the biggest surprise at all. Much more surprising was what a psychedelic, daring and ultra-brutal board of revenge thrillers Cage came back with – “Mandy”, the second disturbing work of Panos Cosmatos (“Beyond The Black Rainbow”).
As if the album cover of an 80s metal band had come to life. “Mandy” cheerfully mixes a wacky LSD aesthetic with the sound, attitude and imagery of metal, mixes in a good portion of bloodthirsty chainsaw horror and demons in BDSM costumes, and finally stirs the whole thing into a visionary visual frenzy that has no equal. Nicolas Cage’s ingenious performance as a broken rage is the icing on the cake.
Incidentally, the colourful metal battle-fest is accompanied by the music of composer Jóhann Gunnar Jóhannsson, who died in February 2018 and who had already produced wonderfully rumbling, droning walls of sound with the soundtracks to “Sicario” and “Arrival”. “Mandy” is unfortunately his last work. Jóhannsson has succeeded all the more strongly in underpinning the unprecedented rage orgy.
