MANDY (2018)

Sometimes you see the hype that surrounds a film and you wonder how it actually could ever be that good. Regular good reviews are one thing but when you hear of stuff like, with this film for example, a FOUR MINUTE standing ovation, you must ask yourself, how much is hype? Can a film with such a small amount of buzz be received so well, especially by the Cannes crowd who provided that seemingly far-too-long ovation.

Mandy is what happens when you drop Nicolas Cage into a blender with a stack of Black Sabbath records, a Lovecraft paperback, and a fistful of bad acid, then hit purée.

The film is set in 1983’s grimy backwoods America, the film follows Red Miller (Cage), a lumberjack whose quiet, secluded life with his partner Mandy (Andrea Riseburough) gets violently derailed by a gang of lunatic cultists and their demonic biker pals, led by the enigmatic Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache).

What starts as a slow-burn art-horror trip quickly mutates into a blood-soaked revenge rampage, as Red pulls out all stops, and everything with a blade on it, to destroy the cult.

Of course, as one would expect, Nic Cage is the utter highlight of this piece: madder than a cut snake and nuttier than squirrel poop, Red tears through the third act of this film… you know how people describe films with Cage going crazy as ‘he goes full Cage’… well that doesn’t even begin to describe this.

Being a Lovecraft and a comic fan, and an 80s kid as well, all I could see was that this film is simply dripping with cosmic dread and enough heavy metal iconography to melt your VHS collection. Director/ writer Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) directs like he’s channeling equal parts Argento, Moebius, and a stack of Fangoria and Heavy Metal mags through into a blender to create a papier mache nightmare. Every scene is a video portrait in black velvet in a basement drug den: it’s compelling on the eyes like some of Argento’s earlier work was.

The soundtrack is also a revelation. Feeling like a lost Goblin score, it powers through the visuals with an audio that’s suits both the live-action and even more so, the Heavy Metal Movie styled animated sequence… did I not mention the animation? Yeah.

There’s animated sequences.

… and Bill Duke is in it! Bill FREAKIN’ Duke!! I mean I expected someone like Richard Brake (who plays a dealer known as The Chemist) to be in it, but Bill Duke?

So do I think it deserves a 4 minute ovation? Well, no. It’s a trippy film for sure, and it has the neon look that people seem to think is what the 80s was like (but it wasn’t), and that feels like it is little more than a distraction for a film that does little more that emulate 70s films like Last House on the Left but with a Suspiria palette. Honestly, I think I mould have given this film a higher score if it just told the story rather than force me to engage with the visuals.

Extras: There is a 22 minute behind the scenes featurette and whilst it is a touch masturbatory like many of these are (‘oh, so-and-so is so good’ etc), this really details why they are good. There is some really nice insights into the making of the film which is fantastic. There is a couple of fun outtakes as well.

There’s some deleted and extended scenes and as usual, the movie benefits from their removal. Not to say they are bad but they are unnecessary, though the scene with the sherif is uncomfortable.

There is trailers for Mandy, The Osiris Child, Swiss Army Man, Big Game and Upside Down.

Film: 6/10

Extras: 6/10

Rewatchability: 8/10

This film was purchased from JB Hifi