31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 11 - Mandy
Mandy
121 mins.
Dir. Panos Cosmatos
USA/2018
Let's do another double feature, this time with two Nicholas Cage films. First up, the movie that everyone is talking about. You'll love it or hate it. Tonight let's take a look at Mandy.
I remember seeing the trailer for this film a while back thinking this was some super bizarre shit that looks exciting. Then I learned it was the second film from the director of Beyond the Black Rainbow, which I was not a fan of, so I became a little apprehensive about seeing this. But the reviews were coming in, mostly positive, so I had to see for myself.
The story is really quite simple, it is an old tale of revenge. Nicholas Cage is a lumber jack and lives in the Shadow Mountains during the year 1983 with his girl friend Mandy. They lead a simple life, she paints fantasy paintings, listens to heavy metal and reads dime store sci-fi paperbacks, while he cuts down trees. They eat their dinner in front of the TV and watch b sci-fi movies like The Night Beast. One day Mandy is walking down the road and a van full of cult members called The Children of the New Dawn drives by. The cult leader and Mandy lock eyes and he decides he must have her. So cult member Brother Swan blows on a wooden whistle or something and summons The Black Skulls, for lack of better term these are four Cenobite-like characters on motor bikes, other-worldly, high on cocaine and totally insane. They break into Nicholas Cage and Mandy's house and kidnap them. Mandy gets dosed with a hallucinogenic dropped into her eyes and stung by some kind of assumed poisonous wasp. Through a psychedelic mind trip (even more so then this movie already is) we watch as Jeremiah (the cult leader), feeds Mandy his bullshit philosophy, plays her is failed attempt at music and stands before her robe open in all his nakedness telling her God told him to take anything he wanted. What is Mandy's reaction to all this? She laughs. She laughs hysterically. Jeremiah is ashamed and pissed about being ridiculed by Mandy's reaction. Ladies don't laugh at a man's junk when he is trying to entice you, it will hurt his feelings. Jeremiah has Mandy thrown in a sack, hung and set on fire in front of Nicholas Cage, who is wrapped up to a tree in barbwire this whole time. Once Mandy is completely reduced to ashes, the cult drives off leaving Nicholas Cage to fend for himself, which he eventually gets free from.
I feel like this movie is almost set up into two parts. Each part taking exactly one hour. The first part is a slow set up of character development and an even slower trip with the cult. Maybe it was just me, and maybe that was the point. But the whole Mandy cult trippy segment......seemed......to......really......go......on......for........what.......seemed.......like.......an.......extended........amount.......of.......time.
The second hour of the movie is where the revenge takes place and Nicholas Cage kicks it up to psycho performance. Out to get revenge after drowning himself in Vodka, Crazy Cage heads out to a friend of his to pick up a cross bow and two arrows. His friend tells him the back story of the Black Skulls so Crazy Cage...uh, becomes a black smith and forges a crazy battle axe from molten metal and heads out in search of the Black Skulls. From there he heads out to eliminate all the Children of the New Dawn. In one outrageous scene, Crazy Cage trades in his axe for a small chainsaw, something he is accustomed to using being that he was a lumberjack an all. One of the brothers sees him coming and pulls out a huge chainsaw reminiscent of the saw Leatherface used in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. So here we have a chainsaw duel with a TCM III saw vs. a saw the size that Dennis Hopper wielded in each hand in TCM 2. There really seems to be a few homages to the genre throughout this film. Despite this movies non-linear look, the story itself is very basic and you can see how this is all going to end, which it does more-or-less by the book.
So what is the love/hate relationship people have with this movie? Visually the movie is more like looking at a surreal painting then watching a true to life story. There is so much red light used in this movie as well as some other colors, it is like Argento's Suspiria or Inferno on 11. Like I said the first half of the movie is a bit slow but visually very trippy. Beautiful to look at but the dialogue can be a little pretentious at times. And really there isn't too much dialogue in the whole film. The second half of the movie, is a more action packed, a couple of crazy gory scenes and a little more straight forward in its story telling. While very stylish, it wasn't style over substance like how I felt Beyond the Black Rainbow was, nor was it so stylish the story itself took second place like The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears. But it was the story itself that I found a little lackluster. You can probably read deeper into it about the fine line between psychosis and faith, but bottom line it is a very simple tale of revenge and I was hoping for something a little more than that based upon the look of the film. So didn't love it, definitely didn't hate it. Visually beautiful at times and enough insanity in the end to keep you going, you just need to hang on for the ride. Oh and if you hate Nicholas Cage, this movie isn't going to win you over.
Mandy
121 mins.
Dir. Panos Cosmatos
USA/2018
Let's do another double feature, this time with two Nicholas Cage films. First up, the movie that everyone is talking about. You'll love it or hate it. Tonight let's take a look at Mandy.
I remember seeing the trailer for this film a while back thinking this was some super bizarre shit that looks exciting. Then I learned it was the second film from the director of Beyond the Black Rainbow, which I was not a fan of, so I became a little apprehensive about seeing this. But the reviews were coming in, mostly positive, so I had to see for myself.
The story is really quite simple, it is an old tale of revenge. Nicholas Cage is a lumber jack and lives in the Shadow Mountains during the year 1983 with his girl friend Mandy. They lead a simple life, she paints fantasy paintings, listens to heavy metal and reads dime store sci-fi paperbacks, while he cuts down trees. They eat their dinner in front of the TV and watch b sci-fi movies like The Night Beast. One day Mandy is walking down the road and a van full of cult members called The Children of the New Dawn drives by. The cult leader and Mandy lock eyes and he decides he must have her. So cult member Brother Swan blows on a wooden whistle or something and summons The Black Skulls, for lack of better term these are four Cenobite-like characters on motor bikes, other-worldly, high on cocaine and totally insane. They break into Nicholas Cage and Mandy's house and kidnap them. Mandy gets dosed with a hallucinogenic dropped into her eyes and stung by some kind of assumed poisonous wasp. Through a psychedelic mind trip (even more so then this movie already is) we watch as Jeremiah (the cult leader), feeds Mandy his bullshit philosophy, plays her is failed attempt at music and stands before her robe open in all his nakedness telling her God told him to take anything he wanted. What is Mandy's reaction to all this? She laughs. She laughs hysterically. Jeremiah is ashamed and pissed about being ridiculed by Mandy's reaction. Ladies don't laugh at a man's junk when he is trying to entice you, it will hurt his feelings. Jeremiah has Mandy thrown in a sack, hung and set on fire in front of Nicholas Cage, who is wrapped up to a tree in barbwire this whole time. Once Mandy is completely reduced to ashes, the cult drives off leaving Nicholas Cage to fend for himself, which he eventually gets free from.
I feel like this movie is almost set up into two parts. Each part taking exactly one hour. The first part is a slow set up of character development and an even slower trip with the cult. Maybe it was just me, and maybe that was the point. But the whole Mandy cult trippy segment......seemed......to......really......go......on......for........what.......seemed.......like.......an.......extended........amount.......of.......time.
The second hour of the movie is where the revenge takes place and Nicholas Cage kicks it up to psycho performance. Out to get revenge after drowning himself in Vodka, Crazy Cage heads out to a friend of his to pick up a cross bow and two arrows. His friend tells him the back story of the Black Skulls so Crazy Cage...uh, becomes a black smith and forges a crazy battle axe from molten metal and heads out in search of the Black Skulls. From there he heads out to eliminate all the Children of the New Dawn. In one outrageous scene, Crazy Cage trades in his axe for a small chainsaw, something he is accustomed to using being that he was a lumberjack an all. One of the brothers sees him coming and pulls out a huge chainsaw reminiscent of the saw Leatherface used in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. So here we have a chainsaw duel with a TCM III saw vs. a saw the size that Dennis Hopper wielded in each hand in TCM 2. There really seems to be a few homages to the genre throughout this film. Despite this movies non-linear look, the story itself is very basic and you can see how this is all going to end, which it does more-or-less by the book.
So what is the love/hate relationship people have with this movie? Visually the movie is more like looking at a surreal painting then watching a true to life story. There is so much red light used in this movie as well as some other colors, it is like Argento's Suspiria or Inferno on 11. Like I said the first half of the movie is a bit slow but visually very trippy. Beautiful to look at but the dialogue can be a little pretentious at times. And really there isn't too much dialogue in the whole film. The second half of the movie, is a more action packed, a couple of crazy gory scenes and a little more straight forward in its story telling. While very stylish, it wasn't style over substance like how I felt Beyond the Black Rainbow was, nor was it so stylish the story itself took second place like The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears. But it was the story itself that I found a little lackluster. You can probably read deeper into it about the fine line between psychosis and faith, but bottom line it is a very simple tale of revenge and I was hoping for something a little more than that based upon the look of the film. So didn't love it, definitely didn't hate it. Visually beautiful at times and enough insanity in the end to keep you going, you just need to hang on for the ride. Oh and if you hate Nicholas Cage, this movie isn't going to win you over.
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