“Panos Cosmatos’ follow-up to Beyond the Black Rainbow is a gloriously lurid mock-80s revenge quest that aims a raging, roaring Nicolas Cage at villains from another dimension.” — Katherine McLaughlin, Sight & Sound
It was labelled the ‘midnight-iest’ of midnight films at Sundance. It promised Nicolas Cage in full beast mode surrounded by dream fugues, animation, psychedelia and demonic symbolism. And it delivered on those promises and more. Now it’s your turn – to turn up, tune in and wig the f-out.
Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) directs Cage as Red, a lumberjack who lives with Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) in a remote cabin – an enviable idyllic co-existence that involves lazing under blankets beneath moonlight and whispering sweet nothings. Before long, into this Prozaced wilderness rom-com comes The Children of the New Dawn – a cult run by Jeremiah (Linus Roach), who only has eyes for Mandy.
After suiting up in their Frank Frazetta-inspired heavy metal armour, the cult descends on the couple’s tranquil abode, overpowering Red and kidnapping Mandy. Eventually Red breaks loose (just before all hell does), as the narrative dissolves like strong lysergic acid and begins invoking the aesthetic of fantasy novels and heavy metal imagery. As Red, Cage is gloriously and ferociously over-the-top, taking us along on one hell of a vengeance-seeking, tripping-balls-to-the-max path of bloodlust and spiritual salvation.
“Mandy is a midnight-movie festival onto itself… Were scientists to engineer an uncut, 100-proof cult sensation, it would probably look, sound, and kick like this.” — A.A. Dowd, AV Club