Naty's Spooky Corner

Mandy

★★★★★

Sunday, January 23, 2022, 8:04 PM

Dear readers, I have an odd but genuine question to ask you…Have you ever seen a movie that was so strange and unsettling that it forced you to reevaluate what on earth had led you up until that point? Well, this movie was a wild fucking ride that had me grimacing away from the screen more times than I can count. Honestly, you spend a decent amount of time each week watching horror movies, and you think that you’ve seen it all and that nothing could truly disgust you. Well whoop-di-doo was I wrong - I had forgotten about the niche genre of psychedelic gore horror that for some reason exists.

Mandy is a 2018 psychedelic action horror film directed by Panos Cosmatos (kick-ass name, right?) and produced by THE Elijah Wood (*cue the swoons*). The film stars the great, the magnificent, Nicholas Cage, and Andrea Riseborough and is based on a story written by Cosmatos himself. Sounds like a pretty amazing group of folks working on an interesting movie right? Well, you see dear reader, the film that they created was interesting…but in all the weird ways. Now, I’m not saying that this film was bad. It wasn’t. It was incredibly and meticulously made. In fact, it has been praised for its style, originality, and of course, Nicholas Cage’s performance. But please be warned, this is NOT a film for the light hearted.

Chug some questionable liquid LSD in a jar to continue to the plot summary and breakdown (or you know, don’t):

Somewhere in the Shadow Mountains, it’s 1983 and Red Miller (Nic Cage) lives a quiet life with his talented girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Risebourough). The two have typical, boring jobs, but have a deep appreciation for the fantastical, best represented by the books and art that Many creates. The two appear to have an intimate relationship filled with scattered mentions of their complex, traumatic past.

On her way to work one day, Mandy walks past a van driven by the Children of the New Dawn, a subservient hippie cult led by the egotistical and downright insane Jeremiah Sand. Sand is struck by Mandy’s beauty and orders one of his disciples to call upon the local demonic, BDSM biker gang to kidnap her. (By the way, did I mention that the leather-clad gang has a taste for human flesh, blood, and highly potent liquid LSD? Yeah, I think you can tell where this story is going.) The now captured Mandy is forced-fed LSD and insect venom to aid in Jeremiah’s attempts to seduce her, which only results in Mandy being captivated in an aggressive fit of laughter. Enraged, Jeremiah tortures Red and forces him to watch as Mandy burns alive in front of him. (As deeply horrible as this sounds, this is only the beginning of the film’s violence) Red Miller is now broken, desperate and hell bent on exacting revenge on the biker gang and the cult for having destroyed the most precious thing in his life. Cue the vengeance sequence!

Now there are a couple of different themes that stood out to me because of how incredibly unique they are, namely the glorious blend of violence and fantasy. The first part of the film is a slow, painfully slow burn that sets the story for the brilliance behind Mandy’s world creation. In fact, we the audience even get to enjoy listening to a verse detailing a similar character’s quest for power and destruction (not unlike the journey that Nic Cage later undergoes as well in the following acts of the film). This framing device is of course meant to prepare and provide cohesion in the film throughout various animated scenes that illustrate the similarities between these two journeys. As the film dives more into the insane in the third act, via a healthy dose of drugs and murderous violence, there is also a curious playful element sprinkled in a subversive manner. Listen dear audience, I’m not going to go ahead and lie and say that I wasn’t absolutely tickled by the dual chainsaw fight, but it’s the comical, small details that had me hanging by the end of my seat in an ecstatic morbid curiosity.

I’m not sure if I’m trying to grasp at straws with this next break-down, and I would truly appreciate other perspectives regarding this topic as well. At first, I regarded the film as choosing a real life tragedy, such as abusive, murderous cults as a unique antagonist and challenge that our main hero has to confront and slowly but surely cut-down. As a true crime aficionado as well, I’ve dabbled in learning more about these so-called saving organizations that end in murder, such as the Heavens Gate cult or the even more infamous, the Peoples temple. But there’s something about the final scene with Jeremiah, the confrontation with the final boss you might say, that has stuck with me. Framed in a deep, blood red we see the church of the Children of the New Dawn engulfed in flames, with only the open cross-shaped window in center view. I’m not sure if this shot is meant to be a scalding commentary on the dangers of cults or if it is meant to extend to all of Christianity, but it’s without saying, an incredibly memorable scene.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, there is a recurring connection made again and again throughout this entire film between LSD and violence. Our hero learns early on that the demonic, BDSM biker gang consists of what used to be (can you believe it?) normal humans who lost their minds after consuming a bad batch of LSD. Later on, after trying to shoot down one of the biker gang, Nic Cage snorts what can only be described as an incredible amount of cocaine and drinks some LSD which plays into the fantasy killings of all of his foes. (And let me tell you, some of those drugs could have helped in order to process the “dick knife” scene…I really don’t want to say more beyond that, but let’s just say that that scene will forever haunt my nightmares) While the psychedelic result is mesmerizing to watch, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the only time drugs are used are to promote submission or violence. Once again, I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into this comparison since it does create an awesome psychedelic backdrop, but boy is is super hard to ignore.

Bonus: Some movie viewers have argued that the second and third acts of the film didn’t actually happen, and that they were just a hallucination of Nic Cage. Many speculate that his character died after having been captured by the demonic biker gang because of how unrealistic the later parts of the film are. As for what I believe? Well, I want nothing more than for the incredibly epic chainsaw scene to be 100% real.

Overall, I honestly still have no idea how to feel about this movie. This has got to be one of the few films where I can’t decide if I hate it more than I like it or vice versa. One hand, this is a deeply disturbing film that makes me wish I could sear off my own eyeballs, but on the other hand there were so many golden nuggets of dark comedy that had my eyes glued to the screen.

Nic Cage Content: 5/5

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