Horror Film (2020) Review #12

Mandy, co-written, directed, and co-produced by PanosCosmatos, an up and coming director his first film Beyond the Black Rainbow, a psychedelic horror film about a young woman heavily sedated  trying to get out of an institution, shares some common elements to Mandy his second film. Having a hallucinogenic vibe, it’s a slow burn in the first act and the both take place in 1983. However with Mandy, it feels like it has a 70s cult vibe. The film is cut into 3 parts each acts comes with a 70s Heavy metal Album cover graphic. The Shadow Mountains is an introduction; the opening shares with the viewer the love of the two main characters before their lives our tragically ripped apart through senseless violence.  Nicolas Cage plays red, a logger who lives in a cabin in the quiet rural area of the Shadow Mountains, with his love Mandy, played by Andrea Riseborough a store clerk by day and an illustrating artist by night who creates images of sci-fi fantasy.   The album graphic displays the year 1983, and on the radio of Red’s pickup truck we hear a speech given by President Ronald Regan. According to the director, 1983 is a mystical mysterious time for him, it was the introduction of the video store, he would see all the incredible VHS covers from D'Argento & Romero's Horror to Craven's slashers' and Friedkin's The Exorcist, but at 9 years of age he was never allowed to watch them, so 1983 was a mysterious time, a wall that he could not see past and know beyond the pictures.
In the first act we  learn that Mandy had a difficult childhood, and by living a quiet secluded life it  has benefited her and Red. One day while walking along the road Mandy passes a vehicle carrying Jeremiah Sand and his followers the Children of the New Dawn. It’s here that sparks the childlike desire as if seeing a shiny new toy when gazing upon the sight of Mandy, as Jeremiah played by Linus Roache feeling he must now possess her.

The Children of the New Dawn are Jeremiah’s cult followers; they do his bidding and would die for him, as the youngest demonstrates by playing Russian Roulette with a service revolver in front of a helpless Red.  Mandy refuses Jeremiah’s advances and he has her killed and burned alive; in front of a beaten and tied up Red who is left to die.  The Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb descends into a psychedelic atmosphere with saturating the screen with blood red and astral purple, and to make sure there is no misgivings the pupils of the eyes become dilated when the screen is in this state. The film is a tale of bloody revenge, but it's based on tragic loss, and as the gore intensifies in every scene, so does the realization that this film is a tragedy, the film does not relish in the violence, though it is very much fueled by it. 

Jeremiah looks like the silence of the lambs Buffalo Bill, fused with Charles Manson and Red States’ Abin Cooper.  
The Premise: A cult leader calls fourth LSD  ridden demonic bikers to capture the object of his desire Mandy. Hoping to sway her affections with a hallucinogenic cocktail, Mandy's strength of will belittles him, and in a scorned rage he burns her alive in front of her significant other played by Nicolas Cage, who was tied up and left for dead. The few scenes of non psychedelic haze is to inform the audience the reality of the situation and to provide some exposition.  Reeling from the trauma of witnessing Mandy's demise we see a man coping with crushing loss and grief while being fueled by growing rage.  The cameo appearance of Bill Dukes as Caruthers is the only verbal exposition, we get a hint of some dark past backstory of Cage's character, and a quick overview of the biker gang and where to begin Cage's path for revenge.  During his elimination of the bikers, he comes across their Demonic LSD laced elixir and all semblance of his humanity gets eradicated as he enters an apex killing mode to fulfill his Bloodlust. If this was a videogame, Cage has just levelled up to demigod mode.