Film Review: Mandy (2018)

A psychedelic rampage in its most literal form.

There are plenty of films out there whose art style and direction make it perfect to watch on drugs, but the actual events of the story will leave you biting your fingernails in a horror-struck fit. This is one such film that would be unendurable to watch with a head full of acid, despite the fact that visually it’s a textbook acid film.

We’re all quite familiar with the status of national treasure which Nicolas Cage holds, I mean this man is a living monument to not taking one’s self seriously, living a life of inadvertent self-parody. It seems, however, that lately he’s been landing some stellar performances that I can’t even ironically fault. One such performance he gave in Mandy (2018), a soul-repulsing dark revenge flick where a man hunts down a group of religious freaks who burn his girlfriend right before his very eyes. One by one he nails them to their death-post and hacks away at them in wonderfully satisfying ways. But of course, Nic Cage’s presence in this film isn’t its only merit, a film so hauntingly gripping in its cosmic terror concentrated within the vengeful ire of a single person fires on all cylinders on all fronts.

I was initially drawn to this film by its art direction, this neon swathed world where the bright psychedelic lights illuminate a darker side of freakishness. This aesthetic holds up throughout the feature with lights dancing across the frame in a manner that would suggest that the Earth was plucked out of the Solar System and thrown into the front row for a cosmic light show. These lights gain frightful intensity within the sequences where the characters are on a strange cocktail of LSD and wasp venom, an orgiastic bombardment of pinks, purples and blues coalescing into such hues that make everything on screen look like an apparition, movements leaving tracers and faces subtly misbehaving as they morph into other faces. In the deep end of such drug usage, the visions are hellishly insane and attack the eyes with horrific sights. Throughout the film, the lighting sets an atmosphere of pure dread despite the seemingly lurid colours of the lights, going from blood tined to fiery yellows with everything in between.

No stops were made in the camera department as it constantly moved around, equally calm and composed as it was restless and frenzied, particularly during the fist-clenching fight scenes, cutting and moving around the pitch perfect action set pieces that didn’t feel like a dance nor like two people flailing their arms at one another. Though shot digitally, the grainy film stock effect gave it a charmingly antique and almost ancient look, lending the dark forces that are beyond the characters a heavier consternation.

When it comes to Nicolas Cage’s acting, it still feels very much like his sort of character, a maniac going on a feral hunt for revenge, spitting some hilariously stupid lines of dialogue along the way – while still keeping the emotional resonances of the character strong throughout his journey. Nothing feels gratuitous or for the sake of shock. All other performances were praise-worthy too, where I was in supreme hatred for the cultist freaks from the very moment they entered the frame.

The glue that holds this masterpiece together is the soundtrack which rips the ears apart with synthesisers and distorted guitars, mounting tension through every scene with expert precision and knowing exactly when to release the crescendo.

Having not slept for two straight days, my grasp on reality and logic is slipping wildly, although I felt totally enchanted by the film and was grounded the whole way through. Now that this review is out of the way, if you’ll excuse me I have some sleep to catch up with.