Mandy

Name: Mandy
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror
Released: September 14, 2018
Duration: 121 min
Rating: 83
Cast: Alexis Julemont, Andrea Riseborough, Bill Duke, Clément Baronnet, Hayley Saywell

2018

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 30 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 280 Ratings

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7.0

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7.0	Your Score
7.0	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 280 Ratings

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Mandy

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Movie Details & Credits

RLJE Films | Release Date: September 14, 2018 | Not Rated

Starring: Alexis Julemont, Andrea Riseborough, Bill Duke, Clément Baronnet, Hayley Saywell, Ivailo Dimitrov, Line Pillet, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy, Nicolas Cage, Olwen Fouere, Paul Painter, Richard Brake

Summary: Pacific Northwest. 1983 AD. Outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire.

Director: Chris 'Casper' Kelly and Panos Cosmatos

Genre(s): Action, Drama, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 121 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Tom Duggins

Oct 11, 2018

Mandy is not just hideous, hilarious and thrilling – although, it’s all of those and then some – it’s also a meditation on personal grief which loses no poignancy for all its blood-soaked insanity and eye-melting psychedelia. Read full review

100

The Telegraph Robbie Collin

May 13, 2018

Mandy exists in its own supremely unnerving horror dimension. Read full review

Dom Sinacola

Sep 13, 2018

As was the case in Cosmatos’s first film, the comparatively sedate Beyond the Black Rainbow, each frame, every shot of Mandy reeks of shocking beauty, stylized at times to within an inch of its intelligibility, but endlessly pregnant with creativity and control, euphoria and pain, clarity and honesty and the ineffable sense that Cosmatos knows exactly how and what he wants to subconsciously imprint into the viewer. Read full review

The Guardian Jordan Hoffman

May 14, 2018

Either you are one of the devoted or you’re not. You won’t know what camp you’re in until you see it. Read full review

Empire Andrew Lowry

Oct 8, 2018

You already know if you’ll enjoy a film where LSD-crazed leather daddies are summoned via something called the Horn Of Abraxas. A no-holds-barred ride into madness destined for a thousand midnight screenings. Read full review

Sep 13, 2018

It’s a deliberately paced, ultraviolent, outlandishly stylish delivery system for Nicolas Cage’s wild-eyed acting style, and a thoughtful meditation about why Death Metal totally rules. Read full review

John Bleasdale

May 15, 2018

Cosmatos’ Mandy matches Cage grimace for grimace and achieves, at times, a transcendent midnight madness. Read full review

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User Reviews

jasharkowalski

Sep 14, 2018

If only watched intro with King Crimson's galaxy smash-hit, one would leave the theater happy....those who stayed to the very end would be rewarded with the best psycho sh.t imaginable, one that David Lynch would kill for ! Starless night, Bible black, oh, those lyrics never had betterIf only watched intro with King Crimson's galaxy smash-hit, one would leave the theater happy....those who stayed to the very end would be rewarded with the best psycho sh.t imaginable, one that David Lynch would kill for ! Starless night, Bible black, oh, those lyrics never had better meaning ! 10 out of 10.… Expand

7 of 14 users found this helpful77

easterfields

Nov 29, 2018

Mandy I'd call this film a glorious chimera of Legend, Suspiria, The Crow and original Mad Max: The Road Warriors. All in my top 10 so you can guess how I feel about Mandy. Red Sonja would've been PERFECT for Panos. How about Barbarella? LOVED Mandy (AMAZING acting, soundtrack and visuals)!Mandy I'd call this film a glorious chimera of Legend, Suspiria, The Crow and original Mad Max: The Road Warriors. All in my top 10 so you can guess how I feel about Mandy. Red Sonja would've been PERFECT for Panos. How about Barbarella? LOVED Mandy (AMAZING acting, soundtrack and visuals)! I'd say the character development is fantastic in this film. What you're missing is all the garbage "filler" that exists in most films/television as well as the exposition. This director extracts every drop of significance out of his scenes. You are only shown what's necessary and relevant. And as a result, for 120 minutes, you won't be able to take your eyes or focus off Mandy. Two words...Cheese Goblin… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

zc_lazer

Sep 19, 2018

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Chainsaw Shaman: The Mythic Symbolism of Mandy

Mandy is a beautifully, intensely, ferociously *human* film. Sitting in a darkened theater and diving into this hallucinatory experience, a strange kind of connective magic forms between director Panos Cosmatos, star Nicolas Cage, Cage’s character Red, and the film viewer.

In several interviews Cosmatos describes how creating Mandy and his previous film Beyond the Black Rainbow were ways for him to work through the feelings of rage and helplessness he experienced after losing his parents. Rather than creating a more literal and grounded exploration of loss, Cosmatos instead crafts a bold and shocking mythical world populated by demon bikers, chainsaw wielding cultists, mind-melting drugs, and strange magical artifacts.

Mandy follows a home invasion/revenge plot structure that we have seen many times before in films like Death Wish, Rolling Thunder, and others: a parable for the sacredness of the loved ones in your life and the importance of valuing them above all else. Cosmatos filters this familiar narrative through a psychotronic blend of dark fantasy, 80’s horror, and 70’s surrealism. Mandy’s bloody and bombastic midnight-movie aesthetic might make it appear to be a superficial love letter to cult movies of the past, but I argue that it is a masterclass in symbolism; an exploration of the pain of the subjective human experience in a powerful poetic fashion. Psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson says of myth and fantasy, “The Mythological landscape is the landscape of human experience. In this world, there is nothing more real than pain”. Cosmatos utilizes this symbolic realm of fantasy to explore his very real grief and fury.

This is a movie about emotional intensity: the value of being intensely passionate and accessing the primal warrior instincts you have locked deep down in the dark, seething abyss of your psyche. Nicolas Cage describes his acting style as ‘nouveau shamanism’, a process in which he journeys inward into the recesses of his own mind, and utilizes what he finds there to embody a character. His goal is not to pretend to be something, but rather to access his most powerful emotions, memories, dreams, and experiences in order to genuinely feel something, and express it via a performance. In interviews Cage shares that he utilized his shamanic practice to access the powerful pain of his most recent divorce in order to bring the character of Red to life. It’s fascinating to see how Cage evolves his character through the remarkable visual communication of his acting. He utilizes his face, voice, and body language to depict the transformation of Red *visually*. In many scenes Cage doesn’t speak a single word: he reveals everything through his face with expressions both subtle and wildly erratic. Red evolves further and further away from the calm, gentle man he was at the beginning of the film. Cosmatos has his character undergo several stages of mutation through ‘rites of passage’ that plunge him deeper and deeper into madness and the realm of the fantastic. A key transformation occurs during Cage’s spell-binding melt-down in the bathroom. This scene functions as a kind of ‘crossing the threshold’ moment for the character where he takes his first voluntary step into the strange unknown. The bathroom set is designed to act as a visual manifestation of Red’s mental state: the shocking orange patterns of the wallpaper and bright lighting make it seem like a perverse prison cell or microcosm of hell in which Red is trapped.

Cage wails in anguish, desperately chugging a bottle of vodka, oscillating wildly through the spectrum of emotional torment. The vodka becomes a symbolic elixir; something that numbs his physical pain and transforms his despair to burning, skull-crushing rage.

At the demon biker’s lair, Red dips his finger into a mysterious jar and mutates even further when his tongue touches the mind-warping “skull juice” LSD concoction. It liquefies his reality and rockets him to another primordial plane. This is followed up by another gleefully psychotic scene of Cage lighting a cigarette from the flaming, decapitated head of a demon biker. He takes a long drag off the cigarette and shows us visually through his wild, nerve-shredding, electric stare that he has somehow journeyed even further into madness. What is amazing about this series of wild scenes is that Cage manages to change his character’s state of mind incrementally after each threshold of violence and depravity is crossed.

Red becomes an avatar of our own rage against the injustices we've experienced in our life. Through him we fight back; eviscerating with savage fulfillment all the dark forces that have harmed us. As always, the viewer brings their pain with them to the theater. Through the alchemy of film we can experience our pain from a unique perspective, reflect on it, and perhaps find answers.… Expand

3 of 5 users found this helpful32

DarkwingSchmuck

Mar 8, 2022

Simply gorgeous, Mandy is like a Heavy Metal cover album in motion. One of the most visually creative movies you will ever see. I wish I could say the same about its story, which isn't much more than your typical revenge thriller with little emotional core. It's style over substance to a T,Simply gorgeous, Mandy is like a Heavy Metal cover album in motion. One of the most visually creative movies you will ever see. I wish I could say the same about its story, which isn't much more than your typical revenge thriller with little emotional core. It's style over substance to a T, though it does feature Nick Cage in a chainsaw sword fight; which is just as amazing as it sounds.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Grachechkovski

Jan 12, 2019

The one of nice movie for the evening. This is impressive sound, excellent color gamma for drug trips and elegant picture in many times. But it has a bad side in many things - it dependents from an your expected experience.
However, the Cage's smile is perfect looking in the end of movie

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

tipar

Nov 23, 2018

A little too long but so striking that you can not but surrender and see the whole thing even if in some parts you do not pay that attention to it.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

sexysab069

Nov 27, 2018

This movie is definitely NOT a must see! Its more of a DO NOT SEE kind of movie. Terrible :(

2 of 14 users found this helpful212

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49	#49 Best Movie of 2018
42	#42 Most Discussed Movie of 2018
55	#55 Most Shared Movie of 2018