I was really primed with anticipation for Mandy (2028) and yeah, no surprises, but I loved it. Definitely a case of style over substance or that style is the substance here, but I fully bought into director Panos Cosmatos’ desire to create a “1983 A.D.” where lumberjacks, religious cults, biker gangs were all subsumed in a high fantasy world. It’s a slow, psychedelic, horror revenge thriller that is awash with Kubrickan/Lynchian atmospherics but in service of genre kicks. Nicolas Cage is great here, allowed to swing for the fences in key scenes, but also a reigned-in blood-stained avatar in all of the visual deliriousness. Andrea Riseborough creates a haunting presence as the title character and the spirit that runs throughout the narrative even when she isn’t in a scene. Johann Johannsson’s score might be my favourite of that year, particularly the melancholy underpinning all of this “crazy evil”. Can’t wait to watch it again.
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