Mandy

Wombatman

94% on RT. Currently down as Esquire Magazine's top 2018 movie to date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRKVxT4-1wM

shamrock55

Just going by the trailer it looks pretty crap to me

Arghus

You must have watched a different trailer to me!

Fysh

I saw a teaser for this a while ago and am looking forward to it. A score from Johann Johannsson can only help, plus the director's previous film Beyond The Black Rainbow was a great first film with confident direction and some very striking visuals and storytelling ideas.

Frank O. Pinion

I came here this morning to make a thread: "Mandy (2018) - Film of The Year?"

This film was incredible. It's not a cheesy, tongue-in-cheek, "so bad it's good", Nicolas Cage film. It's a masterpiece. It's Lynchian-horror. It's Tarantino/Grindhouse horror. It's truly amazing.

This is my new annual film to watch on Halloween. Words can't describe how perfect this film is, just watch it, experience it, as soon as you can.

UK release date from IMDB states 12th October 2018, hopefully it comes to Irish cinemas then, too.

Don't read too much about the film beforehand, just know it's 1983 and somewhere in the primal wilderness near the Shadow Mountains, Nicolas Cage loves...Mandy.

El Duda

I've seen two people whose tastes usually don't differ too far from mine give this a 0/10 saying it is the worst film they've seen for ages?!

mooseknunkle

I watched it last night and it is an amazing film from start to finish!,probably Nicolas Cage's best film ever.

verycool

Has a bang of The Void off it (which I liked!).

Never heard of this until a mate messaged me to watch it!

Then (because of the Baader-Meinhoff "phenomenon"), I saw a tweet about it and now this thread.

Disposable1

I was really looking forward to this, but I didn't enjoy it. I read some of the comments above saying that it looks or is a bad film, it is not. It is a good film, a very well made film with a fantastic and well maintained visual style. However I did not enjoy it, and that's completely subjective. You see going in I thought it was going to be, and it was sold as, balls to the wall, full Nic Cage freak out, hacking and slashing his way dozens, and in one pre-review it said he fought demons. When in actual fact it's quite slow and meditative, it takes it's time, nothing is done in a hurry. There's a lengthy section of the film that I found intensely boring, it occurs just after the openning half an hour and lasts about forty minutes. That's forty minutes straight of boredom. In fact, I would say that I found about an hour of the films run time extremely boring. With that being said, I'll rewatch it in about a year or so, this time knowing what the film is, and I'll love it. I'll rewatch it many times in what remains of my life, unless I die soon.

Walter Bishop

It's definitely different Well worth a watch.

verycool

Oh dear.

Nic Cage does his best Nic Cage. P*ssed laughing at him screaming in the jacks.

Reading a few imdb reviews wondering why this is so highly rated (scrolling past all the pretention) and chuckled at this one.

2 hours of absolutely nothing in red colour.

I agree.

This is something that needs to be watched in the right frame of mind. And you have to be willing to buy into it like any horror. If you want to be cynical about it, then really there no point watching anything like this in the first place really. One can be cynical about any fantasy movie and if you are from the first minute the whole enjoyment as the director intended will go out the window.

For what this was it was very good I thought. Absolutely brutal in places. Not Cages best movie ever, and not the best movie ever but a refreshing cliche free movie that felt like it was made in 1983 instead of 2018. Thats the brilliance of what the director was able to do here to produce a memorable horror film that stands well above much of the 'attempts' at horror over the last couple of decades.

verycool

Deleted User wrote: »

This is something that needs to be watched in the right frame of mind. And you have to be willing to buy into it like any horror. If you want to be cynical about it, then really there no point watching anything like this in the first place really. One can be cynical about any fantasy movie and if you are from the first minute the whole enjoyment as the director intended will go out the window.

For what this was it was very good I thought. Absolutely brutal in places. Not Cages best movie ever, and not the best movie ever but a refreshing cliche free movie that felt like it was made in 1983 instead of 2018. Thats the brilliance of what the director was able to do here to produce a memorable horror film that stands well above much of the 'attempts' at horror over the last couple of decades.

I'm a massive fan of horror (all styles), and can tolerate, even like, the slowest of slow; Solaris (original of course!), Blade Runner, 2001 A Space Odyssey, etc.



But, after mulling this over, this still comes across as some student arthouse project. The colours, the filters... (I get this is probably the point) were way too jarring I thought. Led to an 'ethereal' feeling throughout... almost a dissonance... which made me not give a damn about the characters.


Wouldn't be surprised if this was some meta-viral marketing for the new Bjork video. :pac:



Then again, it could be just some pretentious metaphor about overindulgence in culture as there are references throughout of various drug use (smoking, drinking, lsd, cocaine...

whatever was in that jar that looked like cum).

At one stage I was expecting it all

to be one big trip.

The only good thing I have to say about it is that it annoyed me so much I can still vividly remember the trippy set pieces... and Cage screaming trouserless drinking vodka in a bathroom which I'm still adamant was their "best take" of the day.

verycool

verycool wrote: »

I'm a massive fan of horror (all styles), and can tolerate, even like, the slowest of slow; Solaris (original of course!), Blade Runner, 2001 A Space Odyssey, etc.



But, after mulling this over, this still comes across as some student arthouse project. The colours, the filters... (I get this is probably the point) were way too jarring I thought. Led to an 'ethereal' feeling throughout... almost a dissonance... which made me not give a damn about the characters.


Wouldn't be surprised if this was some meta-viral marketing for the new Bjork video. :pac:



Then again, it could be just some pretentious metaphor about overindulgence in culture as there are references throughout of various drug use (smoking, drinking, lsd, cocaine...

whatever was in that jar that looked like cum).

At one stage I was expecting it all

to be one big trip.

The only good thing I have to say about it is that it annoyed me so much I can still vividly remember the trippy set pieces... and Cage screaming trouserless drinking vodka in a bathroom which I'm still adamant was their "best take" of the day.

Its an arthouse project indeed, but I think its harsh to call it a student one. There was plenty of skill in the direction and shooting of this. Clever use of light to create and keep the mood. Can't imagine the budget was too big at all so for what it was I just think it was pulled off very well.

Cast was good, visually at least all fit their roles and characters very well.

The red is something you have to buy into I think. I can see why you'd think it was OTT, but probably it masked a bunch of visual flaws while at the same time creating the red mood of the film. Better then blue at least which too many people use these days!

I like the feeling that you weren't sure if those bikers were human or what, and the last shots of the film alluded to they were in some different world or something which was a nice touch

The scene in the bathroom worked for me. But maybe its because I have a soft spot for Cage and think he is capable of decent acting. I can see with even a little cynicism if could be a kind of "oh come on" moment, but I think he pulled it off!
If it had actually been made in 1983 I think it would be a classic B movie horror.

Frank O. Pinion

The Cage bathroom scene is a thing of beauty, and I'd much rather watch it over and over again, than watch say Leonardo DiCaprio's or Christian Bale's latest attempt to win an Oscar.

Chris_Heilong

As far as I know it os one of those films were dialog is minimal and the film is more a about artistic shots with music to accompany, I can really like films like this for Example Drive is one of my favourite films, I will check this out either way.

Autecher

I thought it was a load of codswallop myself but it's always good to see Nicolas Cage actually trying. When he cares about the film and he's not just doing it for the money (though he is doing it for that too) then he really is such a good actor.

sabat

Needs to be watched on a decent sized screen with a good sound system and a bag of weed to get the full experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rHU1mMMB8

Tony EH

"Crazy evil!!!" LOL

No idea what to make of this. Looks great and rubbish from the trailer. But, I missed it. Looks like the Lighthouse are showing it in October for a night. Might go then.

Wonder if the director is any relation to George Cosmatos?

Basq

Tony EH wrote: »

Wonder if the director is any relation to George Cosmatos?

Son if Wikipedia is to be believed..

brevity

The guys at red letter media loved this.

pixelburp

Visually it looks fabulous; and while it's possibly not quite my cup of tea I'm quite glad these kind of insane, offbeat, almost GrindArtHouse style films exist.

Useful.Idiot

The lighthouse have added a few more screenings of this this weekend and next week. Heading to the Friday night screening myself and really looking forward to it. I loved the trailer and the description of Lynchian horror sounds right up my street.

Fysh

I'm catching it on Saturday and reckon I'll enjoy it.

Those of you who liked it should, if you haven't already, look up his previous film Beyond The Black Rainbow - for a debut film it's a very confident and impressively stylised, even if it's kind of out there...

johnny_ultimate

Hard to nail down my feelings on this one. I appreciate its existence and often deeply loved its vivid stylisation, but there was something about it that held it back from truly sinking its teeth in.

Where to start with the memorable details? The cenobite-like bikers are a highlight - always captured with just the right level of lighting, they maintain their demonic mystery throughout. The landscapes are buildings are often gleefully phantasmagoric, as if existing in some alternate (and hellish) dimension. While it doesn't topple Bad Lieutenant from my own personal top spot in the 'manic Nic Cage' stakes, the man manages both to be riotously funny and uncomfortably intense here - while I'm sure many will favour the bathroom scene,

the final sequence of a crazed, broken man staring madly into the camera after he's completed his journey into eternal damnation is one of his finest moments in recent years

.

On one hand, I appreciate the time given to let things escalate and for the mood to crystalise. I'm glad they keep Andrea Riseborough around as long as they do - she easily gives the best performance here (sorry, Nic). Not to mention that the scene where her face repeatedly fades in and out Linus Roache's is transcendentally good. Although, like Nicolas Winding Refn at his most indulgent, sometimes the long, drawn out scenes stick around without necessarily finding any deeper impact by doing so. But generally, the slow, ominous first half (

two-thirds even - this is definitely one of the latest title cards in cinema history

) is well-judged.

It does build to what's an absolutely predictable revenge denouncement. Don't get me wrong - it's extremely well delivered, from the manic intensity of it all to moments of glorious madness (

lighting a cigarette off a decapitated head

). But for all its visceral visuals, demonic characters, moments of vast portent, and lunatic religious / sexualised symbolism... I'm still not really convinced there's a whole lot more to it than a well-realised piece of schlock.

It's another reminder of what a goddamn loss Jóhann Jóhannsson will prove over the coming years. Generally, this film just an engrossing audio barrage and it's a hell of a spectacle in that sense. Don't do it a disservice and watch it at home - films like this are what late night cinema trips are made for.

I do think the very recent Climax is a more satisfying and focused cinematic journey into hell, but hey this is its own thing as well. There's probably not much under the hood here, but the hood is an acid-infused psychedelic hellscape - so that's definitely something.

Tony EH

Yeh. Don't really know what to make of it myself. The ending was kind of dumb

he squashes the cult leader's head with his hands?

. Or, at least dumber than the rest of the film?

But, overall, it was fairly enjoyable.

We came to the conclusion that it's better to view the latter part of the film

as a fevered death dream that was going on in Cage's head as he slowly died, while tied up to the railings in front of Mandy's burnt corpse.

Frank O. Pinion

I watched the director's first film this weekend, Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010). Extremely weird, slow, acid trip of a film. I preferred Mandy, but still liked it.

Best metaphor I read in comparing the two films were, that "Beyond The Black Rainbow is an inhale, Mandy is an exhale", that would be quite a mind-melting double bill.

Fysh

Caught it on Saturday night, it was as deranged as expected. The

animated inserts

felt a bit out of place to me (maybe because the style of those scenes felt jarring relative to the rest of the film), but otherwise it was a very effective film. Definitely better seen on a big screen with a crowd.

My description of it to a friend was "a film made by someone on acid who's listened to too much Goblin. With Nicolas Cage"

Snake Plisken

Watched it last night and really liked it, I could see the Evil Dead being a big influence also had nods to Jasper Now and Johnathan Glazer's Under the skin.
It's one of those movies you are still thinking about the next day.
I thought Nic Cage was excellent and people might laugh at him but he captured the inner turmoil of man losing his mind.
Andrea Riceborough was great as Mandy and Linus Roache as Jeremiah I won't be able to watch Thomas Wayne in the same way ever again
His disciples looked liked they belonged in The Hills have Eyes.
Mandy is very much an arthouse horror movie that I really enjoyed. I look forward to Panos Cosmotos's next movie.

Snake Plisken

Great Q & A with Panos, Nic & Linus compared by the great Kevin Smith, worth the watch for anyone vaguely interested in the movie.
One interesting point was that Panos wanted Cage to play Jeremiah. I could have seen him playing that character as well but Cage wanted to play Red.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fxfB-I_LNU

Snake Plisken

The Nerdwriter gives an interesting take on the use of film grain in Mandy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcpGxihPac

TerrorFirmer

Johnny Ultimate pretty much nailed it perfectly for me when he said he's not entirely convinced it's anything other than well realised/crafted schlock, which is exactly how I felt after watching it.

I didn't dislike it simply because it was too abstract - or because it was like experiencing someone else's incoherent drug fueled nightmare - or because it was high-grade schlock.

I absolutely can get, and many times have gotten, on board with any or all of those factors in any given movie and still enjoy the experience, but in this particular case I just plain didn't like it because it didn't work or resonate with me on any level outside of a handful of entertaining scenes.

Nic Cage is great in it, but as a whole, the film just didn't work for me. People I know who liked it seem to insist that 'I just don't get it, 'You had the wrong frame of mind', or 'Your expectations were too high', et al....but I went in with an open mind and zero expectations, and left incredibly disappointed.

The whole thing is a drug-fueled descent into madness with no real coherent narrative or scripting.....more of an absurd experience than a conventional film. And that in itself is fine as a concept, but I just didn't find it worked at any level - but that's a matter of taste, of course.

It's hard to find anything to draw comparisons with - maybe 'Under the Skin' in a limited way, in the sense that if you disliked the vague, drawn out and ill-explained nature of that movie, I couldn't imagine you liking Mandy either....having said that I did like Under the Skin.

Howard the Duck

I thought this was awful, for me it was all style over content. I don't even think Nicolas Cage was very good but then I suppose in a movie that doesn't really know what it is it's hard to know who your character is meant to be. I felt it was just all over the place.

mikhail

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

It's hard to find anything to draw comparisons with - maybe 'Under the Skin' in a limited way, in the sense that if you disliked the vague, drawn out and ill-explained nature of that movie, I couldn't imagine you liking Mandy either....having said that I did like Under the Skin.

I think it has a significantly more accessible narrative than Under the Skin, though I appreciate the comparison.

I was a little disappointed too. I think I would have liked it more if it had a few more grounded scenes earlier on to provide contrast with the later stuff.

Disposable1

New trailer is a little misleading

p to the e

Finally settled in to watch this on a late Saturday night with the lights off, the feet up and a bucket of acid at the ready (not really). First things first, an action film this is not. What this is is a weird concoction of David Lynch by way of Clive Barker. Add to this a generous helping of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson's moody, synth heavy, score and you've got one hell of a nightmarish vision.

The visuals really convey the bad acid trip we're on particularly the deep red palette that will singe your eyeballs. The trailers announced director Panos Cosmatos as a "visionary director" which is odd as this is only his second feature. However, he has created something here which may well affirm his status as visionary. I enjoyed this so much I may even forget my usual hate of nepotism in Hollywood (look up his father).

Notable mentions of cast are Ned Dennehy, who just has a face for villainy, Linus "Ken Barlow's son" Roache and Andrea Riseborough. However, this film belongs to one Nicholas Kim Coppola. There is pretty much no acting role he will turn down (see here) but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This film just seems to gel with his level of madness.

This film is definitely not for everybody but I caught it in the right mood which I think helped. Some may claim pretentiousness, some may say over reliance on visuals but I'd say sit back and let the film take you where it wants to go. All I know is I loved it.

Bonus: Here's the soundtrack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkwtifENU1c&list=PL7-lFGlqsMm0-HxPkna_BLmIwIOjxm6Gr)

Arcade_Tryer

An awful film, compounded by the fact that it was critically well received.

Fysh

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

An awful film, compounded by the fact that it was critically well received.

Any thoughts on what specifically made it awful?

Walter Bishop

Fysh wrote: »

Any thoughts on what specifically made it awful?

Or on why it's apparent awfulness was compounded by other people liking it?

joombo

Currently 1hr 15mins into this stinking pile of crap and it has taken me several return viewings to get to this point.
I'm a fan of 80's video, i'm a fan of Grindhouse, but this? Very disappointed as was hoping this was a movie i would enjoy. Loads of fake reviews on IMDB too. I give it 5/10

Snake Plisken

Quite polarizing movie, for me it was in my top 10 movies of the year, I watched The House That Jack Built last weekend and again really enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed both of them as they both stick in my memory for days and weeks after seeing them.

Fysh

joombo wrote: »

Currently 1hr 15mins into this stinking pile of crap and it has taken me several return viewings to get to this point.
I'm a fan of 80's video, i'm a fan of Grindhouse, but this? Very disappointed as was hoping this was a movie i would enjoy. Loads of fake reviews on IMDB too. I give it 5/10

So what did it not do that you were hoping it would do? Based on his two films Cosmatos does seem very much like an aesthetic driven director so I expect that if the aesthetic doesn't grab you the film might be frustrating, but it would be interesting to know what things particularly didn't work.

(Bonus queston: How do you know reviews from people who liked it are fake just because they differ from your opinion?)

Frank O. Pinion

joombo wrote: »

Currently 1hr 15mins into this stinking pile of crap and it has taken me several return viewings to get to this point.
I'm a fan of 80's video, i'm a fan of Grindhouse, but this? Very disappointed as was hoping this was a movie i would enjoy. Loads of fake reviews on IMDB too. I give it 5/10

Your "5/10" is a fake review as you haven't even watched the whole film.

I can see not liking this film, but it doesn't mean it's crappie because you didn't like it.

Hugo Igoe

It was good fun.
Pseudo psychological psychedelic story laced with tantalising moments with quirks,twists and turns all over the place.