Editorial note: I watched this one because my name is Amanda, although I do not like the nickname "Mandy" for myself. But I felt I was honor-bound to check this one out.
Red (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) live a peaceful life in a cabin in the woods. She is an artist and he is a lumberjack, proficient with a chainsaw. This will be important later. They have a close relationship, they talk to each other. Their cabin is awesome. It all comes apart when Jeremiah, the leader of a hippy-ish religious cult, takes a shine to Mandy and decides to add her to his harem. The cult invades the cabin, drugging her and beating the snot out of him. When the out-of-it Mandy laughs at Jeremiah, however, they kill her - horribly - right in front of Red.
And now comes the unhinged Cage everyone was waiting for. He frees himself, sources a crossbow and forges his own axe (which, to be honest, looks like the one from BtVS S7). First he takes out the demon (?) biker gang that helped Jeremiah, then he does some coke and LSD. And then he goes after Jeremiah's little cult.
This too-long, weird fuckin' movie is unlike anything I think I've ever seen. Described as an "action-horror-dark fantasy," it is very darkly lit and difficult to see at times. The first half, even when Red and Mandy are happy, seems ominous. It's been compared to the visualization of a heavy metal album, where the dark and foreboding first half is Red and Mandy's descent into hell, and the second half is Red's blood-soaked journey back. It is very, very violent and bloody, but almost cartoonishly at times: there is a chainsaw fight. The musical score is fantastic and adds a lot to the movie. And there's one scene with Cage alone in his bathroom that, while seemingly over the top, is actually really well acted. He is a man destroyed.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment