NOT PINBALL WIZARDRY
A wordless Nicolas Cage faces unspeakable horrors in bizarrely mixed-up and campy monster movie
If I wanted to watch Nicolas Cage play pinball for 90 minutes, I'd — well, I guess I'd settle in with Willy's Wonderland. This is a bizarre horror film that practically counts as experimental cinema since — wait for it — Cage plays the main character but doesn't speak a line of dialogue.
That would seem to count as a strike against the latest work from director Kevin Lewis. Whatever else he gets up to, Cage can be counted on to deliver at least three memorable lines in any film in which you care to cast him.
In 2019's Color Out of Space he bellowed: “Now, if you don't mind, it's time we milked the alpacas!” In Primal he memorably described some snakes as “Venomous as hell.” Just this year, the release of Jiu Jitsu gave us: “Get off my piano!” And who can forget “You don't have a lucky crack pipe?” from Werner Herzog 's 2009 gonzo-fest Bad Lieutenant?
Cage seems to have attended the Christopher Walken school of delivery, graduated at the top of his class, then founded his own degree-granting institution with himself as the dean. But I guess he's on sabbatical in Willy's Wonderland, playing a very taciturn dude whose muscle car's tires get ripped up by a spike belt in a small town.
A local mechanic offers to fix up Cage's car good as new, but he won't take plastic and there's no ATM. No matter. Local businessman Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz) will cover the costs — all Cage has to do is spend the night in a decrepit Chuck E. Cheese-type establishment and do some light cleaning in preparation for its eventual reopening. Cage agrees with a silent nod.
Alas, Willy's Wonderland is full of creepy-looking animatronic characters who morph into murderous monsters after dark. Wondering why they didn't call this One Night at Freddy's? I imagine some lawyers are having similar thoughts.
Cage quickly gets to work cleaning the joint, taking regular breaks to quaff an energy drink called Punch — “A fistful of caffeine for your kisser,” the can reads.
He also spends a goodly amount of time playing an old pinball machine he finds in the break room.
And, if he's not too busy wiping down kitchen equipment, caffeinating or getting a new high score, he swings into wordless robot-killing action against the animatronics.
The special effects are, I'm guessing, deliberately retro-shoddy. But despite the attempts at jump-scares and strobe-light-frights, Willy's is campy rather than truly scary. Take it from someone with a low threshold for horror — not once did I resort to peeking through splayed fingers at this one.
Oddly, first-time screenwriter G.O. Parsons suggests that killing Willy and his pack of bizarre pals is the last thing on Cage's mind. He seems far more intent on doing a good job of cleaning. (His character is listed only as “The Janitor.”) And he does love his pinball.
Equally confused by his behaviour is Liv (Emily Tosta), a local teenager who knows a lot about the history of Willy's, which she helpfully spells out in a heap of second-act exposition. Short version: Willy's was founded in 1996 by “one of the last century's most sick and sadistic serial killers.” But the pizza was to die for!
Liv also gets to say: “He's not trapped in there with them. They're trapped in there with him!”
It's a fun little zinger, but I'd rather hear Cage deliver it.