Cage goes Cult
Chainsaw fights, demon cults, and screaming — it must mean Nicolas Cage is back
Nicolas cage spends a full five minutes screaming in a bathroom, alternating between guttural weeping and glugs of vodka, all while wearing tighty-whities; later, he smelts his own axe, and fights a man with a chainsaw. They’re all scenes that could have featured in the Youtube classic “Nicolas cage losing His shit”, a montage of the actor’s most demented, dialled-up-to-11 moments; in truth, they’re all from his latest film, the hallucinogenic revenge horror Mandy. according to the film’s director, panos cosmatos, this could be the ultimate example of cage Rage. “i’m not trying to praise myself,” cosmatos says, “but i feel like this is one of my favourite Nicolas cage performances of all time. He has a lot of intensity.” This is not an exaggeration.
“He starts off as a normal man,” insists cosmatos, explaining the three stages of progress that cage’s character, the introverted woodsman Red Miller, embarks on. after experiencing a tragedy at the hands of a murderous cult, “He becomes more like an animal, like a raw nerve,” cosmatos explains. “Then, after he take a mysterious drug, he becomes like Jason Voorhees.”
Which is not to say Mandy is a barrel of laughs: it’s a serious, surreal, deeply unsettling nightmare, and a kind of cathartic cinematic therapy for its director. “i started writing it right after my father had died,” recalls cosmatos. “My mother had died ten years earlier. i kind of spiralled into depression and binge-drinking. i realised i had to deal with this, or it was basically over for me.” He found solace in the Death Wish series, which he watched in its entirety, and became fascinated with the revenge genre. “so i started writing. [Mandy is me] trying to express my personal feelings through this genre, but at the same time, bending the genre to my will.”
Mandy played at the cannes Film Festival, an event notorious for booing and walkouts — but despite its shocking content, the film received a four-minute standing ovation. “To me,” cosmatos says with a laugh, “the only measure of success is you’re either getting booed, or you’re getting a four-minute standing ovation.” For cosmatos and cage, if you’re not losing your shit, you’re not doing it properly.
Mandy is in cinemas later this year