BeardoMan

 I had heard wonderful things about the 2018 film 'Mandy'. Where I live though, it wasn't in any local theaters save for some hours away. Not wanting to go solo, I decided to wait until the eventual home release. Promptly forgot, then a friend happened to have it. So I spent roughly ~3 hours of time watching a solid 6/10 film about religious Mansen types colluding with bikers hopped up on some super acid from mason jars while listening to what's essentially Kate Blanchett's drugged up sister whisper about being deep. Then there's the main selling point of the film, the man whose name is in bold right above the title, with top billing in the opening credits and who the film opens with; Nicholas Cage, playing Red. 

Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) and Red (Nicholas Cage) live in the ugliest little log cabin/glass house in the middle of the woods. Red is a lumber jack who often likes to lounge around in a shirt with a tiger emblazoned on the chest and Mandy is a struggling artist filled with feelings of malaise and constant bouts of boredom. As it stands, Mandy also mans a little shop where she runs into the hippie-freaks of the film. After many hours of long talks about a troubled childhood Mandy had that most likely influences the deep reds and figures seen in her artwork, she is eventually kidnapped by the cult, and aided by said bikers from above, in which they wax more philisophicals about how the leader, Jeremiah, wishes to impregnate her and bring her into the fold of their commune. She laughs at his little member which deeply embarrasses him enough to have her hung and burned in front of Red, all while Red is bound to a fence post by barbed wire around his wrists and mouth. 

To be completely honest, when I heard it was a grindhouse film, I was expecting something like 'Brawl in Cell Block 99' which was a slow burn I will admit, but watching funny man Vince Vaughn crush people's skulls like melons or deliver a single punch so powerful it both knocks out his victim's teeth and rips off their jaw bone, I had some expectations. Not unreasonable expectations, I obviously expected maybe a slow burn to the inevitable carnage. But goodness gracious was this the slowest burn imaginable. There are a total of 3 chapters in the film. You clearly need to have seen a bit of Chapters 1 and 2 to understand why a bloody, drug-fueled Cage is shooting people with crossbow bolts and chopping people in half with an axe straight from 'The Darkness' comics. However, if you ever find a fan-made supercut of the film or whatever, it'll save you time and be a more cohesive story. All you need to know is that Nick has some demons, Mandy is his gf/fiance, a cult wants her and is aided by some bikers, they kill her, Nick REEEEEEE's and crushes people's heads with his hands. That is, if you can even tell what's happening. For whatever reason, the director also decided that someone must've turned off the sun or any ambient lighting of any kind. For the vast majority of the film, you can see absolutely nothing. When Cage inevitably goes on a spree against the biker gang first, you can barely tell what is happening before, during and after the carnage. One person falls down a large bottomless pit the bikers have in their house, another looks as if he's blowing himself and another just kinda shows up and gets his neck snapped or its the same one who was performing self-fellacio or smoking a bong or was just really hunched over. I really couldn't tell. I understand bathing these hellish figures in darkness is a good way to keep an air of mystery and dread, and obscure a probably lackluster costume, but I need to be able to see what's happening as well.

 So my group of friends all reached a consensus, if you just watch the last chapter titled 'Mandy', which is also the film you were sold with the trailers, it's still as coherent whether or not you watch the first chapter. Its not an average film by any means, and there are some genuinely cool effects in the film. As well, the artwork "Mandy" creates is a level I, and many artists, hope to achieve one day. But goodness me is this film boring. If you ever do watch this, do yourself a favor and just watch the last chapter. It's the longest, at around an hour and ten minutes, but trust me you'll still understand what's going on but this time without all the artsy fartsy talk.