Mandy

It’s been a good year for gonzo Nicolas Cage. He got to go all psycho in Mom and Dad and now, courtesy of director Panos Cosmatos, he gets his best role in half a decade for this psychedelic ’80s horror throwback. Cage plays Red Miller, a lumberjack living a good life in the northwest with his wife, Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough). Their world is overturned by a Manson-like religious sect led by crazed prophet, Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache). Jeremiah wants to recruit Mandy for his cult, but when she has an unfavorable reaction to the folk album he recorded, things get really bad. Enter Cage in crazed/pissed mode, as the second half of the movie goes super crazy and super gory. This movie actually contains what will go down as one of the all-time great Cage moments: a bathroom tantrum that involves a Leaving Las Vegas-like vodka chug and crazed weeping on the toilet. It’s one of those movies where he’s allowed to do or say whatever pops into his head, and we get some great, weird lines out of him. We also get one of his most fiercely honest performances. His craziness and oddness are fueled by pure emotional destruction, and as “out there” as the movie gets, Cage somehow remains grounded in a consistent, flawless performance. He’s not going to win any Oscars for this, but his cult film cred just took a major uptick. Extra kudos to Roache, who does evil cowardice well, and Riseborough, who makes quite the impression in her abbreviated screen time. This contains the final score from the late Johann Johannsson, and it’s a doozy. It’s safe to say you have never really seen anything like this, and won’t again. (Available for digital download and rental during a limited theatrical release.)