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NIC GAUGE / Mandy

It’s a new year and here I am to fill you in on a pretty cool goal/project. This year, my goal is to watch all of Nicolas Cage’s films and rate them on the “Nic Gauge”. Some of you are probably sitting there and thinking, “that is a lot of films” and you are correct! As of the day this article was posted, he has a total of 124. 

I have yet to decide if this list will include animated films like The Croods or Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse or films where he is a minor character, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. There are a couple of films I have already reviewed on this site; Pig, Prisoners of the Ghostland and Willy’s Wonderland. If you are curious about my thoughts, you can go check out those articles. 

Join us weekly in the comments and let us know if you agree with my ratings for each.

MOVIE: Mandy

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy, Olwen Fouéré, Richard Brake, Bill Duke

RELEASE DATE: October 12th, 2018

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Shudder, Amazon Prime, iTunes)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

Nicolas Cage as Red Miller in Mandy

This film is a fever dream of insanity straight out of Heavy Metal magazine. This is the second film by director Panos Commatos and the story arc is relatively simple; Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough) live a simple life in the middle of the woods in the Pacific Northwest. Everything turns sour when cult leader, Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) sets his eyes on forcing Mandy to join his organization. This causes Red to go on a journey of rage and vengeance of insane proportions.

Mandy, from start to finish is just one psychotic piece of art from start to finish. It fells like a living version of an 80’s metal-themed mural on the side of vans (but fewer dragons and unicorns, and more drugs and death metal bikers). This movie is full of memorable moments of Cage just eating the scenery and most importantly, this film has a sword fight involving two chainsaws. Everyone is great. The story is interesting. For any die-hard Cage fans that are looking for a newer film that has Cage going “full Cage”, this is where I would direct you.

Cast of villains in Mandy

On the “Nic Gauge”, this takes the top of the list, comfortably sitting as absolutely Bloody Awesome with Pig close behind, almost on par. Honestly, the only reason that Mandy beat out Pig was because I had a more personal connection with Mandy as I was lucky enough to go to the premiere and shook Cage’s hand after the film.