This. This is the perfect doom metal movie. No notes, other than it's essential.
Ok, some other notes: Mandy is a drug-soaked tribute to the sleaziest of the old swords-and-sorcery movies. Set in a version of the 80s that also accommodates cenobite biker gangs and a cult of murderous hippies with access to magical relics, it tells the tale of one Red (Nicolas Cage, a lumberjack whose idyllic life with his girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) is terminally disrupted by the aforementioned cult when its leader/messiah Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) takes an interest on the woman.
What follows is a bloody, brutal struggle as Red enacts his revenge and carves his way up to the cult leader. Crossbows, axes and chainsaws all get their time to shine. It's a deeply psychedelic movie with an immaculately developed ambiance, thanks to director and co-writer Panos Cosmatos' eye, lush, grainy digital photography from Benjamin Loeb, and a doom-laden soundtrack from the late, great Jóhann Jóhannsson.
There are better action movies out there, but I can't think of any that manage to leverage every single one of their elements to communicate a specific feel as well as this one; The Limey, maybe? In any case, I can't recommend it enough.
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