ULTIMATE CAGE MATCH......THE ONLY NICOLAS CAGE MOVIE YOU'LL EVER NEED

Mandy (2018)    It was always a stupid idea to convert "Suspiria" into a 150 minute art house ultra-cultured festival entry.......

                  Now here's the guy who should have directed a new version of "Suspiria".....Panos Cosmatos......

                   No, never mind. He doesn't have to. "Mandy", his way over-the-top, demented collaboration with King Of Lunacy Nicolas Cage makes "Suspiria" look like 'Mama Mia 2'........

                   Talk about a visualist.......Cosmatos and Cage create a 2 hour delirious bad dream......and they're not about to let you wake up.

                    With this movie, it feels like Cage has finally reached the end of his long, long quest......his search to find a director whose anything-goes eye-popping stylings match Cage's own rabidly unleashed acting.......

                    For better or worse, it's marriage made in heaven for everyone who loves to indulge to true outlaw cinema.......or hell, depending on your point of view.

                    It's one hell of a sight to see, we'll tell you.   In fact, it's a fully loaded, guided tour of Hell itself.......with Nic as your faithful tour guide........

                    He's a burly lumberjack living in the woods with his lovely, ethereal artist wife Mandy (Andrea Riseborough).......until they're invaded by a travelling, nightmarish cult. They strap Cage to a tree and force him to watch them burn Mandy alive.

                     The entire film's shot like a Meth-fueled fever dream......the cult summons up a gang of demonic bikers, decked out like refugees from both 'Mad Max' and 'Hellraiser" movies.  They may or may not be supernatural........but in a movie this batshit crazy, does it even matter?

                     The whole odious group, as you might expect, foolishly leaves Cage alive.......with his life and mind destroyed, reducing him to a merciless avenging angel.

                      And oh boy, does he ever avenge.......testing the nausea level of anyone who can bare to sit through this........(this includes the movie's best, most outrageously funny sequence.....a chainsaw face-off between Cage and a cultist whose phallic power tool gives even Cage a moment's pause.

                     We've said enough.......we loved every insane moment of it........all hail Cage and Cosmatos, the new Emperors of Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink.......and their "Mandy", which brings the crazy like no other movie we've seen in years. 4 stars (****)