The long-anticipated trailer for the Panos Cosmatos film "Mandy" has finally been released by RLJE -- who bought the rights to the film earlier this year. It's the sequel to the 2010 horror film "Beyond The Black Rainbow." The film is produced by XYZ films, UMedia, SpectreVision (Elijah Wood's production company), the fan-owned company LegionM, and the studio is Universal. It was shot in Belgium, and it's set to hit theaters and On-Demand on September 14.
'Mandy' explodes with full 'Cage-Rage'
The film is set in the wilderness in 1983 where bearded lumberjack Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and the love of his life Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough) live a peaceful existence -- until Red encounters a cult leader (Linus Roache) who is obsessed with Mandy and winds up murdering her.
Following that, all hell literally breaks loose as Red goes into a rage and faces his demons.
The film was a hit at The Sundance Film Festival back in January.
Nicolas Cage loves the mystique of horror films
Nicolas Cage told Collider in a 2018 interview that he wants to take his career in a new direction and explore the horror film genre. He's a fan of Jack Nicholson and the film "The Shining" and wanted to achieve both comedy and menace at the same time.
In 2017, he starred in Brian Taylor's "Mom and Dad." He goes to the extreme and is over-the-top, and the result is "pure insanity" with the now-famous violent pool table sledgehammer scene where he's screaming the "Hokey Pokey" song. "Mom and Dad" is certainly more of a black comedy than a horror film, however.
Director Panos Cosmatos told IndieWire at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018 that he originally wanted Nic to play Linus Roache's character as the cult leader. Nic didn't think he was a fit for the role so he agreed to play the lead of Red Miller -- which suits him just fine. Elijah Wood previously worked with Cage on the 2016 film "The Trust" which is how they teamed up again to work on "Mandy."
British actress Andrea Riseborough -- who portrays Mandy -- said at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival via Derek Sante's YouTube channel that it's a dark film, and that her character's soul is the center of the world that visionary director Panos Cosmatos created.
Slash Film writer Ben Pearson saw "Mandy" at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, calling the film "A primal, psychedelic rage-scream of a movie, "Mandy" takes a while to get going, but once it does, it delivers exactly what fans are hoping for: Nicolas Cage fully unleashing the beast within and absolutely wrecking people with a giant axe and a chainsaw."
