I’m going to warn you right away: I’m about to say some shit that everyone always says to hype up any mildly energetic genre movie. I’m aware that it’s hack and I’m aware that I’m probably not the first one to say it. But really, I do believe this wholeheartedly: there’s nothing I can quite say or do that will really do Mandy justice. I can’t explain it properly, I can’t praise it without making it sound like I’m pulling shit out of my ass and I can’t breach its flaws without making them sound like strengths. Mandy is about as singular an cinematic expression as you can reasonably expect from a Nicolas Cage movie in this day an age, a blood-spattered howl of rage that also draws on grandiose aesthetics more often associated with shit like King Crimson and Dungeons & Dragons. By all reasonable metrics, Mandy should be an all-out campfest; instead, it barrels through until it comes out the other end as some kind of Viking funeral for the very concept of over-the-top.
https://cultmtl.com/2018/09/nicolas-cage-comes-unhinged-in-the-barbarian-fantasy-mandy/