MANDY (2018) - He ain't heavy, he's just METAL.

Cinema of Cruelty (Movies for Masochists)

On this week's annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Panos Cosmatos's 'Mandy' (2018). The anticipated (mostly unrelated) follow-up to Cosmatos's first cult film, Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010), Mandy hit the scene marketed as a heavy metal, genre-bending, "cosmic opera" of the psyche. Set in a 1983 (that may or may not be *our* 1983), Mandy is still stuffed with references, homages, and abstract nostalgia. And yet, set as it is under a plasma-churning landscape of "crimson primordial skies," swimming in Jungian mysticism, and unleashing Nic Cage wielding a giant Manowar battle axe, somehow, despite relying on a spine constructed out of the bones of so many old troupes, Mandy remains otherworldly and fresh. (Oh and it is FULL of annotations...).

Deep Dives include: Douglas Roberts and that death row opening quote; The Jungian Red Book; Abraxas and his horn; Regan's "Spiritual Awakening" speech; the primordial lens of Galactus's comic origin story; the world of Dungeons and Dragons; Tor publishing; the (failed) singing career of Charles Manson; the pale emerald light of Heavy Metal's Loc-Nar (vs. the serpent's eye); that swimming mystic Joseph Campbell quote; the paradox of mysticism and psychosis; the myriad of 80's movie references; and that "Red" storm on Jupiter...