Nicolas Cage drew inspiration from Jason Voorhees for Mandy

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

One of my most highly anticipated films of the year is director Panos Cosmatos's MANDY, which drops Nicolas Cage into a bloody, insane tale of revenge. My hype level was already through the roof for this one, but Cage found a way to make me even more excited: he referenced iconic slasher Jason Voorhees, the Arrow in the Head staff's "favorite boogeyman", as inspiration for his performance in the film.

Set in the primal wilderness of an apocalyptic 1983, MANDY has the following synopsis: 

The quiet life of devoted couple Red (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) takes a dark and bizarre turn when a nightmarish cult and their maniacal leader (Linus Roache) seek to possess Mandy… body and soul. A shocking assault on the innocent pair leads to a spiraling, surreal, bloody rampage of all out, mind-altering vengeance. 

While on his mission of vengeance, Red downs a liquid hallucinogen. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Cage said, 

It was a good chance to go through a narrative and have a transformation of sorts. Before he drinks that supernatural drug, or whatever it is, his fighting style is more ferocious, is more cat-like and feral. Whereas after the drug, there’s a transformation where he becomes almost like a golem, the ancient Jewish golem that was a supernatural statue that came to life. And I think Panos wanted that, he wanted me to be almost like Jason-esque, you know, from those horror films that were so popular. Panos and I really both decided what the graph of the performance would be. How much more Jason-esque is he there? Or like a statue there? We built this both together."

I love how Cage refers to the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise as "those horror films that were so popular", and I can't wait to watch him switch into Jason mode when MANDY is released on September 14th.

Cage, Riseborough, and Roache's co-stars include Ned Dennehy, Olwen Fouéré, Richard Brake, Bill Duke, and Sam Louwyk.

Our own Chris Bumbray got to see MANDY when it screened at Sundance and gave the film an 8/10 review.