Review of Mandy (2018) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

First off, this film is quite impressive in terms of the use of colour - quite vivid, bright reds - artificially so but in a stand-out sort of a way, a bit like a low budget horror I suppose, which is apt under the circumstances. There are shots of flowing colours which are nice to see at times as well. Its safe to say that its a pretty atmospheric film in a way, although whether you regard it as arty or tacky, well, that would be up to you to decide. I thought it was good. There were also some instances of strobe lighting, so I'd be aware of that if your sensitive to such things (if you have photo sensitive epilepsy, or a similar condition).

Early on I found myself feeling frustrated that the dialogue was so softly spoken, with the characters being quite hard to hear. You'll likely want to have the volume up a bit for this one, although be warned as there are some jump scares to be found. I should also add that the plot pacing is really quite slow, certainly to start with, which may put people off. It has a pretty convincing sense of impending...something, unease, with it not being made very clear quite what's going on, as its in a mostly dark woodland type setting, even with the bright pinkish red colour shining through.

The voice distortion is a bit cheesy (it did put me off) and this won't be a film for you if your not keen on trippy type films, I'd say, or films that resemble b-movies. After a while, it wore a bit thin, the whole slowed down, neon colour and distorted voices side of it. Its something other than a general run of the mill drama/thriller I guess and its sort of ok but not much else, I'd say - this isn't one of Nicolas Cage's best films but it does have something of a quirky charm to it, just about. It has a menacing feel to it but it also seemed a bit too much style over substance in my book, so to speak.