Top 100 Most Anticipated American Indie Films of 2018: #81. Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy

Mandy

Canadian helmer Panos Cosmatos found a lot of fanfare stateside for his debut film in 2010’s Beyond the Black Rainbow, so naturally the XYZ Films and Spectre Vision folks saw a bankable filmmaker might be trending for whatever he conjured up for his sophomore project. Enter Mandy, the Sundance selected, blood-soaked action-thriller that shot this past summer in Belgium. We called his debut film “a nightmarish world that’s aggravating, hypnotic, and original”. It bodes will for the project co-written alongside Aaron Stewart-Ahn.

Starring Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Bill Duke, Richard Brake, Ned Dennehy, Olwen Fouere, and Hayley Saywell, this is set Pacific Northwest. Red Miller (Cage) and Mandy Bloom (Riseborough) lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire. Johann Johannsson (Sicario, Lovesong) wrote the score.

Release Date/Prediction: Mandy landed a spot in the Midnight section at the Sundance Film Festival.