#9: FACE-OFF (1997)

In order to catch him, he must become him. 

Los Angeles FBI agent Sean Archer, investigating a sociopath crime-lord (one Castor Troy), watches as his own son takes an assassin’s bullet that was actually meant for himself – fired by that very same crime-lord. With his life now mostly destroyed, Archer becomes obsessed with finally putting an end to Troy’s career of terrorism and espionage. Meanwhile, on the home front, Archer’s daughter begins to act out, and his wife doesn’t know how to talk to him. He snaps in anger at his investigatory team and finds no joy in pretty much any aspect of life. But finally, Archer and Troy eventually cross paths, and after an intense and dramatic confrontation at an airport hangar, the evil-minded genius and his brother are caught, with the former ending up in a coma and the latter in a maximum security prison. But with the brothers’ nefarious plot, which includes a ton of explosives, still poised to happen, Archer agrees to a highly experimental procedure in which he will switch faces with that of his arch nemesis in order to mine for information from his enemy’s brother and no one except for the three people doing the actual procedure will know who he really is and that includes his own family because why the fuck not? It sounds like a really good and low-stakes idea. But after the comatose Troy awakens to see that his face has been taken, and that there’s this other spare face floating around in this futuristic fish bowl, Troy takes a page out of Archer’s book and begins to infiltrate his dogged pursuer’s life with his new face, teaching Archer’s daughter how to stab, his wife how to sex, his boss how to die just by screaming at him, and everyone else just how much fun he is. With Archer and Troy now Troy and Archer, their pseudo-lives collide in a majestic art-installation of bullets, doves, and blowing, flapping, slow-motion coats. It’s awesome.

Man...Face/Off. Only in the ’90s did this sound like a good idea. And it not only sounded like a good idea, but it was a good idea. Following Nicolas Cage’s much-deserved Oscar win for his role in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Hollywood did what it does: took advantage of his new spotlight and put him in nonsense very antithetical to his Oscar-winning performance, and he suddenly and inexplicably found himself the go-to action leading man. He would go on to star, back-to-back, in the holy Cage action trifecta of The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), and Face/Off., Not only were these two of the best consecutive years in action history, it would turn out Cage had saved the best for last. And because this is a John Woo flick, you’re going to get all the doves, eye close-ups, and post-production slow motion you can stand. But that’s not all: John Travolta hams it up, Nicolas Cage whirls around while shooting for NO REASON, Gina Gershon uncharacteristically does not remove her clothes, and we get cameos from Tommy Flanagan, John Carroll Lynch, Thomas Jane, and Joe Bob Fuckin' Briggs. And it’s all glorious.

Face/Off is madness. For over two hours, the plot will be ludicrous, the performances will be cartoonish, and the action will be brutal and unending. Nothing about Face/Off should work. Not one executive in Hollywood should have finished a meeting that began with, “Okay, so, a good guy and a bad guy SWITCH FACES.” An Oscar-winner and a two-time Oscar-nominee should not have been spotted anyhere near this script, this concept, this unbelievable cacophony of cinematic insanity. But my god, it happened – somehow it all came together. Face/Off got the green light, it got the proven director, it got the legendary cast. It soon existed; it became a thing; the action genre hasn’t been the same since.

THE GOOD GUY(S)(?)

ON LEFT: Sean Archer. Mourning father. Distant husband. Ass-bug-infested member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Superior to The Wire's Bunny Colvin. Obsessed with catching the man indirectly responsible for the death of his son. Looks a lot like a corpse when under medical anesthesia.

Within the confines of the very eclectic dichotomy that Face/Off presents, Nicolas Cage is essentially playing two entirely different roles, though one would be considered his primary and the other his secondary. Once Cage picks up where Travolta left off, his layered and extremely interesting performance builds off the rather surprisingly philosophical foundation that is inexplicably present in this very stupid action film (the one that includes a speedboat-chase finale): that for a large portion of the running time, both men – prominent actors – are actually satirizing the art of acting into their own performances; i.e., actors are playing the part of two men playing a part. Going further, when it comes to Cage’s performance, he is playing a man who is still deeply hurting from the loss of his son – a hurt so deep that he’s inadvertently isolated himself from everyone around him – but he still has to find a way to act through that pain in order to successfully play the role of the life-loving carefree Castor Troy. It’s evident in the scene where Archer’s version of Troy is in the midst of a prison riot, and in between laughing uproariously and bellowing “I’m Castor Troy!” he is actually sobbing; or later, in Troy’s pad surrounded by his crime family, someone asks him how he knows so much about Sean Archer, so he confesses, “I sleep with his wife.” And as everyone around him laughs, and though Cage is laughing, too, he's just as conflicted about it as he seems genuinely amused by the irony. That right there is a perfect summation of the interesting parallelisms that Face/Off presents: whether Archer is himself, or masquerading as Castor Troy, he’s always acting like a man who is okay, and he’s not.

ON RIGHT: Uh…Sean Archer, also. Kind of. Sometimes. Everything character-based above applies. Especially the corpse thing.

In a film where there are two lead roles but still four major performances, sadly, one of those performances by one of those lead actors was going to end up being the weakest, and that dishonor falls to John Travolta’s take on Sean Archer. To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with his version of “the good guy” – it’s just that compared to Cage’s typically more-manic performances, or even when Travolta is up against his own take on Castor Troy, this version of Archer has little to do beyond walk around, look haunted, and shout at Margaret Cho. He does have a scene or two where he gets to offer some dynamism, but for the most part he just seems like that tight-ass at the office who is really wound up and abrupt. It’s okay though, because there’s only so much insanity one film can take before it ends up becoming something you watch in a film theory course, and so Travolta allows himself to play it low-key, knowing that it’s going to make his major transition from hero to villain that much more jarring and effective and a hell of a lot of fun.

THE BAD GUY(S)(!)

ON TOP: Castor Troy, fraternal twin brother of Pollox. Explosives enthusiast. Eater of peaches. Deviant of sexuality. Dove-flock-be’er-arounder.

Between his weird gay masseuse rumors, his awful career choices over the last twenty years, his controversial religion, and his delightful head-stuttering “Adele Dazeem” boner from that one year’s Oscars ceremony, John Travolta’s credibility has plummeted significantly – especially compared to his heyday when he was one of the most dependable and sought-after performers in Hollywood; he was handsome, energetic, professional, and kind. Because of that, it’s easy to forget just how fun he was capable of being. And speaking of fun, no one is having more of it than he is as Castor Troy. Though he has very little villainous screen-time in his career (he played another notable antagonist in John Woo’s Broken Arrow [1996]), he seemed to enjoy going for broke here, because there’s not one piece of scenery left unchewed by his unhinged, almost operatic performance. Whatever low levels to which his career has sadly devolved, Travolta will always be one cool-ass, cigarette-smoking, jazz-step dancing motherfucker.

ON BOTTOM: Uh…Castroy Troy, also. Shit.

Nicolas Cage, I have a question: where the fuck did this version of you go? What happened to the guy who used to utterly transform with his performances that he actually made audiences squirm in their seats while also delighting an entire generation of Youtubers?

Though Cage begins the film as the villain before becoming the hero, boy, during the time when he’s actually Castor Troy in both mind and body, it is a thing to behold. From gaping mouths to flamboyant delivery, Cage is all over this role with relish. It’s almost a shame that the switcheroo-based Face/Off hadn’t actually done its own switcheroo behind the scenes and switched the two leading men’s roles, so that Cage could have instead spent the majority of his screentime as the villain. Although at a running time of nearly 2.5 hours, perhaps that’s just too much Cage insanity for one film. (Having read that back, yeah, that’s a dumb thing to say.) Face/Off isn’t even out of the opening credits sequence and Cage is already hamming it up as a priest, head-banging to “Hallelujah” and grabbing the ass of a certainly underage choir singer. Once you stop to realize that Cage’s priest outfit has NOTHING to do with the plot, you will realize two things: Castor Troy is a maniac and Face/Off is incredible.

 THE CASUALTIES

No tally for good guys versus bad guys because give me a break – YOU try categorizing who counts as good guys and bad guys when the good guys and bad guys switch natures back and forth. Overall, there are 33 shootings, 3 dead by conflagration, 2 dead by various body trauma, one dead via harpoon gun, and one dead by a “whoopsie!” sniper’s bullet.

THE BEST KILL

Troy gets things going by shooting an undercover FBI agent in the gut who was pretending to be a stewardess, after of course he posited to her: “If I let you suck my tongue, would you be grateful?” Following this rather bloodthirsty execution, Troy looks at arch nemesis Sean Archer and shrugs in a manner of which Larry Fine would have been immensely proud.

THE DAMAGE

Sean Archer: an off-the-mark bullet through the shoulder intended for him, but which ends up in his son. Talk about a hole in two! He also undergoes: multiple prison fights; a bullet to the shoulder by his real daughter; major back and belly flops; a drop through a glass ceiling and a shard of glass into his side; an exploding speedboat blowing him onto shore; and several sucker-punches and body-hits with various metal pipes.

Castor Troy: a jet turbine slams him into Comaland; stabbed in the thigh by his fake daughter; his own glass-ceiling plummet and speedboat explosion; a pretty nasty and spiteful self-inflicted face-cutting; stabbed in leg with harpoon; and that same harpoon driven into his belly.

THE BAD GUY’S COMEUPPANCE

Only in Hollywood could Sean Archer and Castor Troy still be standing by film’s end, so when John Travolta finally meets his long-overdue harpoon, the audience gratefully lets out a collective sigh of relief, because based on the sheer amount of shoot-outs and chase scenes and explosions and broken glass already witnessed, they’ve been watching this film for, in John Woo time, the last nine years.

THE LINE

“I’d like to take his face…………………………………………………………………..off.”

“Dress up like Halloween, and ghouls will try to get in your pants.”

“DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

THE VERDICT

In some ways, action cinema died a little on the day Face/Off was released in theaters all the way back in the realm of 1997. Not since then, in spite of all the giant robots and leather-clad dominatrix prostitutes and all the winking/nudging aimed at the camera, has an action film of such sheer gonzo appeal, massive entertainment value, and littered with career-high watermark performances hit theaters. Sadly, John Woo’s American career wouldn’t last much longer, as he would go on to make the critical and box-office disappointment Windtalkers (2002) before hightailing it back to his native China to make more serious-minded films.

Face/Off is bombastically stupid. But it’s also harmlessly and relentlessly entertaining. John Woo has thrown everything at the wall to see what sticks, and he does so with a praiseworthy Billy Mumphrey level of cockeyed optimism. The good news is...everything sticks. But there’s still one little niggling thought that has the potential to fester in the far corner of more learned action-film-fans’ minds whenever they sit down for an annual viewing. And it’s the notion that Face/Off's script had been knocking around Hollywood desks for years and years before it was finally greenlit…and at one point, instead of Cage and Travolta, it saw the potential first on-screen pairing of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. (Yeah, that slight quiver you just felt in your pants? That’s exactly what this column is all about.) What that signifies is that the importance of the casting for these two roles had been a major selling point since the minute this project caught someone’s eye, and even though taking Face/Off as we know it and implanting those two action megastars into either role, whether they were playing hero and then villain or villain and then hero, would have been the stuff of cinematic heart attack, the Face/Off that eventually came to be is just too good to sacrifice – for anything, or anyone.

PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021)

Spoiler: This review does not serve any purpose.

Nicolas Cage has made the most interesting movies of his career over the last ten years. I didn’t say good, mind you, although there have been quite a few of those—I said interesting. Even his failures, like 2018’s low-rated Between Worlds, a metaphysical erotic thriller that breaks the fourth wall and recognizes Cage’s character as actually being Nicolas Cage during a sex scene, is far more interesting than the last highest-rated Hollywood Marvel tentpole you saw. Despite his reputation as being a quirky, rubber-stamping performer saying yes to every offer that comes his way, well…broken clocks and all that: saying yes to a lot can yield occasionally awesome results, and it’s given us horror fans a handful of terrific titles during this period. Though it’s impossible to keep up with Cage’s movies at this point, I feel confident in saying it’s been a while since I’ve seen a particular movie where he slept walk through his role. Cage is always trying, and always giving it his all; he’s quite possibly one of the bravest actors from the old guard still taking chances with wild abandon, unafraid to ascend to the most manic heights if it serves the movie. (See the binge-drinking, underwear-clad bathroom freak-out scene from 2018’s incredible Mandy.) This was something I always knew, but of which I was reminded following an impromptu double-feature of two Cage flicks brand new to video: the understated, beautifully made Pig, in which he offers a tragic, brokenhearted performance as a man seeking the last remaining thing on this planet he loves, and Prisoners of the Ghostland, in which he plays a criminal forced to go looking for something he couldn’t care less about, screaming his face off and gnashing his teeth and contending with roving desert threats the whole time—ghostly or otherwise. His range across those two random examples was remarkable, the first bringing tears and the second bringing wide-eyed astonishment. Very few actors can do this, and Cage is one of them, though his genuine talent is often forgotten thanks to his internet folk hero status as a meme, those “crazy reel” YouTube compilations, and his doppelganger in that old-timey 1800s photos that suggests he is, in fact, a vampire. (Insert scene from 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss which sees Cage running down the street screaming, “I’M A VAMPIRE, I’M A VAMPIRE!”)

Cage himself has described Prisoners of the Ghostland as “the wildest movie [he’s] ever made,” a quote wisely utilized in the film’s marketing, as anyone considering watching a movie with a concept as wild as this one would likely be enticed by his presence alone, so once you see that quote, well, holy shit—strap in. Such a proclamation is a very ballsy boast, as by now I’m sure your own choices for Cage’s craziest are playing in your brain like a powerpoint presentation. Could Prisoners of the Ghostland out-crazy the Hellraiser-meets-Death Wish vigilante horror-thriller Mandy, or the stone-faced supernatural comedy/horror hybrid Willy’s Wonderland, or Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which has a scene where Cage’s bad cop sees the breakdancing figure of a thug his goons just killed and says, “Shoot him again—his soul is still dancing,” before breaking out in wild, unhinged laughter? Directed by Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono (Cold Fish, Suicide Club), Prisoners of the Ghostland is a mish-mash of genres; not content to borrow influence just from Yojimbo or just from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, it’s instead both—a collision of Japanese samurai warriors and the lone American western about a gunman looking for redemption, creating a nonsensical world of imagery that feels more like a boardwalk sideshow where tourists stop to put on garish costumes and take novelty photos with their families. Cage, of course, is the film’s man with no name—a leather-clad cowboy known only as Hero, or sometimes Nobody, yanked out of jail following a botched bank robbery in a sandy nowhere called Samurai Town and forced into a rescue/retrieval mission across the desert at the behest of the villainous Governor (Bill Moseley). Yes, it’s a direct riff on Escape from New York, or, technically, Escape from LA, but also contains elements of Dances with Wolves, Mad Max, Book of Eli, and the spaghetti western of your choice. Yet, in the face of these largely American and Japanese inspirations, something about Prisoners of the Ghostland feels strangely Australian; though that might be explained away by the Mad Max influence, it almost seems to be echoing the work of cult directors Brian Trenchard-Smith (Dead End Drive-In, The Man from Hong Kong) and Russell Mulcahy (Razorback), leaning on crazy color schemes, an unrelenting quirkiness, and a driving identity only Australian cult cinema is capable of. While I can’t say Prisoners of the Ghostland’s puréed influences all get along, I can say that it’s enchanting, allowing moments of genuine artistry, and, of course, moments of obligatory Cage freak-out scenes. (Cage’s Hero bellows “TESTICLE!” at one point with so much operatic gusto that I swear to Bale’s Batman you can see his tonsils.)  

Though both actors have been dabbling in smaller productions that skip mainstream theatrical debuts altogether, it seems strange to see Cage sharing the screen with character actor Bill Moseley, who has been playing unseemly characters in under-the-radar horror flicks since the 1980s, perhaps most infamously known as Chop Top in Tobe Hooper’s 1986 sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Otis Driftwood in Rob Zombie’s Firefly trilogy. Moseley’s career is filled with as many movies you’ve never heard of as Cage’s…but they’re a different variety of films you’ve never heard of, and likely stocked with other character actors who make most of their living traveling the country for various horror conventions. Really, the whole cast is a combination of different worlds, from the appearance of Cage’s Face/Off co-star Nick Cassavetes as Hero’s former partner in crime and current desert-dwelling ghost (he’s best known as having directed The Notebook) to Sofia Boutella, mainstream sweetheart of Hollywood fare like The Kingsman and Atomic Blonde. How all these people managed to come together and collaborate on a movie that feels like it transcends each of them as individual personalities, I’ll never know, but it only adds to Prisoners of the Ghostland’s indefinable identity.

Prisoners of the Ghostland isn’t a movie so much as it is a dare. It’s a challenge to cinemagoers everywhere, but especially a gauntlet for those like me who are tasked with writing about it. “Dare to make sense of me,” Prisoners of the Ghostland says. “Go ahead and find meaning in the madness.” It’s why this review opens with that spoiler tag: Prisoners of the Ghostland is critic-proof. I’m sure many have tried to bring forth some kind of thoughtful analysis, whereas some others simply threw in the towel and dismissed the title out of hand, tucking tail and fleeing from the carnival of lunacy—from the strange plot, the in-and-out moments of broad humor, the ambiguous sense of whether or not anyone involved in the film’s making is taking it seriously, and what it’s supposed to mean…if it’s supposed to mean anything. If there’s any one thing that Prisoners of the Ghostland isn’t, it’s subtle. Even when the flick takes a break from the fight scenes and ghastly gore, its smaller moments are still peppered with that perceptible sense of “what is this?” It’s so broadly played and relishing in its over-the-topness that it becomes one of those movies where it can either be about nothing at all, or whatever you want it to be. You could walk away claiming it’s an allegory for manifest destiny and I sure as hell wouldn’t argue with you because you’d still be closer to the true “meaning” than I’ll ever get. One thing is for sure: if you’ve ever wanted to see a flick where Nicolas Cage wears a full body leather suit covered in boobytrap explosions while screaming, “I’LL KARATE CHOP YOU!” and “HI-FUCKING YAH! HI-FUCKING YAH!,” well, I’ve got just the one…

ARMY OF ONE (2017)

“Does The Bearded One eat at Denny’s?”

Army of One is out of its mind, but not necessarily in the good way. Still, of all the films released which boast “inspired by a true story,” Army of One actually earns the right to say it. One Gary Faulkner, he of bad kidneys and a carefree disposition, really did throw caution to the wind and attempt to do what the U.S. Government, at first, couldn’t do: locate Osama Bin Laden. And he went to Pakistan to do it.

He failed. And so did the filmmakers trying to tell his story.

Army of One comes to you courtesy of Larry Charles, who has found far more critical success in his directorial work in television than he has with features. Except for his first feature collaboration with Sacha Baron Cohen in what became Borat, Charles has yet to make a feature that one could be considered “good” — one that received either accolades or a nice, fat return at the box office. Masked & Anonymous, his Bob Dylan-starring apocalyptic tale of musical redemption, was more fascinating watching Dylan walk around being completely uninterested in things than it was as a story, and his additional collaborations with Baron Cohen resulted in the ho-hum Bruno and the flaccid attempt at narrative known as The Dictator. Sure, he had Bill Maher’s Religulous in there somewhere, but anyone familiar with the outspoken comedian’s show Real Time or his stand-up material knows that he was more of a driving force behind that doc’s final product than its credited director. And I guess we can add Army of One to that list of underwhelming efforts, which is probably just as nuts as his debut Dylan debacle. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing — you just have to know why you’re seeing it to determine what you expect to get out of it.

Because all is not lost. Army of One has the potential to offer a potential viewer an entertaining time for exactly one reason: Nicolas Cage. Yes, it may come as a surprise to hear that the man more famous for starring in memes than films once had the talent and drive to dazzle his audience with an array of quirky, energetic, and manic performances.  Though he’s spent the last two hundred years (it really feels like that, doesn’t it?) starring in utterly forgettable thrillers where he seems even more bored with the material than the viewer is with watching it unfold, every so often he shows up in a film that’s different, and special, and indicative of something more than a paycheck. Army of One definitely fits that bill — it’s just not very good. But his performance — his completely gonzo performance as Gary Faulkner — is the reason to see it. His take on this real-life character smacks with such bonafide energy and Cage-isms that it makes Army of One as a whole even more disappointing. Whenever Cage is on-screen slicing grapefruits in mid-air with a samurai sword, or enthusiastically debating American superiority vs. Pakistan superiority with a willing cab driver, it is glorious. But when the broad, stupid, uneven comedy of the script or Russell Brand’s awful take on God enter the picture (though to his defense, no one could have saved that iteration of God), everything comes to a screeching halt. And when this happens, you realize: Nicolas Cage is not only still capable of being impulsively watchable, but he’s even capable of elevating dire material to levels less indicative of wasting your time. (Although can I just say the meta scene where Cage’s Faulkner talks about the film he’d heard was being made of his lifestory, and recommending “Nicolas Cage of Con Air” to tell his story reeked of Tarantino levels of self-aggrandizement.)

One of the film's producers mentions how the story of Gary Faulkner could only have been portrayed on screen as a comedy. Whether that’s true or not is a matter of perspective, but director Larry Charles bought into that a bit too much, leaving behind any semblance of drama for the real man who inspired this unlikely story, resulting in a farce so out of its mind that it’s nearly unapproachable.

Army of One is not good, but that’s not to say you won’t enjoy it in some degree. Most of this enjoyment will likely come from Cage finally revisiting unhinged characters after spending so much time wallowing and whispering on screen. If nothing else, at least Army of One proves that Cage still contains that manic spark which brought so many of his previous beloved characters to life. Rest assured Gary Faulkner won’t go down as one of them, but man oh man was it fun as hell to see unfold. As a film, not recommended; as a crazy-Cage vehicle, see it immediately.

COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2019)

Outside of “Rats in the Walls” and “Herbert West: Re-Animator,” I’ve never read anything by H.P. Lovecraft because my simpleton brain won’t process his era-specific writing style. Oddly, my education of what a Lovecraft story entails comes not from the man himself, but through other artists homaging his work, like John Carpenter’s In The Mouth of Madness or several of Stuart Gordon’s films, including From Beyond. One thing among them all remained consistent: Lovecraft writes of slimy, distorted, indescribable monstrosities from other worlds—both in a sci-fi sense and a more generally horrific one. 

Because of this, I had no real idea what to expect as I sat down to watch Color Out of Space, which is not just Nicolas Cage’s latest foray into the horror genre following the astounding Mandy, but which also hails the return of celebrated cult director Richard Stanley after a twenty-year absence(!) from feature filmmaking. Except for a quiet and low-key documentary about mysticism and inter-dimensional travel called The Otherworld, the last time anyone saw the mythical South African filmmaker was as the subject of Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey Of Richard Stanley's Island Of Dr. Moreau, which, if you haven’t seen it, holy shit—do it. Stanley isn’t known to the mainstream, having made films that are quiet and very unique, like Dust Devil (compromised for a long time by the Weinsteins) and Hardware, recently released exclusively on Blu-ray from Ronin Flix. Stanley’s films have their own look and feel, which is what makes Color Out of Space both comfortably familiar and surprisingly nuanced. 

One night, as the Gardner family disperses throughout the house for some alone time, a meteorite crash-lands on the front lawn of their isolated country home. Though it’s never made clear, this meteorite contains a radioactive or intergalactic element that causes nearby vegetation to double or triple its size, along with insects and reptiles who begin sporting wild, neon colors. Lastly, its exposure to human beings begins to change them in different ways, physically or mentally, eventually leading to the Gardner family’s deconstruction in weird and wild ways, including a scene with the family matriarch (Joely Richardson) cutting carrots in the kitchen that you’ll never be able to unsee.

Based on the first act alone, and outside of your usual number of eccentricities we’ve come to expect from Cage, Color Out of Space almost comes across as…normal. And measured. Certainly not the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from Cage or Stanley. But don’t worry: neither of them have refuted their aesthetics. The two join forces to bring to life a wild flick that begins with calmness draped over slight family dysfunction and soon boils over into gooey, alien terror and the kind of psychological breakdown of which only Cage is capable. Very successfully, Color Out of Space maintains Lovecraft’s consistent juxtaposition between creepy monsters, who physically come into being, and the broken mind of the character being haunted by them—either the kind of mind that’s already broken and unveils an unseen world of monsters, or the kind of mind that breaks once this veil is peeled back. Here, physical and psychological terror go hand in hand, and there hasn’t been a marriage this strong since the first act of David Cronenberg’s directorial career.

Despite the craziness of the synopsis, Color Out of Space unfolds at a leisurely pace, so if by now its Twitter reputation has preceded itself, it would be best for viewers to settle into the movie and expect something measured and patient, rather than something that goes instantly wacky. Like the literature it’s honoring, Color Out of Space reveals one piece at a time. Along with being measured, Color Out of Space is also ambitious. Stanley and co. clearly didn’t have a very large budget, but their sprawling story feels bigger than life. The CGI effects look damn good and comparable to what you’d see in modern theaters, and because they are particularly placed throughout the script, the scope feels bigger in recollection. Along with the CGI, though, are the practical effects, and they are remarkable, with one bit in particular being downright John Carpenter’s The Thingian. Stanley’s direction is assured, and even beautiful, but he always remains true to his aesthetic, which makes Color Out Of Space feel dreamy and strange, and, thankfully happening to someone else. 

By now, Cage’s presence in films like this draw a certain appeal. Known as an operatic performer for his entire career, it’s always the horror and sci-fi genres that yield some of his most interesting work, and it’s thanks to the genres’ complete lack of boundaries. There are no rules, which means artists can go as big as they want and embrace the wackiest of ideas. An unrestrained Cage is the best kind of Cage, but that’s not to say that his performance here consists of his usual level of freak-out scenes (there are a handful of these, though, and they’re glorious). An unrestrained Cage also gleefully embraces the strange and quirky, which no one does better. In a really brief moment during the first act where Cage openly lambastes his hard-to-please deceased father, he slides into an overly pretentious voice (resurrecting the one he used as Peter Loew in the batty Vampire’s Kiss) and begins to mimic some of his father’s dismissive words used toward him over the years. What seems like a throwaway scene of character development comes back later with really interesting implications, in that, as “the color” starts to infect both the landscape of the family home and the family themselves, Cage slips in and out of this pretentious voice in the heights of his mania, subtly suggesting that his internal hatred for his father is not just beginning to manifest, but that he’s actually turning into his father. Ezra (Tommy Chong), a squatter who lives on the Gardner estate, is the one who observes that the “color” infecting the land has the power to upend everything—to take one thing and transform it into its utter opposite. At least as far as Cage’s character is concerned, he’s slowly turning into what he hates most.

Color Out of Space looks excellent on the 4K UHD release, obviously coming to life during the flick’s more mystical moments. “The color” permeates the screen during several moments throughout, replicating beautifully in high definition. Dialogue is cleanly presented and marries well with the ambience of the family’s isolated farmhouse. The interesting musical score by Colin Stetson, who had previously scored another horror hit, Ari Aster’s Hereditary, also fits in well to the soundscape and helps to heighten the strange new world of the Gardner farm.

After a shaky start, RLJE has been consistently acquiring interesting genre titles, especially over the last couple years, having given a home to the likes of Mandy, Gwen, and The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot. Unfortunately, their physical releases hardly overwhelm with supplemental content. That’s the case here as well, as this release offers only a trailer, a photo gallery (which I don’t think anyone ever looks at), and a twenty-minute “making-of” that catches input from all the film’s major participants, charting the production from the script all the way to post-production. There’s no commentary track with the director or a one-on-one interview, which is a shame given Stanley’s long absence from filmmaking (which, to the making-of’s credit, is briefly covered). I’m sure he’s spent a long time thinking about what his next project was going to be, and that he’s got a lot to say about it, but you’re not going to find that kind of deep-dive here. Having said that, eight-year-old Julian Hilliard (The Haunting of Hill House), who plays Cage’s youngest son, calls Color Out of Space “the best movie in history,” and how can you argue with that?

Fans of Lovecraft, Nicolas Cage, or Richard Stanley would be missing out if they didn’t check out Color Out of Space. Now that Stanley is “back,” he’s been thinking about the future, which is all Lovecraft all the time. Continuing his partnership with SpectreVision (the distribution company co-owned by Elijah Wood and which produced Color Out of Space), Stanley plans to revisit the Lovecraft landscape in an ongoing, shared universe of the author’s most celebrated titles, with the next being The Dunwich Horror. Based on Color Out of Space, I’m eager to see what else Stanley has up his sleeve. 

Welcome back, sir. You were missed.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

SHITTY FLICKS: THE WICKER MAN (2006)

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up. 

 

Nicolas Cage's eyes bug wildly out of his head (his trademark expression) as he spins around, wielding his gun. He is surrounded by a group of angry women, intent on putting bees on his face, breaking his legs, and burning him alive inside the grundle of a large man made of wicker.

You bitches!" he screams as they fall on him, applying bees. "Oh my God, they're in my eye!"

The utter terror he is facing isn't the end. It's only the beginning. They lay his legs out over a large tree-trunk and smash his legs.

"Awww, my legs! My legs!" he screams, letting the audience know his legs are being broken. I want to look away but I can't. I am enthralled by this scene. "Killing me won't bring back your GOD DAMNED HONEY!" he suggests, trying to escape their wrath.

Ms. Summersisle, the queen bee of this pack, sports William Wallace-inspired make up as she replies, "but I know it will!"

Oh. Well then.

It's worth it for tasty honey.

The Wicker Man, just one of the many remakes of famous horror movies bombarding audiences, will go down in history as one of the most baffling films in ages. The film produces more questions than stomach pains caused by Hot Pockets.

What evil forces reside on Summersisle?

How many men have fallen victim to the womens' deceit?

Why does Nicolas Cage over-act in one scene, and then barely act in another?

What's with bee-beard girl?

Is this film supposed to be hilarious?

The questions are numerous. The laughs: even more so. The scares: missing in action.

Neil Labute once saw a horror movie on television: The Addams Family.

He was terrified.

He longed to make a film that scary.

He wrote and directed The Wicker Man, utilizing the same scare tactics. He crafted a film so horrifying, he himself has trouble watching it without squirming. I also find his film terrifying. But for different reasons.

The film begins...and Cage is delved into a question wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma. He is also allergic to bees.

Uh-oh.

He goes to Bee Island anyway, at the behest of his runaway ex-fiancé, Willow, to help her find their missing daughter, Rowan. Upon arriving at the island, Cage meets a friendly group of oddball natives who stare at him as he talks, clearly perturbed by his presence. The group holds a wriggling sack that drips a rich amount of blood.

“What’s in the bag? A shark?” Cage asks stupidly, he, himself, unsure if he was even joking or not. The natives ignore him and question how he has made it to their beloved island of bad dialogue and bees. The sack wriggles once again and as Cage almost looks interested it, they dare him to look inside. He approaches the sack, and when it wriggles and shrieks, he decides that he doesn’t have to investigate the sack at all, even though he’s a cop. And then the natives laugh at him.

Method acting led to Nicolas Cage trying to teach children
astronomy. Right around after he taught them that space
was, "huge, bigger than Detroit," he was dismissed by
his chaperon.

Cage goes inside a cabin thing and asks for a drink from the bar maid. He receives said drink, but then instantly offends everyone by killing a bee.

“I’m allergic,” he reminds us, and then turns, holds his badge and tells everyone uninterestingly of the missing girl. The patrons, castrated men, stare at him with a look of bemusement. Cage gives up on trying to make an impact and begins his investigation.

He stops by a classroom to inquire about the missing girl. The teacher reacts to him with suspicion and annoyance. He demands to know her name, and when she responds with “Sister Rose,” he turns to the class and says “Rose, of course! Another plant!” as if the students would be amused and sympathetic to his plight.

All the children claim to not know the missing girl, as Cage walks around holding a picture. When Sister Rose claims she was not one of her students, Cage responds by checking the Teacher Book, which reveals the name of the missing girl.

Upon finding her name, he turns to the class of young girls and snarls, "You...little...liars." Then he turns to Sister Rose and states, "and you...you're the biggest liar of them all."

He begins to search the classroom, and upon doing so, releases a crow that was trapped by the students in an open-top desk. “What?” Cage barely manages as it flaps by his face, in the same manner you might say if I tapped you on the shoulder in a super market and told you, "elephant pie is made of chicken beats and my love for dead men."

Cage continues his investigation, which leads him down by the dock. He sits down and suffers through TWO nightmare sequences in a row, which he punctuates with an over-the-top and completely inappropriate “GOD DAMN IT."

"I'm thinking PANCAKES this morning, my lovelies!"

Cage investigates and comes across an old burned doll that was hastily discarded next to some decrepit foundation. He turns to Willow, holds the doll to her and beckons to know: "HOW'D IT GET BURNED?? HOW'D IT GET BURNED HOW'D IT GET BURNED??"

Later, Cage runs across Sister Rose, riding her stupid bike down the path. She taunts him in her stupid bitchy banner, leading Cage to whip out his gun and demand that she “step away from the bike.” Upon relinquishing the bike, Cage takes it from her, and icily retorts: “Take your STUPID mask.”

Cage flips out and begins to storm each cabin, ripping masks off of all young girls, desperately trying to find his missing daughter.

The investigation leads to the inevitable conclusion that foul play was involved in the disappearance of the girl, and this leads to the best the second best scene in recent cinema history: Cage stares at a very mannish woman named Sister Beech, who relishes in his inability to solve the case of the missing child, and then: WHIPASH! Cage lets loose an admirable left jab to her square face, knocking her down for the count.

But the woman beating isn’t over yet.

Leelee Sobieski, also known as Helen Hunt’s better-chested clone, pops up to feign the idea she is capable of doing anything except feeding my desire for pale boobs, before receiving her own helping of Nicolas Cage: kicks, served cold. Cage’s ratatat karate chopping sends her flying back into the wall, shattering all manner of framed photos before depositing her dumpy ass on the hard ground.

As a joke, Nicolas Cage had slipped some ecstasy
into Ellen Burstyn's tea earlier that morning, but by mid-afternoon,
as the crew stood around, burning daylight, no one was laughing.

Cage shakes it off, picks up the beefy woman’s bear costume that she was to wear in the Summersisle Bullshit Parade and exits.

When Cage meets up with Willow during the parade, he amusingly lifts the mouth flap of the bear head and asks, “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“I had to come,” she blandly retorts, shutting him up pretty easily.

The parade ends at what looks to be a pyre where - AAAAHHHHH!! - his daughter is lashed to a tree and is mere minutes from GETTING BURNED??? GETTING BURNED GETTING BURNED????

Cage, still in full bear regalia, storms this pyre, and in long shot form, applies a glorious right hook to her face, sending her sprawling down the hill.

Cage attempts to escape with Rowan, but alas, it’s no use. Once the paraders locate their location in the woods, Rowan runs to her mother, Willow, who it seems was in on it the whole time. Oh no, Willow. How could you?

Now, this is when things get interesting: depending on which version you are watching, you have the option to being treated to two magnificent endings:

ENDING # 1:

In the PG-13 cut, we see Cage laid out over a large leg-breaking beam, but we then fade to a montage of parade marchers making their way to the titular man of wicker as you hear audio of bones snapping and Cage screaming, "My legs! MY LEGS!"

ENDING # 2:

In the “unrated” cut, we see Cage again laid out over the large leg-breaking beam, only this time we experience the actual leg breaking, which is so ineptly done that it creates its own amusement. Once the leg smashing is complete, a modified and ancient-looking bird cage is placed over Cage’s face. Once it’s secured, a hatch on the top is opened and BEES are poured liberally in, as Cage bellows: “No, not the bees! Oh my God, they’re in my EYE!”

"Oh, come now; we can surely fit one more.
Fish Man came all the way from New Zealand for this."

The bird cage is removed and we move onward to the finale: Cage is shoved in a wicker man and burned alive as he screams.

I eject the disc and I smile, knowing that no matter how bad life gets, that no matter how much bullshit will rear its head and get me down, I can take solace in the fact that Nicolas Cage will always be just an unsnapping DVD case away, on an island full of women, dressed as a bear, and punching like a Greek god.

Some films test the boundaries of human emotion. Some films haunt our inner psyche. Some films aren't about bees. The Wicker Man is none of these. The Wicker Man is something truly unique. The Wicker Man has to be seen to be believed.