Mandy

Panos Cosmatos' Mandy is less a horror film than a hallucinogenic revenge opera soaked in neon, grief, and molten metal. Nicolas Cage delivers his most unhinged performance — and that is saying something — as a lumberjack whose partner is murdered by a psychedelic cult. The second half is pure, cathartic ultraviolence as Cage, wielding a custom battle-axe, hunts the cult through a hellscape of demonic bikers and LSD-drenched madness. Jóhann Jóhannsson's final score is a masterpiece of droning, doom-metal atmosphere. The bathroom scene — where Cage screams, cries, and drinks vodka in his underwear — is the most raw expression of grief in any revenge film. Mandy is not for everyone, but for its audience, it is transcendent.