Nicholas Cage has been something of a joke ever since his tax troubles led him to accept any and all acting jobs without discrimination and he has indeed appeared in many awful films. On the face of it, this looks like another such project: a low budget, cheesy film by an unknown director that seems destined to go straight to video. Yet director Panos Cosmatos makes such bold, uncompromising choices that this turned out to be a rather unique creature that is really quite good.

Somewhere deep in the mountains, the taciturn lumberjack Red lives with his girlfriend Mandy who works as a shopkeeper but also draws strange fantasy art. The film never lays it out explicitly but hints that both have been through a lot of trauma in the past. One day Mandy walks past a van carrying a group of cultists. The cult leader Jeremiah takes a liking to her and orders his underlings to capture her. They use what they call the Horn of Abraxas to summon demon-like bikers to attack Red and Mandy’s house and restrain them. After drugging Mandy, Jeremiah attempts to seduce her and she laughs at how pathetic he is. Infuriated, he burns to death instead in front of Red and leaves him for dead. As usual with this genre, he doesn’t die and comes back to enact extremely prejudiced vengeance instead.

The film spends some film establishing the relationship between Red and Mandy and so for a while it’s possible to wonder what kind of film this is going to be as it feels like there are all kinds of directions it could go. Once the attack happens, the film takes on a more definitive shape, yet it never becomes conventional. Even if the plot is mundane, the garish colors, unrestrained violence, music, atmospheric smoke and so on create an experience that feels very experimental and artistic. The biker gang is clearly and unapologetically demonic for example and the battle axe Red forges is ridiculous but perfectly matches the tone of the film. I love how the film is ambiguous over whether or not there are any actual supernatural forces involved and as it goes on and Red becomes ever more unhinged, the imagery turns more nightmarish until even the background scenery becomes completely fantastical.

My favorite bit is that the director deliberately makes use of Cage’s reputation and past roles. In fact, I like to think of this as a kid gloves off, no holds barred version of Ghost Rider without the rights to the actual character. With scenes like Cage twirling a length of chain like a lasso, revving the engine of an all terrain vehicle and crushing the skull of an enemy with his bare hands, this has him embodying the spirit of vengeance more fully than any of the licensed movies. The whole thing is an incredible sensory experience with its psychedelic effects, the occasional comic book panels, the insane rants of the cult leader, the otherworldliness of the background and Cage’s over the top performance. I love how all this could be incredibly cheesy in the hands of another director but Cosmatos insists on a serious and dark tone throughout and actually manages to pull it off.

Judging from the reception this film received, it seems to have been judged as an artistic film instead of a commercial one and only had a very limited release. But film connoisseurs mostly disdained this as a cheap flick due to Cage’s reputation while mainstream audiences were simply unaware of its existence. This is a shame as I’m sure that many people would have enjoyed it if only it had been made available to a wider audience. I think this is an underappreciated gem and I would urge everyone to give this a shot.