Fact-based drama still resonates four decades after chilling events

This week I inadvertently watched a pair of films on back-to-back evenings that, on the surface, shared several similarities (I promise I didn't do it just to give myself something to write about).

- Chris Broom on Mandy and The Order

Both are set in the lush wilds of the American Pacific Northwest, in 1983/84, and involve fanatics.

That is where things diverge rather dramatically.

The former was Mandy (2018), a blood-soaked horror/revenge-thriller starring Nicholas 'anything for a paycheque' Cage at his most unhinged. Which is saying something.

And given that it only has a tangential relationship to reality, the Reagan-era setting appears to be entirely arbitrary.

The latter was The Order (2024), a fact-based drama about the titular Neo-Nazi organisation and the dogged FBI team led by Jude Law who bring them to book.

Mandy stars Andrea Riseborough in the title role - she's Cage's partner and the pair live a simple life in a small town. Unfortunately Mandy comes to the attention of a religious cult based in the forest nearby when they drive past her as she's walking home from work.

The cult leader, Jeremiah (Linus Roache) covets Mandy for himself, and dispatches an LSD-fuelled cannibal biker gang - the Black Skulls - to kidnap Mandy and Red (Cage). As you do.

Roache is clearly having a whale of a time as Jeremiah.