Yes, 5 out of 10. It's a psychedelic nightmare, and the drug visions can hit abruptly.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Medium
The images are vivid and will probably stay in your head for a night.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: Watch it with the lights on, because the drug visions can hit without warning.
Mandy runs two hours and two minutes and begins in the Pacific Northwest in 1983, where a lumberjack named Red lives quietly with his girlfriend, Mandy. Then a cult leader named Jeremiah Sand notices her, which is the movie's cue to start handing out LSD.
The premise, briefly
In 1983, a recovering alcoholic lumberjack named Red Miller lives quietly with his girlfriend, Mandy Bloom, until the leader of a religious cult notices her.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Mandy is killed by the cult in the middle of the movie. Red then kills the bikers at their hideout and the cult, finishing with Jeremiah Sand's skull and a burning church, and drives away imagining Mandy smiling beside him.
The scene you're dreading
In the middle of the movie, Sand burns Mandy alive in front of Red after she laughs at his folk music. Red is tied up and stabbed and has to watch. It is the cruelest scene, and the rest of the movie is Red's answer to it.
The dog
No dog dies in Mandy. A dead baby deer is shown up close early on, and Mandy tells a graphic story about killing baby birds.
Mandy is a hallucinatory revenge story, and the worst of it is a single scene in the middle that you now know about.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
Nobody warned Red about the folk music
In 1983 in the Pacific Northwest, Red Miller is a lumberjack and a recovering alcoholic who served in a war. He lives with his girlfriend, Mandy Bloom, whose childhood was abusive. Mandy works the register at a gas station during the day and makes elaborate fantasy art at night, and Red admires it. One day, while she is walking to work, Jeremiah Sand notices her. Sand leads a religious cult called the Children of the New Dawn, and he sends his disciple Brother Swan to abduct Mandy. Swan calls in the Black Skulls, a demonic, cannibalistic gang of bikers who regularly take LSD.
This is the scene the movie turns on, and it comes in the middle. The Black Skulls accept a cult member as a sacrifice, then break into the house and overpower Mandy and Red. The cultists Mother Marlene and Sister Lucy dose Mandy with LSD eye drops and giant wasp venom and bring her to Sand. He tries to seduce her with his psychedelic folk music, and she laughs at him. Furious, Sand stabs Red, who is bound and gagged, and burns Mandy alive in front of him. Once Sand and his followers are gone, Red gets loose, grieves, finishes a bottle of vodka and swears revenge without saying a word. Everything after this is Red's response.
Red picks up a crossbow from his friend
In the morning, Red goes to his friend Caruthers for his crossbow and bolts, and Caruthers tells him to watch out for the Black Skulls. Red then forges himself a battle axe. He shoots one of the bikers with the crossbow and chases him down, but the biker wrecks his car, and Red ends up a prisoner. At the gang's hideout, Red breaks out of his restraints and kills the rest of them. While he looks around the hideout, he takes some of their drugs and immediately starts to hallucinate, severely.
The Chemist has a map
Red follows what he sees in his visions and finds the Chemist, the man who produced the Black Skulls' LSD. The Chemist picks up telepathically what happened to the couple, and tells Red where to find them. The cult has a makeshift wooden church in a quarry, and Red goes there and kills its members one by one, with increasing brutality. Under the church, in a set of tunnels, he finds Mother Marlene.
The ending, explained
Red decapitates Marlene in the tunnels, then faces Sand. He mocks Sand by hurling Marlene's severed head at him, then crushes his skull. Red burns Sand's body along with the church and drives off. On the drive, he sees a smiling Mandy in the seat beside him in another hallucination, and the landscape behind him looks fantastical and strange. Mandy is dead, as are Sand, Marlene and the bikers from the hideout, and Red is still driving.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits, so it is safest to stay until they finish.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Mandy scary?
Yes, Mandy is a 5 out of 10. The fear comes from drug hallucinations that can hit abruptly and a lot of graphic violence late in the movie, and it stays with you for about a night.
How does Mandy end?
Red kills Mother Marlene and Jeremiah Sand and burns down the cult's church. He drives away imagining Mandy smiling beside him.
Does the dog die in Mandy?
No dog dies in Mandy. A dead baby deer is shown up close early on, and Mandy tells a graphic story about killing baby birds.
Is there a post-credits scene in Mandy?
Nobody has confirmed whether Mandy has a scene after the credits, so it is safest to stay until they finish.
Who are the Black Skulls in Mandy?
They are a cannibalistic, demonic biker gang that takes LSD regularly. In Mandy, Brother Swan summons them to kidnap Mandy for Jeremiah Sand, the leader of the Children of the New Dawn.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Mandy is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
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