Like recent events, the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival has shifted from a personalized viewing window to a virtual version. Despite the change, we will continue to provide reviews and insights on the most interesting experiences we find, from indie films to VR experiments.
Prisoners of the Ghostland looks like a movie made for Nicolas Cage. This is the English-language debut of prolific Japanese director Sion Sono – Western audiences know him perhaps best from the strange and gruesome series Tokyo Vampire Hotel on Amazon Prime Video – and it mixes elements of Westerns, samurai movies and post-apocalyptic action movies. Cage’s genre work has become a genre itself, thanks to cult hits such as Mandy and Color outside space. At first glance it sounds like a perfect match – but Prisoners of the Ghostland never succeeds in raising the level of its cast or premise.
Admittedly, the premise is incredible. Cage, who plays a hardened criminal, known only as Hero, is summoned by a man named the Governor to save his granddaughter from a treacherous and possibly supernatural place called the Ghostland. But he takes some extensive precautions, as Hero is notorious for dodging kidnapping. Cage’s character is equipped with a leather suit full of explosives and a questionable range of sensors. For example, if he gestured to attack a woman, a bomb would explode in his arm. Similarly, if he gets excited too, a bomb will explode in his crotch.
The world, meanwhile, draws from various inspirations to create visually beautiful sets. Sheriffs in cowboy hats mix with sword-carrying ronin, and the Ghostland itself is like a trippier version of a Dropout-style desert, complete with a strange cult that turns people into mannequins and fights to get their hands on a giant clock so that time will stand still. When the people of the Ghostland Hero see for the first time, they start singing inexplicably about his ‘thick, red blood’. It’s a strange and disorienting world, and it’s a lot of fun to just look at.
Unfortunately, the premise and worldview feels to a large extent wasted on a film that also does not comply. To begin with, there is the star. It is likely that Cage at its most Cage is the main draw: manic, wild, overworking. But his actions are disappointing. He’s mostly just angry, but not the kind of fun-angry that makes a B-movie enjoyable. There is an awkward rage as he shouts, “I will hack your karate!” to a crowd of strangers or shout at the woman he saves to pull out. There are some fun pieces of dialogue – the most notable being that Cage uses the word ‘testicle!’ in front of a large audience – but they are far too rare.
And then there is the story, which is completely incomprehensible. This is not always a bad thing, as there are many genre flickers where the narration is just an excuse for cool action scenes, but that is not the case here. (The only interesting battle series takes place at the end of the film.) Spookland overwhelms you with story elements, but things never get clearer in any way. The narrative is both underdeveloped and overexplained. There are abundant flashbacks, dream series and even a scene with a literal presentation of the slideshow about the horrors of toxic waste. All it does is complicate a simple story.
It really is a movie that comes in its own way. I want to watch Nic Cage in an explosive leather suit digging through the wreckage of a post-industrial desert as he battles samurai, cowboys, mad cults and poisonous zombies. I mean, who does not? But Spookland does not give you enough of it. Instead, you have to blow unnecessarily long expositions and far too many “weird for the sake of weird” moments to get to the good stuff. It is still a film that, based on its premise, only wants to achieve cult status. But if you go to a theater years later to indulge in a marathon of Cage’s best genre work, it certainly will not be the main line.