In “Willy’s Wonderland,” zooming his souped-up black Chevy through the hick town of Hayesville, he suffers a blowout, which is no accident (the road was booby-trapped with spikes). Yet what does remain a little bit cool about Cage, in some jokey debauched way, is that he’s an actor who believes so deeply in conjuring his aura that he’s become a walking amulet of schlock: The Man Who Would Be King Shit.
He coasts, of course, on a notion of cool so outdated it’s prehistoric, and he’s been doing that ever since “Wild at Heart” (a movie that, like its star, was deluded enough to think Elvis Presley was still subversive). As power chords zing the soundtrack, the camera pulls up slowly up and circles him, the way it did George Michael at the start of the “Faith” video, to show us that Cage, in his mid-50s, has still got it. He’s wearing mirrored shades and a black-leather jacket with red racing stripes down the arms, and he’s got a biker beard that looks like it was drawn on with Emmett Kelly greasepaint.
In “Willy’s Wonderland,” he plays a man with no name who is introduced with a typical array of Cage-as-badass signifiers. He enjoys the process, and believes on some level in their junky tarnished anti-aesthetic. Once again: of course! Yet what makes Cage a unique player in the genre of sign-on-the-dotted-line muck is that he’s been doing it for so long, and with such devotion, that I think part of his fallen-from-respectability mystique is that he seriously likes making these movies. RLJE Films Acquires Nicolas Cage and Sofia Boutella-Starrer 'Prisoners of the Ghostland' Ahead of Sundance Premiere 'Prisoners of the Ghostland' Review: A Match Made in Heaven - or Post-Apocalyptic Hell Cheese and Santa Cruz Boardwalk' (EXCLUSIVE) Theme Song for Nicolas Cage's Horror Movie 'Willy's Wonderland' Inspired by 'Chuck E. And that, in no small part, is because of the other arresting creature at its center.
The movie is a canny ghoulie potboiler that whisks you along. But even as that sounds like the stuff of overripe horror parody, “Willy’s Wonderland,” taking its cue from films like “Leprechaun,” “Two Thousand Maniacs,” and Tobe Hooper’s “The Funhouse” (which came out 40 years ago, on March 13, 1981), treats its homicidal-furry-mascot premise as if it were a pre-ironic ’80s hack-’em-up. They’re possessed by evil spirits, and they’ll tear your head off. The monsters, you see, are the kiddie palace’s resident menagerie of towering animatronic mascots. Parsons, this defiantly out-of-the-box and in some ways rather cunning grunge horror film, set from dusk till dawn inside a run-down family fun center, is a tongue-in-cheek thriller that knows how preposterous it is. Directed by Kevin Lewis, from a script by G.O.