Nicolas Cage stars in a new horror movie from a Denver director, and it is bizarre — The Know

Is the world crying out for a horror movie starring Nicolas Cage as a janitor who hacks away at demonic, Chuck E. Cheese-style robots?

No. But that didn’t stop Denver-bred director Kevin Lewis from answering the call of “Willy’s Wonderland.” The latest Cage-rage flick has drawn sharply polarized reviews since it was released in theaters and digitally on Feb. 12.

“Kevin Lewis’ giant-furry-funhouse-mascot slasher movie knows how preposterous it is but plays it straight,” Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote in his review of the wide-release movie, which had its Denver premiere at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Sloan’s Lake this month, and which is still screening in-person at Harkins Northfield 18.

“This isn’t ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ ” director Lewis joked over the phone from Los Angeles. “We wanted this to be a fun B-movie that would play as a Toronto Film Festival Midnight Madness film — something where you know what you’re getting from the title. Basically, leave your brain at the door.”

Lewis, who grew up watching big-screen movies at southeast Denver’s Continental Theater, describes himself as a fanboy of ’80s genre films, especially the vaunted comedy-horror category (“Evil Dead,” “Fright Night,” etc.). He’s proud of his quickly made movie, given that it was produced partly under pandemic restrictions and on a limited budget, and partly because he beat a life-threatening COVID-19 infection just before its release (more on that later).

Naturally, getting Oscar-winner Cage on board as star and co-producer was the icing on the sheet cake.

“I knew he takes chances,” Lewis said of Cage, “because some actors might be like, ‘I don’t want to work on this kind of movie.’ But it’s also scary when you don’t have dialogue to fall back on.”

With hand-built sets and a tight, two-week shooting schedule that covered seven or eight pages of script per day, Lewis, Cage and their team tore through shot lists and camera setups like people possessed. Cage’s main character, The Janitor, is a silent drifter with no lines in the script, which was entirely by design, Lewis said.

Cage, ever committed, said he studied “great performances from people who didn’t use any dialogue” in quotes provided to The Denver Post for this article.

“So who comes to mind?” Cage said. “Harpo Marx. Buster Keaton. Then you have the strong, silent, stoic, taciturn performances: laconic. Charles Bronson in ‘Once Upon a Time in the West.’ Some of the early ‘Terminator’ movies.”

But making the movie was only part of the battle. Production for “Willy’s Wonderland” wrapped almost exactly a year ago, on Feb. 28, 2020, and less than two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down daily American life. After that, it was up to Lewis, his editor and a few others to turn it into a movie during a time of forced physical separation.

For awhile, Lewis made daily trips to an editing office in L.A., but began working remotely as the rest of the world moved that way. Zoom meetings replaced conference rooms, and consumer tech doubled as film production equipment.

The piecemeal approach yielded striking contrasts. Thanks to the quality of modern smartphone technology, additional dialogue was often recorded on iPhones instead of inside professional sound booths. But it was mixed by acclaimed sound editor Paul N.J. Ottoson, a Swedish sound designer and friend of Lewis’ who has three Oscars to his credit (for “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker”) and who has worked with Lewis’ idol, Sam Raimi (on 2004’s “Spider-Man 2,” for which he also received an Oscar nomination).

It’s all in service of Cage’s performance. That Oscar-winning 57-year-old, who made his name in ’80s films such as “Valley Girl,” “Vampire’s Kiss” and “Raising Arizona,” was instantly game for the outlandish script, written by first-timer G.O. Parsons, and the bizarre process of bringing it to life.

The story takes place at Willy’s Wonderland, a dilapidated Chuck E. Cheese stand-in (or Showbiz Pizza, depending on where you grew up) that conceals a cadre of unholy, animatronic stage characters that look like they’ve seen one too many screaming toddlers. Problem is, The Janitor (Cage’s loosely sketched, dialogue-free lead) isn’t aware of that when his car breaks down outside Willy’s Wonderland, nor does he know what he’s in for when he agrees to clean the place in exchange for repairs.

Throw in a group of not-so-self-aware teenagers, a vague resemblance to the wildly popular “Five Nights at Freddy’s” gaming franchise (also about a battling evil, animatronic pizza-restaurant denizens), and you’ve got the recipe for a bonkers, old-school horror title.

While the film garnered a 63% review aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes, and an even better 78% percent audience score, some critics savaged it as a weaker version of Cage’s well-known B-movie and horror jaunts, which have lately included titles such as “Mandy” and “Color Out of Space.”

But Cage didn’t make this film for the critics, Lewis said — not that Cage ever does. And anyway, he had a delightful time on set, according to Lewis and crew reports. One example was an improvised scene in which Cage’s character dances during a game of pinball, a flight of fancy that came solely from Cage in that moment, producers said.

“We did one take and it was just three-and-a-half minutes …,” said producer Jeremy Daniel Davis in a press statement. “We erupted after we called ‘cut.’ It was like: Holy crap. That’s why we have Nic Cage. I think he had some Prince moves in there.” (Cage stayed up the whole night before practicing his moves in the mirror, according to press materials.)

“I thought it was original and absurd and I like things that are absurd,” Cage said. “I found it hilarious and potentially terrifying. I don’t get opportunities to act with giant stuffed ostriches or alligators or turtles or weasels. So I thought that would be a lot of fun.”

As noted, we’ve seen Unhinged Cage-Rage in plenty of films lately (and in general — hello “Wild at Heart” and “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”). But all of those performances employ Cage’s penchant for primal screams, pained wails and rapid-fire soliloquies. “Willy’s Wonderland” couldn’t lean on most of that, and Lewis thinks the film turned out all the better for it.

The real horror came when Lewis was rushed to the hospital two weeks before the film’s release with “COVID-19 viral bilateral pneumonia and two blood clots in my lungs,” he wrote in an IndieWire essay this month. His illness was so severe that he began making plans for his death, including figuring out which of his pop-culture memorabilia his wife and four kids could sell to raise money. He needed to re-train himself to breathe before he could be sent home.

“I thought making movies was hard,” he wrote, while thanking the nurses and hospital staff profusely. “This was making movies times 10.”

The significance of the timing — being released from the hospital just before “Willy’s Wonderland” was released — is not lost on him. Taking on one of the biggest projects of his career, however pulpy and lurid, during a global pandemic that almost killed him has put the past year of Lewis’s life into perspective.

“Just have fun with it,” he said of the movie. “It’s Nic Cage versus Willy the Weasel. I hope it brings people back to their childhoods a little bit. I know it did with me.”

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