Film Review - Willy's Wonderland (2021)

If 2018’s sleeper hit ‘Mandy’ saw Nicholas Cage (Ghost Rider, National Treasure) return to the glorious form of old, soaked in a bloody frenzy, his turn in this years ‘Willys Wonderland’ as the mute janitor tasked with cleaning the abandoned family fun centre, as payment for repairing his Chevrolet, continues his career resurgence of the now popularised ‘cage rage’ era, however, it’s a shame the rest of the movie fails to maintain any sense of cohesive story telling or even stand as horror movie at all.

Signature Entertainment have teamed with the relatively unknown director; Kevin Lewis (The Drop, The third nail) and first time feature screenwriter G.O. Parsons, to bring you their rendition of an animatronic fright fest to the small screen, taking clear inspiration from a certain video game franchise, yet ultimately fails at replicating any semblance of its horror inducing scares.

And the scares, or lack there of, come far and few between, and what’s more is the supporting characters in this movie, a group of young teens tasked with burning the place down, led by the rebellious Liv(Emily Tosta), a character with close ties to the establishment, try their best to elevate the fear factor for the title character ‘Willy’ and his menagerie of animatronic pals, but it’s hard to take them seriously when Nicolas Cage can dispatch each of them with a single punch. Or maybe that was the intention all along? Willy’s wonderland works best when it’s not trying to be a horror movie and instead leans more into it’s over the top premise of man vs fluffy machine which at times does produce some great and equally hilarious set pieces. One stand out moment involves Nic cage, an animatronic gorilla and an oversized toilet plunger. Yes you read that correctly.

Cage steals the show in every scene, as he turns in a surprisingly subdued performance than what we are usually accustomed to, peppered with moments of over the top blood soaked violence and aggression. It can be a real pleasure to watch Cage bounce from dedicated janitor, sweeping the floors and degreasing a dilapidated kitchen, to total animatronic killing badass and back again. Yet his character, though never uttering a word of spoken dialogue, never reveals his intentions, or any information on his backstory for that matter. Who is he? Where did he come from? and why does he like punch soda so much? We are given hints at who this character is but only through glancing moments which never offers up much in the way of viable characterisation.

Though, despite a great performance from Cage, the majority of this movies problems stem from deep within its foundations, the script. The characters are bland and stereotypical. They are what you expect them to be, nothing more and nothing less. Just your run of the mill idiotic teenagers with no sense of self preservation. It’s clear that the writer never gave much thought to these characters and only used them as live stock to boost the movies kill count. One moment the group are refusing to enter the establishment because of their prior knowledge of the horrors that await them within, the next their wandering around inside without a care in the world. To call out one instance in particular is an awkward sex scene that takes place between two characters whilst there friends are being butchered alive outside the room. It’s irrelevant and unnecessary, and feels more like an excuse to shoe horn nudity into the mix rather than build towards anything.

As the movie builds to its somewhat predictable climax, it becomes apparent that neither Lewis nor Parsons gave much thought to the lore it establishes early on. The supporting characters begin demonising Cage’s actions for destroying the monsters which left me puzzled and confused. We are told from out set that the town fear the animatronics but when they are swiftly eradicated, the towns folk try their best to stop Cage. Why? What logical sense would that make? Why stop someone that is solving your problems? But that’s when it hit me. This isn’t a film that stems from logic or reason. It’s a movie that is what it is, and never pretends to more than a quick cash in on a gaming franchise that garnered much success, wrapped up as gory B movie centred around Nicolas Cage.

So if your looking for a late night, over the top B-movie and can’t wait for Scott Cawthorn to finish his movie about killer animatronics, Willy’s Wonderland might satisfy those needs for now, it’s an easy watch and at times can be genuinely funny, but don’t expect anything more from it, and certainly don’t expect any scares.