Zandalee. Zandalee! ZANDALEE! The movie that warped my brain for days. I literally went from hating it, to obsessing over it, to deciding it’s one of the most amazing pieces of shit I’d ever seen. Much like the main title character, I have no idea if I love it or hate it. But I need it.
It sure was a movie!
Zandalee is a not so erotic morality tale focused on the title character. Zandalee Martin (Erika Anderson) is the attractive wife of Thierry, oddly played by Judge Reinhold, a man who would NOT be my first choice for an erotic thriller… Thierry is a Tennessee poet who has given up the pen and taken on a fledgling family business position he didn’t want in New Orleans, Louisiana. By day Zandalee is friendly with her nosy garbage man - Steve Buscemi, as well as her local bartender - Aaron Neville, who wears only sleeveless leather and denim vests. She is a dressmaker who owns a boutique and engages with crossdressing friend and only likable character, Joe Pantoliano. By night she is a bored wife who berates her husband for his recently deceased Daddy issues and physical and emotional impotence as a result of the latter. Oh, and Thierry’s eccentric and newly widowed mother lives with them, which may also be a boner killer for the poor bastard. Once a poet, he no longer writes or aspires to write. Their marriage is struggling. They have emotional lilting conversations in fading southern accents straight out of Tennessee Williams dinner theater.
Judge Reinhold as Thierry trying to make love to his wife, I literally wrote in my notes for this JUDGE REINHOLD IS NAKED AND IT FEELS WRONG! NOOOOOOOO! I see Judge Reinhold as a Dad character, or a goofy character. Beverly Hills Cop comes to mind. But the second he is naked on screen. I am trying to redress him with my eyes. It’s like entire conversations with naked Judge Reinhold! His sad impotent sex scenes with his sad dad bod. After failing to make love to Zandalee, he calls himself a paraplegic of the soul. His wife screams she wishes he was a paraplegic then masturbates and cries. It is the most awkward and uncomfortable scene. I was like who cast Judge Reinhold in this! Then later read he was a producer on this, it was his project and his baby. He cast himself…. Ugh - vanity project!
One night at a party Thierry runs into his old friend Johnny, played by our boy Nicky Cage. Cage’s entrance is reminiscent of his character in Face/Off as he enters the party like the opposite of Thierry - a total head banging rock star. Johnny Collins is an oily repairman who moonlights as a coked up bohemian artist. Buckle up bitches. He’s about to blast you to the moon!
Thierry makes the mistake of bringing his sexually charged friend home to meet his family. Johnny sees Zandalee and despite being his “friends” wife, he immediately starts flirt-terrorizing her. This later extends to stalking her and spouting out horrific panty droppers like “We’re inevitable. I want to shake you naked and eat you alive, Zandalee.” Trust me, they just get weirder from here. Inevitably, (haha, see what I did there) Zandalee and Johnny have an arty and semi-forced affair.
Now let’s talk scenery chewing. Not since my beloved Showgirls, or The Room has there been scenery chewing in sex scenes quite like this. Nic is Cage Raging through plowing Zandalee like nothing else. I couldn’t contain my glee/horror. Nick’s “sexy” look for this film is very shiny, very oily. His hair has an incredible black mullet weave in the back while sporting one hell of a porn stache and soul patch. To see him in full regal, with his devil may care attitude, scene chewing every chance he gets - Cage Magic.
The sex scenes are unfortunately where Cage Rage is happening the most. At one point Johnny Cage Rage finger paints Zandalee’s belly with blue paint in what is suppose to be like a 9 ½ weeks type situation. It’s not. He draws little bits of ze art on her. When saying she won’t leave her husband because he was a poet,he rando finger bangs her telling her “this is poetry.” At another point in their trysts he tells her to get on her stomach and makes a lube of olive oil and cocaine. She protests saying she doesn’t get high. He responds saying oh this won’t get you high, as he shoves it straight up her ass. What a romantic! Just when you think this guy can’t possibly sweep her off her feet any more - he stalks her and butt rapes her in a church and upon climax says thank you, Father! *barf*
As Zandalee continues to have ze rapey arty hate sex with Cocaine Johnny, Thierry continues to pull further away. At one point it’s super obvious he knows what’s going on. Kind of hard not to. After obnoxious oily beau-hunk Johnny tries to get dirty under the table with Zandalee at her own small dinner party, they go into the next room to “get dessert” as she fights off his advances. But as these two crazy kids are prone to do, their fight propels them to the bone zone and they hop on the old washing machine and have it off in audible distance of THE PARTY! Thierry looks up and puts two and two together. You have to think, if he can hear it so did his like Mom and all their friends, including, for some reason, Marisa Tomei. It’s so upsetting that Thierry can barely keep his southern accent straight and they all sit awkwardly around the table.
After quarreling some more, Zandalee tries to break it off with Johnny. Johnny has other sexy ladies calling him and leaving him sexytime messages. Zandalee hears one and gets crazy jealous and trashes his studio / apartment. Take THAT Johnny!
Finally, Zandalee goes to her sad husband and tells him everything and asks if they can start over again, just the two of them. Thierry agrees and they make love successfully. Pleased as punch with herself she says to him “See, every part works.” Talk about passive aggressive.
As the couple gets ready to take off down the bayou and happily day drinks their probs away, Johnny Cage Rage shows up and he’s ready to dance. He takes Thierry, NOT Zandalee, by the paws and begins to Tango. Both men are looking bizarre and as if they both are trying to lead. It’s weird energy. Matt chimed in and said ‘where is this movie! I want to see more about this story!’ We imagined a world where this delved into a Brokeback Mountain I-just-can’t-quit-you moment, because let’s face it - that would have been epic and turned the movie into a story that was never about Zandalee at all but about the men who used her because they were too afraid to be in love with each other. OMG tears! Yassss!
But it’s not about that, because next thing ya know, day drunk Thierry is pulling a gun on everybody and shit starts getting real. They all get into the boat and are drinking and driving it through the murky water. At some point they all tumble out and are trying to kill / save one another. Thierry starts to drown and Zandalee tries to save him until she starts to drown and Johnny saves her while Thierry drowns then Cage fights him then saves him. Then in an awkward as fuck twist, Thierry jumps up and bites Johnny on the neck so hard he tears a hunk of flesh off then dives down under water like a fish and drowns himself. What. The. Fuck.
It’s not over yet. Cage gets cocaine crazy after Thierry dies. He flips on the regular. His Cage Rage wad is blown on the breakdown temper tantrum of all time while scrubbing himself in black paint. This makes Vampire’s Kiss infamous Cage Rage tantrums, look like mere child’s play! Epicly weird!
Eventually he restalks Zandalee who has been telling her life story to the nosy garbage man Buscemi, and tries to rekindle their relationship. She recoils. Just as they are crossing butt rape church a little if ever mentioned gangster tries to do a drive by of Johnny. Guess he wasn’t paying for all that coke up her ass. Zandalee throws herself in front of the bullet and dies. Now it’s just dumb Johnny. Boo the end.
Had this been a french film with the intentions of being a relationship drama it would have been amazing. There is a deep story buried somewhere in the scenery chewing and unsexy sex. A story of deteriorating relationships and three people who are falling apart and can’t save each other from their own dysfunction. It blurs the line of love, obsession and hate. BUT what you are actually getting is an overacted American film that calls itself an erotic thriller when it is neither erotic or a thriller. It’s a vanity project at best.
What separates this from a typical Cage Rage performance is that Nick is totally rolling with some of these scenes all the way up to 11. Then he makes the difference by following that up with completely pulling back. Then again creep, creep, creep boom pow Cage Rage 11. An interesting side note. Nicolas Cage, particularly in his early days pre-tax probs, is a method actor. You have got to wonder what his prep was to prepare for this role.
Here’s the breakdown:
The Best Parts - Nick Cage
- Nick Cage
- Nick Cage
The Worst Parts - Good Idea, Poor Execution
- Judge Reinhold
- Butt Rape
References:
Zandalee: Shake You Naked and Eat You Alive - Nat Prance, Medium 8/28/16 https://medium.com/everyniccagemovieever/zandalee-shake-you-naked-and-eat-you-alive-a8d868d1c074
Bad Movies We Love - Edward Margulies & Stephen Rebello, Plume Books
CageCast - Zandalee (1991) Full Review 7/1/2015 https://youtu.be/vBUdRw-Y0mk
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