Weird "Prisoners of the Ghostland" on-brand for Biannual Strange Cage Movie™ but amounts to little

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

“Weird” can be interesting. “Weird” can be entertaining. “Weird” can even be good. But what to make of the nonsensical weirdness in “Prisoners of the Ghostland” is pretty futile, becoming mighty tedious, grating, and so emotionally distancing after a while. An intriguing convergence between Japanese auteur Sion Sono and Crazy Cinema auteur Nicolas Cage (see him in "Pig" instead), this samurai steampunk western might be the right brand of weird for a very slim niche audience, but it won’t do anything for everyone else. At best, “Prisoners of the Ghostland” is an anything-goes curiosity that leaves one waiting for it to either go all out or rein it in.

In a post-apocalyptic Samurai Town, a bank robbery goes awry for a criminal, simply named “Hero” (Nicolas Cage), after his partner, Psycho (Nick Cassavetes, director of “The Notebook”), shoots a bunch of innocent bystanders, including a small boy. Hero is imprisoned and dragged out by the town’s slimy ruler, The Governor (Bill Moseley), to rescue his “granddaughter,” Bernice (Sofia Boutella), from the dead town of the Ghostland. The catch is that Hero is forced to wear a tight leather suit with explosive devices; if the suit detects the impulse of its wearer striking Bernice, it will detonate his limbs (or each of his testicles), or if he tries to remove the suit, game over. Will Hero venture into “the unknown of the unholy” and rescue Bernice unscathed in order to be a free man? 

East meets West in this cross-section of samurai warriors and steampunk misfits, but somehow, all of this sounds more fun than how it actually plays out on screen. The script by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai is a basic hero’s journey, but Sion Sono surely brings a full vision to his English-language debut. The opening robbery in a sterile bank, populated by customers in bright colors (including an innocent young boy at the gumball machine), is quite striking, and there is beauty in how the dusty wasteland is designed. The details of this world are something else—like residents of the Ghostland chanting to a giant grandfather clock and prisoners hiding under porcelain doll pieces—and a hyper-violent bit involving a decapitation within a paper lantern is cool, but none of it adds up to anything compelling beyond a surface level.

“Prisoners of the Ghostland” defies genre but squarely fits into the “not for all tastes” category. Cage commits to everything, even as a less-deranged anti-hero archetype, but he’s not always at an eleven here. Still, the actor has his choice moments of delirium, especially when he yells, “Testicle!” As Bernice, Sofia Boutella deserves more to do, although she does get to do some work with a samurai sword in the end. It is all very on-brand for the Biannual Strange Cage Movie™, but what a shame that most of it feels like strange world-building in search of a real story and characters that matter. 

Grade: C

RLJE Films is releasing “Prisoners of the Ghostland” (100 min.) in select theaters, VOD, and Digital September 17, 2021.