One thing that could go wrong is if you choose the Cage Rage Package that doesn’t come with dialogue included. Yes, one of the major twists of “Willy’s Wonderland” that feels necessary to impart to potential viewers is that the star of “Mandy” and “Color Out of Space,” you know the one known for completely committed line readings of even the most ridiculous material, has not a single line of dialogue in this action/horror flick. Going for a strong/silent thing like the Western heroes that people like Clint Eastwood defined is definitely a choice, but that’s not really what Cage is doing here. Sure, he’s got the snarl and the stare down, but he’s closer to half-asleep than scary-cool. Cage has been accused of sleepwalking through some of his recent choices, letting the kitschy goodwill of his viral clips from other films do half of his acting for him. That’s never been truer than here.
Cage plays a drifter who gets trapped by a group of locals in a small town, including a sheriff played by Beth Grant. When the drifter is told his car repair will cost cash that the drifter doesn’t have, a deal is struck. If he can spend the night cleaning up the rundown family entertainment complex known as Willy’s Wonderland than the car repair is on the house. Of course, viewers are clued in early on that the plan is for our hero never to make it out of Wonderland. You see, the animatronic puppets there come to life every now and then, and they need a sacrifice. Meanwhile, a girl with a connection to the playland named Liv (Emily Tosta) convinces her friends to go with her to burn down the Wonderland once and for all, but first they have to save the new janitor. He doesn’t need saving.
After an interminable set-up, “Willy’s Wonderland” does get to the good stuff for about 40 minutes or so. That consists of Liv’s friends getting sliced up by animatronic creatures that look like they were designed in 1978 and then getting torn apart themselves by Cage’s brutal drifter. Sadly, the horror elements are flat, and the action is poorly choreographed that it's hard to even tell what’s happening half the time. There's also absolutely zero tension or danger. As many issues as I have with some of Rob Zombie's work, I was reminded how he can imbue films with out-there concepts like this (think "House of 1,000 Corpses" or "31") with some of his personality. They expected Cage to bring all of the personality here. He did not.
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