In his long, varied and prolific career (around 128 films in just over four decades, at least according to IMDb’s listings), Nicolas Cage has collaborated with great directors such as Lynch, Scorsese and his uncle Coppola, and with absolute newcomers, creating memorable characters and others decidedly less so. He has become a self-parody, playing with his status as a cult actor, and he won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, often not shying away from projects, since what matters to him is simply to keep working. Now he is about to add another role to his gallery: that of one of the last survivors of a nuclear holocaust who must face hordes of cannibals, according to an early preview from Deadline. The film is titled Parish and is written and directed by Adam Sigal, the filmmaker who in 2023 brought Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose with Simon Pegg, and the previous year Chariot with John Malkovich, which had remained unreleased in our territory. Even those films boasted quirky and intriguing premises (and a touch of comedy), but let’s take a closer look at what Parish is about.
Nick Cage Against Cannibals
The story is described as follows: “Parish, a battle-hardened survivor, has managed to stay alive with his highly trained guard dogs, following a simple rule: never let anyone through the gate. That rule has kept him alive for thirty years. But when a desperate woman with a child appears outside his shelter, Parish is forced to choose between compassion and survival. His decision exposes the shelter he has spent years building and puts him in the sights of a gang of vicious cannibals who approach from the desolate lands. With his fortified stronghold under siege and his past coming back to haunt him, Parish must wage a brutal fight to protect all that remains to him.”
Now, even though this is set in a world devastated by a nuclear catastrophe, this action thriller radiates strong Walking Dead vibes. But we lovers of siege films, and Sigal must be truly adept at handling the tension such a story needs to generate, so we await with cautious optimism. Filming is expected to take place in Minnesota in October, with Star Wars veteran David Tattersall serving as director of photography. We therefore wait for soon-to-be-announced details about the rest of the cast and the female lead.
(Wikimedia Commons photo, Nicolas Genin, 2009)
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