The Surfer opens with its Australian-American protagonist, played by Nicolas Cage, giving his teenage son a surf-inspired pep talk: the ocean, he says, is ‘pure energy’. And like life, either you learn to ride it ‘or you wipe out’. These words could well have come from Cage himself, an actor known for his self-described ‘nouveau shamanic’ performance style, whose late-career oeuvre seems designed to repeatedly bring the sixty-one-year-old to the brink of spiritual oblivion. Even seemingly straightforward revenge romps like Mandy (2018) and Pig (2021) – in which Cage must avenge his girlfriend and his beloved truffle swine, respectively – transcend their thriller provenance to become on-ramps to ego death. Mandy in Mandy, the pig in Pig, the surf in The Surfer; all opportunities for Cage to stare into the abyss and see who blinks first.