I go into every movie during 31 Days of Horror with as little foreknowledge of the film as I can manage. This keeps the surprises coming, but sometimes leads to me choosing a movie that doesn’t 100% meet the criteria of a horror flick. Tonight’s film is an example of one. It’s got plenty of violence, some gore, a decent amount of humor, but is short on scares. It’s not a standard horror film, but it sure is fun.
Day 2’s movie was Mayhem, a 2017 film starring Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead fame and Samara Weaving. When a viral outbreak that destroys the infected’s moral inhibitions runs amok in a corporate office building, an unlikely due fights their way to the CEO’s office to address wrong-doings. Mayhem, predictably, ensues.
I was expecting a 31 Days Later type scenario, but the film put a great twist on that premise. The virus is known by the public at large and even led to a precedent-setting court case when a man wasn’t charged for a brutal murder he committed while infected by the contagion. This legal loophole means that if our two heroes (who do engage in some unheroic violence throughout the film) get to the building’s corporate suite on the 8th floor, they have free rein to perpetrate some bloody mayhem on those who did them wrong. With the quarantine set to be lifted after 8 hours—the duration of the infection—the need to enact their vengeance before they lose their proverbial “Get out of Jail Free” card.
Mayhem isn’t going to appeal to your die-hard zombie outbreak fans, but it is incredibly cathartic for anyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment. I could have used this virus back in 2000 when I was working an office in Manhattan.
The film includes some great dialogue (“You think I like the taste of kale? Come on! I’m fucking dead inside.”) and a tremendous amount of violence via office supplies. And from a filmmaking standpoint, a nice bit of cinematic shorthand quickly sums up Derek Cho’s rise up the corporate ladder from his first day until the day of the events of the film.
Rating: While not 100% horror, Mayhem was still fun enough to earn 3 skulls out of 5. Add another half-skull if you’re stuck in corporate hell.
