MAYHEM FILM FESTIVAL 2015
October 15 - 18

The end of October means one thing here at Strange Things: four days of horror and cult cinema, courtesy of the Mayhem Film Festival. But what is this?  A review of the event while we are still (almost) in the middle of the month? What witchcraft is at work here?

Well, it’s nothing supernatural. For reasons many and varied, Mayhem this year – and perhaps every year from now on – has switched from the traditional Halloween slot to a couple f weeks earlier – October 15 – 18 to be precise.  This has not been an entirely uncontroversial move, with some regulars unable to attend after assuming that the dates were set in stone, but I would venture that it is a sensible one – Halloween is a ridiculously busy period of events, and escaping those dates has been something several of us had been advocating for some time.

It also makes sense, as Mayhem is increasingly not a horror film festival. Having long dropped the ‘H’ word from the official title, Mayhem organisers Chris Cooke and Steven Sheil have increasingly stretched the boundaries of the festival, and nowhere was this more apparent than on the opening night, where only one of the three films shown could really be described as a horror movie.

That film was opener Emelie, an impressively creepy ‘bad babysitter’ film that never quite goes where you might expect it to. It’s a film that taunts you with a plethora of taboo moments – animal slaughter, child sexual abuse, bad seedery and a villain who is not quite what she seems even when the mask has slipped – and does so without ever becoming gratuitous or unsavoury. With fine acting from its young cast, Emelie was a genuine surprise, a film that outstripped any expectations and set up the weekend nicely.

If Emelie was an unexpected treat, then Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD was a much-anticipated movie – one of a number over the weekend that attracted an audience way beyond the full pass holders. Paul Godwin’s documentary about ‘the galaxy’s greatest comic’ is a fascinating, sometimes frustrating story that could probably never completely satisfy – it seems to runs through the early days of the comic rather quickly and skips some vital information (there’s no reference to the fact that Strontium Dog began in Starlord before that comic was absorbed into 2000AD, for instance) and perhaps lingers too much on internal company politics. But it’s a fascinating story, featuring most major players (Alan Moore being a notable exception) and is features enough nostalgic history to keep most old 2000AD readers like myself happy.

Rabid Dogs was the first night closer, and a film that seemed to be on a hiding to nothing, being a remake of Mario Bava’s extraordinary and intense crime movie. Eric Hannezo’s film starts off well, removing itself enough from Bava’s film while sticking to the central narrative, piling on slick style and very much setting out to be its own film. But it goes steadily down hill, reaching a low point as it goes all Wicker Man (or, God help us, Kill List) towards the end. Perhaps in today’s climate, you couldn’t make anything as nastily sleazy as Bava’s film – in which case, why bother remaking it – but this was an increasingly unsatisfying effort that, even as a stand-alone film,  wouldn’t work.

Day Two opened with a new afternoon slot, designed to show titles that might be a bit outré for the normal programme. And Crumbs, an Ethiopian science fiction film that wears its Jodorowsky influences on its sleeve, certainly seemed to be that. A strange, sweet post apocalypse tale in which our hero Candy wanders the landscape searching for Santa Claus and a way to get back to the space ship that hovers above the planet, it’s a film of some charm and considerable oddness – at times seeming a little contrived in its weirdness, but mostly effectively amusing and haunting. It might not be for everyone, but the pleasingly large audience that turned out to see the film seemed to appreciate it.

We had to skip Nina Forever, reluctantly – the need for food overriding the desire to see the film – though many people would later say that this British tale of a ghostly love triangle was one of the best films of the weekend. We were back for Howl, another British film that was pleasingly old fashioned – at a time when British genre filmmakers are all too often vanishing up their own arses, watching a no-nonsense werewolf movie with a bunch of people trapped on a train was rather refreshing. It’s no masterpiece, and very much feels like a lot of scenes that you have seen before spliced together, but nevertheless, Howl was a lot of fun.

After that, Stung – giant bees in what sounded very much like it could be more Zombeavers than fun – didn’t appeal as much as an early night in readiness for a long day ahead.

Saturday opened up with Parasyte: Part 1, a Japanese film adapted from an anime that was in turn adapted from a comic book.  The story of one schoolboy’s battle against an invading force of parasites that adopt human form and live off human flesh, it was thankfully less insane than some of the other Japanese films shown in previous years, though still pretty wacky – the fact that our hero is assisted by a parasite that has become lodged in his hand and becomes its own character ensured many a laugh. The film was probably a little long, and might have been more effective as a TV pilot – the audience were all left hanging as to what happens next, so I suspect a fair amount of torrenting took place that night – but it was a fun start to the day.

He Never Died didn’t seem all that on paper – Henry Rollins plays an immortal cannibal who meets his long lost daughter – but in fact turned out to be the highlight of the weekend.  Rollins is deadpan perfect as the monosyllabic hero, who finds his efforts to stay ‘on the wagon’ (i.e. not eating anyone) through a life of tedious routine are ruined as he is pointlessly dragged into a petty gang war. While the ending is a little weak (you really want a better villain to be behind everything), the film is sharply witty, sometimes rather tragic and constantly original. Seeing a film like this with no expectations is very much what events like Mayhem are about – the sense of discovery and revelation.

Following this was the traditional shorts programme – a mixed selection as ever, from the locally made mad science gorefest Lab Rats to the dark gothic of the shadow puppet MR James story Count Magnus. Highlights included the ludicrous Himiko the God Slayer Versus the Daemon Legion of Azure Dragons, in which a female Japanese warrior battles plastic toy crocodiles in the forest (brief enough to stay amusing), Alice Lowe’s bleakly gorgeous and creepy nun horror Solitudo, and slickly made science fiction sexbot story Juliet.

Things then took a unique turn, with the much anticipated live performance of the unfilmed 1970 Hammer screenplay, The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula (my God, they knew how to name films back then, right?). Sitting somewhere between a cast reading and a radio performance, a collection of actors led by Hammer expert Jonathan Rigby as narrator performed this surprisingly unusual Dracula story, set in India, and held the audience spellbound for two and a half hours. It was a fine, dramatic performance with a fine cast, and the story was remarkable – still feeling very modern and very much unlike Hammer of the period. Whether or not this remains a one-off performance remains to be seen (in many ways, and not for selfish reasons, I rather hope that it does), but if you missed this, then you probably missed the most intriguing, ambitious and exciting thing ever done at any UK horror film festival.

Saturday ended with a late night retro screening of Society – on 35mm, no less – that I felt I could miss in favour of late night socializing, which of course left us all in fine fettle for Sunday, which kicked off in what has become something of a Mayhem tradition, with a cheerfully trashy affair – Deathgasm. I had my doubts abut this gore drenched heavy metal horror, partly because of the regular comparisons to Peter Jackson, partly because of a (thankfully misguided) fear that it was another self-consciously 1980s retro effort. It turns out to be rather better than either of those fears suggested, though it’s never more than lightweight splatter cinema, based around zombies being created by a piece of satanic music performed by the titular band. Mrs Strange Things enjoyed this one rather more than me, but then I am usually a bit worn down by Sunday and less tolerant than I might otherwise be.

If Deathgasm eased people into Sunday with fun, trashy horror, then German Angst brought everyone crashing back to grim reality. This German anthology is a strange combination – the final story is almost a feature film in itself – and certainly seemed to split audiences. Jorg Buttgereit’s opener Final Girl was the highlight for me, showing that he hasn’t changed much in his years away from filmmaking, which Michal Koskowski’s tale of a deaf-mute couple coming across neo Nazis was a bit too relentlessly one-note for my tastes, and the constant shrieking of the female Nazi felt close to torture (Koskowski was on hand to introduce the film, and of course turned out to be a lovely chap). Andreas Marschall’s lengthy story of kinky sex clubs, goths and weird drugs was interesting if sometimes inadvertently hilarious to those of us who have been there and done that.

The Witch, bizarrely, proved to be the most popular – in terms of bums on seats – film of the festival, with a queue snaking down the stairs and filling the foyer. Rather odd, unless it has been receiving gushing press that I’m unaware of. Being awkward – and having miscalculated the length of a food break – Mrs Strange Things and myself decided to give this one a miss. It seemed a crowd splitter – opinions ranging from it being a masterpiece to unbelievably boring.

Also splitting opinion was Aaaaaaaah!, though in this case, if you thought that this film was good, I would suggest seeking medical attention immediately. Steve Oram’s dismally self-indulgent effort was essentially a scatological sketch from a crap comedy show dragged out to feature length, with humans acting like apes (the dialogue is all grunts). Certainly, it got laughs – in fact, the audience seemed t think the sound of a new character grunting 45 minutes in was just as funny as the first time they’d heard it. Interestingly, before the film, one of our crew heard someone laughing hysterically in the toilets, as if practicing, but far be it from me to suggest that there was a ringer in the audience encouraging guffaws. In any case, I walked after three quarters of an hour of one of the worst films that I have ever seen, and would suggest anyone with an ounce of self-respect avoids this one like the plague.

After this, I was more than ready to take no nonsense during the annual Flinterrogation quiz, which as usual saw few people getting correct answers – I genuinely thought it was easier this year, too.

The festival ended with The Invitation, which had just won the top award at Sitges and which we all had high hopes for. But Just as He Never Died proved to be a pleasant surprise, Karyn Kusama’s film was very disappointing. The story of a reunion of old (and mostly annoying) friends, this was less slow burn than no burn, taking 75 minutes before anything happened, and then revealing the ‘dark’ ending that we’d all seen coming 30 minutes in, the moment that religious cults were first brought up. The film looks gorgeous and is beautifully constructed – it just goes nowhere incredibly slowly. I felt myself feeling somewhat infuriated by the film as it dragged on, with its tedious yuppie bores droning on and on and on, and knowing that this was the final film of the weekend. There was a sense of anti-climax about the whole thing, which was disappointing, and did a disservice to what was otherwise a fantastic weekend with a mostly impressive film selection.

Still, you can’t please everyone. And my grumbles about the final film were not shared by all. In any case, it hardly matters – Mayhem remains the cultural highlight of the year, a great social event, and opportunity for cinematic discovery and four days of movie-based fun. I very much doubt that it would be possible to please all the people all the time, and half the fun is debating with people afterwards about which films were good or bad.

And despite the odd duffer on Sunday evening, this might have been the best Mayhem yet. It means that next year, the boys will have and even harder task on their hands – how do you top that Dracula performance? – but I’m sure that they are up to it.

DAVID FLINT

MAYHEM 2010 REVIEW

MAYHEM 2011 REVIEW

MAYHEM 2012 REVIEW

MAYHEM 2013 REVIEW

MAYHEM 2014 REVIEW