17 Horror, Sci-Fi and Cult Flicks We Caught at This Year's Mayhem Film Festival

County: United Kingdom

Director: Benjamin Barfoot

Starring: Danny Morgan, Georgia Groome & Michael Socha 

Running Time: 90 mins

Mayhem 2017 laid down a gauntlet for the rest of the festival with its opening film, the cracking British comedy/horror Double Date. Starring Danny Morgan (who also penned the script), as well as Nottingham’s Georgia Groome and Michael Socha, Double Date followed loveably innocent Jim who, aided by his cocky mate Alex, sets out on a quest to lose his virginity before his 30^th birthday. Unfortunately, the first willing girls he find have far more nefarious intentions for Jim.

Benjamin Barfoot’s film explodes out of the gates with a pulsating, blood red and black animated opening credits sequence perfectly accompanied by GOAT’s Run To Your Mama. The Swedish experimental fusion group’s music features heavily in the soundtrack, even making an appearance themselves in a beautifully shot nightclub scene. Double Date is original, gory and hilariously tongue-in-cheek. Ashley Carter

County: USA

Director: Natalia Leite

Starring: Francesca Eastwood, Clifton Collins Jr. & Michael Welch

Running Time: 95 mins

Art student Noelle (Francesca Eastwood) finds fresh inspiration for her paintings after accidentally killing the man who raped her at a campus party just days earlier. Her ordeal teaches her that campus rape victims are not treated fairly, and that the men committing the rapes are often let off and the crimes brushed under the carpet, fuelling her need for vigilante justice.

Eastwood gives an engrossing lead performance in what is a challenging role, but the main strength of M.F.A lays in its comprehensive exploration of attitudes towards campus rape culture, with those that cover up the crimes, those that think they’re helping and the rapists themselves coming under unforgiving scrutiny. Ashley Carter

County: USA

Director: Marianna Palka

Starring: Jaime King, Jason Ritter & Jason Maybaum

Running Time: 93 mins

Jason Ritter gives a performance packed with manic energy as a philandering father struggling to keep his family together after his wife, under the psychological strain of his lack of attention, breaks down and assumes the identity of a vicious dog. Ritter channels the smug vitality of Tom Cruise during a daytime TV interview as he first dismisses, then attempts to come to terms with his new role. In the space reserved for alternative film, Bitch was a film well-worthy of its place at Mayhem, kinetically pinballing from scene to scene, leaving the viewer in a constant state of entertained confusion as to what was possibly going to happen next. Ashley Carter

County: USA

Director: Trent Haaga

Starring: Matthew Gray Gubler, AnnaLynne McCord & Alisha Boe

Running Time: 93 mins

After his alpha-female girlfriend catapults him into the criminal world, reluctant armed-robber Chip embarks on a cross-country odyssey in this story of femininity, masculinity and risk. Writer/director Trent Haaga delivers a crowd pleasing film packed with action and humour, as Chip (Matthew Gray Gubler) finds himself descending further and further into chaos, struggling to find the backbone he needs to set himself right. Whilst 68 Kill is entertaining, it is hamstrung by some lazy dialogue and a striving for cult-status that exposes it as perhaps not being as cool as it thinks it is. Still, an enjoyable ride nonetheless. Ashley Carter

County: United Kingdom

Director: Simeon Halligan

Starring: Elliot Langridge, Rachel Richardson-Jones & Jessica Barden

Running Time: 90 mins

Possibly the most polarizing film of 2017 Mayhem, Habit, directed by Simeon Halligan, brings to life the sinister underbelly of Manchester and an interesting and ambiguous take on those that consume others. Protagonist Michael (James Elliot Langridge), is an out-of-work loser with a good heart who, on meeting fellow jobseeker Lee and her uncle Ian, gets caught up in the ins-and-outs (fnar) at Ian’s brothel Cloud 9, in an attempt to regain the sense of family that was taken from him in after his mother’s suicide. William Ash very much stole the show as Ian, though both Langridge and his right eyebrow - which seemed to carry most of the heavy acting - gave a strong performance. The story seemed to lose its way at points and the direction could have been tighter but ultimately it’s a pleasing hour and a half that gives some much needed screen time to a brilliant city. Love it or hate it, you’ll be intrigued. Penny Reeve

County: USA

Director: Steve Miner

Starring: Dana Kimmell, Tracie Savage & Richard Brooker

Running Time: 95 mins

A throwback to the classic franchise to celebrate Friday 13^th on the 13^th Mayhem Festival. It was a nice feeling of community within the screening. By this film, the festival wasn’t taking itself too seriously, the film didn’t take itself too seriously, and laughter flowed throughout the audience. The experience was given in oldschool 3D with red and blue paper glasses which was a nice touch. But despite the fun and frolics it is still a very ridiculous and pretty terrible film. 

The acting is bad along with the plot but we expect little else from a Jason film: there are some friends who have sex and then die. But despite this, it was still nearly an hour before anything really happened. The main redeeming factor was that the 3D element was so utterly bizarre that it was often hilarious. Different things that could move towards one’s face were randomly shown throughout and regularly resulted in a punchline to a scene. But that did even get old eventually. Even so, the final showdown picked the film up again and on a whole it was a relaxing breather mid-festival. Matt Smith

County: Japan

Director: Sion Sono

Starring: Reina Triendl, Mariko Shinoda & Erina Mano

Running Time: 85 mins

Tag is a Japanese film that was actually released in 2015 but has only recently been able to be released in the UK. It now tours film festivals and opened day three of Mayhem.  

It is absolutely bonkers. Tag feels like a film that has been inspired by a lot, both in terms of its content and its themes. The themes get so drilled into the viewer early on that they feel like clichés. However, despite that, they are still just as important today as they were fifty years ago.  I shan’t give too much away as, as mentioned before the picture started, it’s great to experience with little known about it. But, you won’t be able to tear your eyes from the screen for its sheer lack of predictability as you watch a young schoolgirl taken prisoner by the obscurities and malevolence of life itself. Hilarious and twisted, it’s worth a watch for morbid curiosity if nothing else. Matt Smith

After returning from a trip to the UN, renowned doctor Kim Jun-young arrives at the scene of a traffic accident to discover his young daughter his dead. No sooner as he made this realization, he is suddenly back on the plane, ready to start the day’s events again. Discovering that he is stuck in an endless loop of repeating the same tragic day, he teams up with paramedic Lee Min-chul, who also faces losing his wife in the same accident day after day, to discover what it is they’ve done in the past to cause it. Whilst A Day creeps toward melodrama on occasion, it is an interesting concept that is executed with verve, with Myung-min Kim in particular impressing in the lead role. Ashley Carter

County: USA

Director: Ana Asensio

Starring: Ana Asensio, Natasha Romanova & David Little

Running Time: 80 mins

A true gem. We follow a foreign resident of New York trying to make a living without a visa. It’s a very current look at how foreign people are treated when they move overseas and the crushing reality of the troubles they have to deal with can be felt by everyone who watches it.   It’s a very tender film, but in a sense like your friend is getting pushed farther and farther along this lake of thin ice that you know has to smash in any moment. The suspense that is built is difficult to shake off, and yet the film ends with a slap across your face and leaves you lying in the middle of a street. A fantastic film of real life horror that keeps you thinking back and further back to try and make sense of how something like this can happen to begin with. Matt Smith

The short film showcase was the initial purpose of Mayhem film festival upon its inception - and this year's line up contained something for every sensibility. Interestingly, many of the films used comedy to quickly endear themselves to the horror hungry audience, and this proved to be a sure tactic for winning the audience's approval this year. 

To start the showcase was US horror/comedy Don't Ever Change directed by Don Swaynos, which would whet the audiences appetite for humour. A reunion between a woman and her estranged daughter is interrupted by a man with an unusual request: for the woman - old now, but an infamous murderer in her youth who has done her time in prison and seemingly wishes to lead a normal life now she is free - to murder him, simply for the honour of being killed by such a prolific figure, and for the sensational story her return to killing would cause. With her estranged daughter outside on the telephone, the woman looks suitably horrified at this bizarre request, retreating into the kitchen ...until she returns and gleefully hits him over the head with a blunt object, sharing his enthusiasm for the plan.

Due to the way it was shot, and where it was shot - a normal suburban house, neutral colours, completely un-stylised - the gore that is present is genuinely effective and it is difficult to be desensitised to it in this setting. As the blood from this wound starts to drip down his face as he is still conscious, kneeling down on all fours as he prepared to brace for the attack, the man seems to realise slightly that he is in pain and it's not as fun as he imagined, which is as starkly unsettling as horror violence gets. As the wound drips blood, the woman is in the kitchen searching for a knife to finish him off and the dialogue regarding water spots on the weapon being an issue is darkly hilarious. 

A similarly horrifying and comedic film was Feeding Time from the US, directed by Matt Mercer, which centres around a girl who has been recommended to baby-sit for a couple by a friend. As soon as she arrives at their house for the evening the couple that greet her at the door are overbearingly friendly, extremely odd and wearing goggles. She is left alone with the baby who is upstairs and instant messages her boyfriend from downstairs. The humour stems from this part of the film, as she messages her boyfriend 'I love you'. He begins to type a response, the three dots appearing, and then stops, which of course indicates only one thing about their relationship. 

The horror in the film emerges as after hearing an ominous thud from upstairs and investigating, she realises that there's no baby in the crib, only an empty cage with an unlatched door. Upon attempting and failing to ring the couple in the kitchen using her phone, she is attacked first by one, and then fatally, by a group of deformed baby-size monsters with sharp teeth and glowing blue eyes, created with convincing effects, and introduced by a genuinely effective and unexpected jump scare. As her phone is thrown from her possession, the film cuts to a close up of it, showing the eventual reply from the boyfriend - 'I know.'

After all films had played and I exited, there was one that was frequently praised, and that was horror comedy Blood Shed. A UK short film, this was my favourite of the group, with the title alone leaving me with a big idiotic grin before I'd even seen the thing. Director and writer James Moran and co-writer Cat Davies are clearly well versed in horror tropes and cliches, as they have created a film that unabashedly and daftly includes them in what is one big knowing wink to an audience that they know will be in on the joke.

The story is of a man called Jack, played by Shaun Dooley, who builds a shed from suspiciously cheap second hand parts, which results in the unexpected creation of a killer shed, that lures people (and pets) inside itself to their demise. Alongside his put upon wife, played by the well-known comedy actress Sally Phillips, the first instance of the shed's killer tendencies is when it eats the postman, and spews blood on to the couple as they watch, concerned about this startling development, but never hysterical or shocked enough for the film to wander into boring old realism. The casting of the two leads is excellent, but that is to be expected from the two experienced professional actors the film acquired. A highlight is the conversation between the pair as Jack peruses magazine 'Men's Tools', and discovers, as a result of nagging and interrogation from his wife, that the various parts he used to build the shed were debris from old orphanages and abandoned prisons and other stereotypically haunted locations, and were well-advertised as such in the magazine. Jack also casually recalls that their own house was build on an ancient Indian burial ground, which we know always spells trouble. The hilarity increases ever more when he reveals he has named the shed Bunty. In true horror form, he begins to be hypnotised by the shed and drawn to its evil, a la Jack Torrence in The Shining, which results in a love scene so ridiculous the whole room was in hysterics. The man really did love his shed. Gemma E. Finch

County: Netherlands

Director: Dick Maas

Starring: Mark Frost, Sophie van Winden & Victor Löw

Running Time: 108 mins

Long have audiences enjoyed the simple premise of a monster on the rampage, and Dick Maas' horror/comedy Prey was no exception, if the applause at the end of the screening was an indicator. The director himself was present for the screening, and there was a Q&A at the end of the film. To me, any questions I had when the film had finished were not about the film's content, as to look at this film with a clinical, dissecting eye would be unnecessary, at least in terms of determining whether it was logical and plausible film. Nobody can watch Prey and yearn too much for an explanation as to where the lion came from - the film gives none - as this is not a cerebral piece of cinema in which every plot detail needs to be sewn together in order for it to be classed as a successful film.

The plot is simply and unpretentiously centred around a lion on the loose in the streets of Amsterdam, and the people who try to stop it. This film wasn't as daft and divisive as Sharknado, and the horror elements genuinely stand up to serious scrutiny, while remaining a rough around the edges joy ride of gore and mayhem. Horror highlights include the deadly combination of a lion inside a tram, which is as satisfying as it is unlikely to ever happen, and the somewhat shocking death of a little boy at the swing park, who encounters the lion after he descends down the tube slide. His sister's attempt to climb up the slippery surface of the slide to escape the lion as she begins to lose her grip is genuinely tense and scary. 

For its £3m budget, the CGI lion and model is present in scenes just frequently enough so the film does not descend in to an overdrawn farce of expositional build up to save money on the lion effects. The film contains likeable characters, a testament to Dick Maas' script and the quality of the actors involved - the main protagonist is a zoo veterinarian called Lizzy who is refreshingly likeable and funny, not the usual female we see in films of this genre, who is purely there for titillation. She is accompanied by her useless, unfaithful but ultimately likeable boyfriend, who is a worthy source of comedy, however the main source appears in the form of Lizzy's ex-boyfriend Jack, as he arrives from England to hunt the lion. Brightly comedic and a bumbling Brit, his presence makes the humour somewhat simpler to access for the primarily British audience without missing a beat, as prior to his arrival the film was in Dutch with English subtitles. While I cannot speak in complete certainties, this may have been slightly detrimental to the film in this case, as vocal delivery is important in interpreting comedy. That is not to say the film got no laughs, however. A memorable scene is when a delivery driver is on the phone arguing with his boss, who calls his mother a whore - the driver’s call is interrupted as he is attacked by the lion. After this, the film cuts to the abandoned phone with the oblivious boss still on the line, continuing to insult the driver’s aunts and grandma. Juvenile and daft, unpretentious and gore soaked, this is horror at its most joyous. I must add, LeftLion would never intentionally have a positive bias towards something lion related. Gemma E. Finch

County: Italy

Director: Dario Argento

Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini & Flavio Bucci

Running Time: 92 mins

After arriving at a prestigious dance school Suzy finds there’s a lot more going on than a couple of plies and some pirouettes. In fact murder, a coven of witches and other nefarious activities are the order of the day in the remastered 1977 Argento masterpiece. It’s easy to see how influential this film has been on films from Scream to The Love Witch, and rightly too, as it’s a neon soaked masterpiece with the creepiest (and loudest) score and a whole host of trippy sets pieces and camera tricks. The remastered film is currently on tour, so if you haven’t seen it yet track it down as soon as possible… before the inevitable slaughter by next year’s remake. Penny Reeve

County: Australia/Japan

Director: Aaron McCann & Dominic Pearce

Starring: Toshi Okazaki, Mayu Iwasaki & Masa Yamaguchi

Running Time: 87 mins

Ah, Mayhem’s fun Sunday morning movies are always a pleasure and Top Knot Detective was no exception. Shot as a mockumentary, the film details the rise, fall, and subsequent rise again of Top Knot Dectective (or Ronin Suiri Tentai outside of Australia), the best cult show around! Billed as Australia’s Spinal Tap the film is a nostalgic paean to Japanese pop culture of the 90s that also explores rivalry, crime and crushed romance behind the scenes. Expect giant penises, some intense fight scenes and a doomed love affair that will tug at your heartstrings. Penny Reeve

County: Iceland

Director: Erlingur Thoroddsen

Starring: Björn Stefánsson, Sigurður Þór Óskarsson & Guðmundur Ólafsson

Running Time: 111 mins

Icelandic suspense film Rift is an exploration of the emotional trauma that can be left from a relationship. Exploring how love can be a confusing necessity to life and also ultimately cause your demise. There’s a wonderful sense of absence within the film. Iceland makes for some beautiful scenery which blends picturesque landscapes with desolate barrenness absolutely seamlessly, representative of a lot of the relationships in the picture.

The amount of absence present forces the viewer to second guess everything, which is an extremely clever way of making you feel partly what the protagonists are going through. It lures you in without you being aware leaving you completely vulnerable to the scares. You feel cold and alone which ultimately is the scariest thing in life. My only gripe is that it did feel a little long. Every scene was wonderfully shot but even if it’s all great, too much of the same thing can eventually feel a little laboured. That shouldn’t deter you from it though; it’s immensely sad, leaves you hanging above the snow, and is beautifully re-watchable. Matt Smith

Script: Steven Sheil

Director: Steven Sheil & Chris Cooke

Starring: Jonny Phillips, Thomas Farthing, Melvyn Rawlinson, Olivia Newton, Rob Goll, Sylvia Robson

Running Time: 120 mins

After Rift ended, Mayhem goers were ushered out of screen one to set up for the enigmatic experience that was the live reading of Hammer’s lost script, Zeppelin v Pterodactyls. What to expect when we returned was a mystery. The event was the clear jewel in the crown of the festival for Broadway, as the silhouetted cut outs of pterodactyls and a zeppelin adorning the walls of the café bar pronounced. This will come as no surprise to horror fans who know that Hammer was, and to many still is, the last word in British horror – a company that since the 1950s had been producing horror content until its closure that had not only stood the test of time, but has created a legacy of horror. Triumphantly, Hammer was resurrected as a predominantly horror film producing studio in 2010 to the great joy of horror aficionados. To me, Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula will always be the ultimate interpretation of the legendary horror figure. This discovery of a lost concept by David Allen from the 1970’s is a lost treasure. From the detailed outlines David Allen provided in his concept, Mayhem film festival created the script with faithful detail.

What followed was a truly unique experience as the room filled up and the lights went down. The room was set up with a row of song sheet stands on the stage, where the actors and narrator would stand to read their lines, the screen, and a laptop and soundboard in the corner. After the visual stampede of the festival’s cinematic output, an experience like this could be far less stimulating – and while this medium will never become the entertainment quick fix of choice for the masses, its purpose was to be a labour of love, not for the majority, but for dedicated fans of Hammer, who knew how to visualise in its style. It was, too, a labour of love to push your own imagination to its limits, but the mind was adequately fuelled by the occasional on screen visual to establish a new location in the story, an original music score by Gavin Morrow and Gerallt Ruggiero and sound effects, as well as the presence of the voice actors on stage, who would mime certain actions, proving useful when visual inspiration was required. As it continued, I found myself fully able to envelop and transport myself in to the story, much like reading a book, not distracted by the knowledge that I was sat in a room full of people. It was very much a personal experience, as of course everybody’s vision was unique, and these are often the experiences that end up being the most treasured retrospectively. Each actor’s voice was distinct, adding various colours and shades to the blank canvas of my imagination. A particular talent among the actors was Melvyn Rawlinson who voiced Dr. Edmund Fulmer, his refined English accent extremely evocative of the Hammer productions from the seventies that I knew, that were frequented by Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, both with similar commanding and joyously English voices. The story itself went beyond the titular expectation of a Zeppelin being attacked by Pterodactyls - the creatures, who attached the airship we learn came from an inhabited island of prehistoric mysteries upon which the crew landed. This island contained giant docile sloths, as well as hostile lizard aliens that had learned only the worst traits from humankind, and who sought to destroy the other tribe on the island, and make them into lizards too. I used a favourite Hammer classic of mine from 1966, The Reptile, as inspiration for my imagination, which ensured I had a particularly menacing vision of the lizard’s appearance in my head…

This labour of love was a joy to experience, and one that can be relived, if you only close your eyes and imagine. A dreamlike experience, I enjoyed the fact that it allowed you to utilise your own creativity as you imagined the story as it was told. It almost becomes a joint production, in which everybody in the room deserves a credit for their internal realisation. Gemma E. Finch

County: USA

Director: Joe Lynch

Starring: Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving & Steven Brand

Running Time: 86 mins

Doubtlessly one of my highlights of the festival. The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun gives an electric performance in a relentless rage against the lack of accountability in corporate America. Recently fired Derek (Yeun) is stuck in the basement of the corporate office he used to work for with wronged client Melanie (Samara Weaving). When the building becomes quarantined after a virus that causes its victims to lose all inhibitions, the pair decide to seek their revenge against the company, working their way up the floors like a particularly gruesome video game, battling delightfully cartoonish bosses on their way to its summit. Part Wall Street, part High Rise and part The Raid; Mayhem is endlessly entertaining in all its claustrophobic, hyper-violent glory. Ashley Carter

County: Canada

Director: Peter Ricq

Starring: Lizzie Boys, Cameron Andres & Hannah Rochelle Burr

Running Time: 85 mins

Mayhem 2017 drew to a close in an explosion of zombies, gore and comedy with Peter Ricq's Dead Shack. Joining a slightly dysfunctional family on a half-baked cabin getaway, Jason (Matthew Nelson-Mahood) has his sights on escaping his even more dysfunctional family, and potentially getting close to Summer (the wonderfully named Lizzie Boys).  What he doesn't expect, however, is to find himself battling a zombie hoarder (Lauren Holly) who has been keeping her undead husband and children alive with human sacrifices.  The majority of the laughs come from Donavon Stinson, Summer's drunken but loveable father, as the plot winds up to the inevitable showdown.  Dead Shack was doubtlessly amongst the funniest films of the entire festival, providing a fresh take on the ubiquitous zombie genre and bringing a curtain down on another fantastic showcase of films from the Mayhem team.  Ashley Carter

Mayhem Film Festival took place at Broadway Cinema, from Thursday 12 - Sunday 15 October 2017

Mayhem Film Festival website