Mayhem is an awesome movie with a fun premise. It's very entertaining and kept making me smile from how crazy it is. Some good dark humor. Likeable lead actor and actress. Good music too.

Samara Weaving is so damn cool, and it's not just because she's stunningly beautiful. (2 viewings, 8/6/2022)

Attorney Derek Cho (a fine and likeable performance by Steven Yuen) gets wrongfully sacked from his job. Cho's already bad day gets worse when a virus infects people in the workplace that causes the infected to act out their worst and most toxic id impulses.

Director Joe Lynch keeps the enjoyably wild story hurtling along at a brisk pace, maintains a blithely bent, batty, and berserk tone throughout, derives loads of laughs from the wickedly funny sense of twisted black humor, and delivers a handy helping of gloriously excessive gory violence. Matias Caruso's savage script pokes deliciously vicious fun at the ruthless soul-crushing dog-eat-dog-competitive nature of the big business white collar work environment.

Moreover, it's acted with zest by an enthusiastic cast: Samara Weaving as the feisty Melanie Cross, Steven Brand as sadistic slimeball boss John Towers, Caroline Chikezie as the formidable Kara Powell, Kerry Fox as the icy Irene Smythe, Dallas Roberts as the callous Lester McGill, Mark Frost as the burned-out Ewan Niles, Claire Dellamar as venomous secretary Meg, and Andre Eriksen as the brutish Colton Snyder. Steve Gainer's slick cinematography provides an impressive glossy look and makes neat smooth use of an often gliding'n'floating camera. Steven Moore's robust pulsating score does the rousing spot. A total blast.

MAYHEM (2017) is another comedy/horror about people in an enclosed location being subjected to a "rage virus" that causes them to lose all their inhibitions to act out their very worst murderous impulses. A common conceit these days, but the film functions much better as a kind of corporate satire with the shady practices of a law film exposed. Anyone with experience of office culture will see much to recognise here.

The film was shot in Serbia with Steven Yeun (THE WALKING DEAD) and Samara Weaving (READY OR NOT) as the leads. The budget is fairly low but there's a lot of action, a lot of blood and a fair bit of craziness going on throughout so it's superficially entertaining. I've always liked Yeun so seeing him going off the rails here was fun. It definitely works better as a comedy though as the horror content is quite predictable and half-hearted when it comes down to it. Nothing special in the end, but not bad for a one-off watch.