If you’re bold enough to call your movie Mayhem, then you’d better make sure it lives up to the title and then some. As you might have expected, then, director Joe Lynch’s deranged hybrid of action and horror threw everything at the wall to ensure that it delivered the goods, which is accomplished with aplomb.
The filmmaker hasn’t managed to hit the same heights of acclaim before or since, with a Certified Fresh approval on Rotten Tomatoes of 84 percent making it the best-reviewed feature of his entire career, and it even manages to throw some real-world parables into the mix as economic downturns provide a surprisingly tangible narrative foundation for the blood-soaked romp.
It’s easy to get lost in the hype when a high concept genre flick ends up being touted as the bastard lovechild of two all-time greats, but it isn’t wide of the mark to say that Mayhem really is the offspring of Die Hard and The Raid set within the parameters of the zombie subgenre, which is every bit as deliciously deranged as it sounds.
Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving make for an excellent team as they battle their way through an office building after their co-workers transform into bloodthirsty feral beasts, while taking weapons of mass destruction to the faces of the people they work with is wish fulfillment on the most unhinged scale.
Mayhem was always in with a shot at cult classic status, and having secured it almost immediately, the outlandish epic is back for more on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, it’s one of the most-watched films on Starz as we speak, and it deserves to find a brand new audience and legion of fans with each passing generation.