Hi Folks,
Sorry for the delay on getting my review of the last day of MAYHEM up but it’s been manic here, you know what Halloween time is like for all us horror fans!Anyway enough on my ramblings on to the final day of MAYHEM.
After the brilliant late night showing of Demons and a trip to various Nottingham bars I awoke had some coffee and headed down to Broadway, more coffee was definitely needed!
First up for the day was the UK premiere of Inuyashiki. A live manga-amine adaptation and it certainly blew the Saturday night cobwebs away! It tells the story of an old guy and a young boy who both witness weird lights late one night in the same park then later realise that they have both somehow to develop incredible superpowers. One obviously turns out good the other bad, A proper stinker he is! The pacing was spot on and the special FX were amazing, easily equalling any big budget Hollywood movie. The characters were also superb especially the old guy who I personally was really cheering on, oh and his dog! Not sure when this will get a UK release but one you should definitely keep your eye out for.
Next up was The Field Guide To Evil an anthology of 8 stories from the creators of ABC’s of death which was a great idea of all the stories being inspired by different folklore tales from around the world. This to me was very similar to ABC’s of death where some worked and others I thought were really quite poor. In saying that the 117m running time went pretty quick and you could do a lot worse on a rainy day. Worth a look but don’t expect to be blown away.
On to the next, For me this was definitely in my top 3 of the festival The Witch in the window. When I read about it I thought it sounded like just another insidious/The Conjuring style movie but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Yes it has jump scares and boyt did they make us all jump! But for me aside from the horror elements the thing that made it work really well was the father and son relationship. I can’t really say much more but you should definitely catch it as soon as you can. I know it’s available on Shudder so that’s well worth it. Solid.
Unfortunately we had to skip this year’s quiz as we hadn’t eaten a thing all day but as usual I heard it was brilliant fun as always.
Our penultimate film for the final day was the Brazilian movie The Nightshifter, It told the story of Stenio a mortician who can talk to the recently deceased, Basically he is their last chance of communication before going to the big man upstairs or the horny fellow downstairs. Upon his slab are various dead folk who tell him secrets of drug deals gone wrong and even things involving his ever nagging wife. I can’t tell you what this leads to but it has a great and fantastic pay off. Very violent in places and I personally loved it. It’s one to seek out and I will definitely be adding it to my collection.
The last film of the festival was upon us already, it seemed to go so quickly!
That film was What keeps you alive, on the eve of there 1st wedding anniversary two women go off to a beautiful forest getaway for the weekend and all is going lovingly well until………
Yeah you know the score right? Possibly, possibly not! It has a twist,Then another! It really kept me guessing what would be the outcome right until the end. The two lead female rolls are acted superbly and the chemistry on screen between them really worked for me. Well worth a look even though a little predictable towards the end.
So that was that, Mayhem finished for 2018 but what a festival it was. Like I said in an earlier post I have been coming to MAYHEM for many years and this for me and indeed Emma agrees that this was the best one yet. Roll on MAYHEM 2019 which by the way is the 15th anniversary!
See you there!!
Thank you for reading and happy Halloween!