Mayhem Film Festival – Day 4 Reviews

And so the fourth and final day of the Mayhem Film Festival was upon us...

THE PARAGON (2023) Dir - Michael Duignan

The final day of films got off to a cracking start with the offbeat, New Zealand sci-fi/paranormal comedy THE PARAGON. In which a former professional tennis player, who was injured during a hit and run accident, enlists the help of a psychic medium, Lara, to help him track down the driver of the car who knocked him over and ruined his career.

In return, Lara asks that he help her to locate a mysterious crystal called “The Paragon”, which her brother is also after, as she fears he will use it for evil. Leading to a series of extremely ridiculous,not to mention highly amusing and improbable incidents.

A really fun film, full of deadpan humour, which although has a rather silly premise, also looks at the issues of self sacrifice, redemption and that there are always 2 sides to every story. Which also had a strange “feelgood” quality to it.

View the Trailer on YouTube.

Whilst the film isn't “quite” a horror, its definitely one that fans of horror-comedies should seek out.

 

DARK MATCH (2024) Dir – Lowell Dean

The second film of the day, DARK MATCH, proved to be an equally enjoyable watch. Set in the 1980s, a group of wrestlers are hired to put on a special match in a remote, backwoods town for the locals.

Unfortunately, they find that the event is actually being run by a strange religious cult, who require 5 sacrifices for their god and now the group are literally fighting for their lives. Kind of a bizarre cross between “The Wicker Man” and the “WWE”, this was bloody good fun and was another hit with the audience.

Director Lowell Dean previously directed the Wolf Cop films and this even features some of the cast from those (most notably, Leo Fafard, who plays one of the wrestlers). So if you've seen those, you sort of know what to expect. Although it's Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead, Snowpiercer) and WWE wrestler Chris Jericho (Terrifier 2 & 3) who steal the show.

View the Trailer on YouTube.

If you liked Wolf Cop, you should love this equally funny and violent horror.

 

Short Film Showcase #2

This year the Mayhem Festival had 2 sections of short films, rather than just 1. Again, I'm not going to review them all, but the ones that stood out for me were...

Pocketman - Dir. Ericka Clevenger, US, 2m
A wedding is terrorised by a supernatural being who can steal things from pockets. Things escalate when the wedding party tries to get their stolen ring back. Good fun, with a comic twist.

Triptychn- Dir. Sophia Ray, UK, 14m29
A provocative artist, Margaux Kasser plans to destroy a Bosch masterpiece, claiming it's performance art. But it seems she has an ulterior motive for doing so and Margaux is in a fight to escape her fate. A dark twisted tale.

Reel - Dir. Rodrigue Huart, France, 4m12, with English subtitles
Set in1857 rural France, two young farm girls come across a smartphone in their field and mayhem ensues as they fight over who should keep it. A kind of humorous stab at commercialism, but done in a very abstract style.

 

LAST STOP ROCAFORT STATION (2024) Dir - Luis Prieto

Penultimate film of the festival was this Spanish language, supernatural horror from the Director of the original "Pusher" (2012). The plot essentially revolves around a new employee at a remote Metro station in Barcelona, Laura (Natalia Azahara) who has just started on the night shift at Rocafort Station

Having witnessed a suicide at work one evening, after one of her fellow workers jumps in front of a train. She is alarmed when she subsequently starts seeing strange ghostly visions of other victims at the station.

Discovering that Rocafort has a higher percentage of suicides than any other station on the network, she hires a former cop , Roman (Javier Gutierrez – Assassins Creed), who himself witnessed something there years earlier, to help her look into what's going on.

Somewhat reminiscent of "Sinister", this was an effective ghostly chiller, crossed with a detective drama and was certainly well received by the audience. I personally enjoyed it, if you like supernatural films, its definitely worth seeking out.

View the Trailer on YouTube.

The ending sets itself up for a sequel, so if one gets made, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for it. Director Luis Prieto was in attendance to introduce the film and take questions from the audience afterwards, which was a surprise as he wasn't originally scheduled to attend. But as he was in the country, managed to swing by.

 

SLINGSHOT (2024) Dir - Mikael Hafstrom

The festival closed with a screening of the new sci-fi thriller SLINGSHOT, which was a last minute addition to the line up, after the organisers had problems with the film they'd originally wanted to show.

Casey Afleck plays an astronaut on a deep space mission to the moon of Titan, around Saturn. But to get there, they have to do a gravitational slingshot around Jupiter (if you don't know what a slingshot involves, watch Star Trek 4).

Millions of miles from Earth with only his 2 crew mates for company, played by Laurence Fishburn and Tomer Capone (TV's - The Boys), and most of the time spent in hibernation. The strain of isolation begins to take its toll, which is not helped by the fact the drugs used for hibernation are having increasingly adverse effects every time they have to do a sleep cycle.

But when an asteroid collides with the ship, damaging long range communications, and other problems arise that threaten the mission, a rift forms between the crew as to whether they should press on, or turn back. To make matters worse, they all start showing signs of mental instability, hearing voices and seeing things that aren't there. As paranoia sets in, accusations of sabotage abound, and it becomes unclear as to what's real or not, even if the ship is still capable of making the slingshot, will the crew be in any state to complete the mission?.

A very warped thriller, that will keep you guessing as to whats really going on until the very end. Whilst the film was well received by the audience, it was a bit too grim for my liking, as it deals (albeit in the abstract) with issues of isolation and loneliness, which doesn't make for “uplifting” viewing.

View the Trailer on YouTube.

And that concluded the Mayhem Film Festival for another year. Thanks, as always, to the organisers, Chris Cook, Steven Sheils and Melissa Gueneau for the event, and of course, the entire staff of the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham for hosting it.

For more information on the festival and other special events throughout the year, visit the Official Website at: https://www.mayhemfilmfestival.com/

Also visit their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Also checkout http://www.broadway.org.uk/