Mayhem (2017)

So mix The Purge, with a dash of Office Space, and a smidgen of The Belko Experiment.  What you end up with is Mayhem.  Starring Steven Yeun as a lawyer at a consulting firm where everyone is at each other's throat already fighting to climb that corporate ladder.  The movie introduces most of the rest of the work place as a bunch of assholes who seem to hate each other or willing to toss one another under the bus to elevate their own position.  So the movie right off the bat during it's opening introduces us to a virus that is going around which causes folks to become overly aggressive and removes their inhibitions.  People loose control releasing all their built up aggression, commit acts of violence, make rash decisions, have random sex, and other good times.  With this intro to the movie you pretty much know whats gonna go down.

SUPER PINK EYE!

As the office building becomes contaminated, it is put under quarantine and well all mayhem breaks loose!  Everyone is out for blood, and as the movie progresses the chaos just increases.  The employees aren't gonna take it anymore, violence erupts all over as folks release all the pent up rage and frustrations they have at work with their coworkers.  Now Mayhem is not exactly played up for it's horror angle, the movie has an almost music video type of aesthetic to it with lots of quick cuts, quirky camera tricks, as well as just trying to have fun with the whole thing.  The movie almost feels like it could be a Rockstar video game with how our main characters have to make a journey up the building to collect a key to get up to the top for a literal boss battle.  That's essentially the plot here.

Casual Fridays

The movie also introduces rules to how the virus works which propels the movie forward, but also kinda make the whole movie extremely structured.  It's very similar to a small scale The Purge but kept within the confines of an office.  The setting obviously leads to some workplace related humor as folks can do whatever they like, but I do feel they could have done so much more with this movie.  In a way I feel the movie just didn't really grasp what direction it wanted to take.  Action, horror, comedy?  The movie kinda tries to mix it all together when it needed to maybe push more in one direction of lean heavier towards a genre.  It's obvious the movie is trying to be fun but also it feels a little aimless in it's direction.

Welcome to the purge!

Mayhem really is just "ok".  It's not a bad movie, but really feels like it missed many opportunities to create something unique.  It's a very predictable movie, with a setting setup that makes everything seem too convenient for the everyone involved.  Worth a stream, but couldn't really recommend it.