Joe Lynch's very violent MAYHEM goes gleefully and crazily over the top

Ah, the workplace. Isn't it fun? We've just seen the French version, Corporate, via Nicolas Silhol, which gets a one-time run today in NYC at FIAF (until some smart distributor picks it up for further attention). Best of all, maybe, would be Joe Johnston's little gem from 2014, Not Safe for Work, a B-movie workplace thriller that gets everything right. Add now to your list of workplace goodies, MAYHEM, from Long Island filmmaker Joe Lynch, who a few years back gave us the the very tasty and so politically incorrect vengeance thriller, Everly, in which Salma Hayek strutted her very impressive stuff.

Now Mr. Lynch (shown at left) turns his attention to the corporate world and all (or much) of its malfeasance with his usual grin and copious squirts of the red stuff. Mayhem arrives at its titular state rather quickly, but prior to that it provides a bit of exposition regarding a new virus that has arrived to give humanity ever more problems. Thankfully (and a good deal more creatively) this virus does not turn folk into zombies.

Rather, once infected, the host's eyes turn red and he (or she) loses all inhibitions, becoming ultra-violent, ultra-horny and ultra-, well, just about any naughty thing you might be able to imagine. (One of the film's funnier moments has to do with emptying wastebaskets.)

So when our hero, Derek (played by a fine and feisty Steven Yeun, shown above and below, pre- and post-mayhem), who has risen to a higher rank in the corporate world by becoming an ever-better shit-heel, even if (as we note in an early scene) he has not yet lost quite all of his humanity, is suddenly made the fall guy for the mistakes of others, he plots revenge on his "horrible bosses."

Along for the ride is a pretty young woman named Melanie (Samantha Weaving, above, right, and below), who has come to the corporation to plead with it not to evict her from her family home -- the mortgage of which the corporation now owns. When the virus infects the building, including our sort-of good guy and gal, and the corporation headquarters is quarantined, the opportunity arises to redress certain grievances.

Among the numerous villains are some very fine actors playing people who've been given just enough specific and nasty qualities that each is enable to endow his/her character with some lip-smacking fun via a clever, on-target performance.

These would include the estimable Kerry Fox (at extreme left, above) as the corporate dragon lady, and Stephen Brand (above, front and center) as the would-be fellow in charge. Ms Fox is always a treat to see, and she nails it once again in this juicy supporting role.

Also on tap is the very hot actress, Caroline Chikezie (center left), as the firm's lower-level dragon lady known as The Siren, who provides a lot of nasty, sexy fun. As the violence escalates (it's all pretty cartoonish, from which the recipients keep rising up again and again) and our heroes make their way to the "top," things get dicier, funnier and ever more actionful.

It may seem odd to describe a movie this bloody and violent as an enjoyable romp, but given what keeps unfurling in the real world about our corporate culture and its negative impact upon us all, I suppose we can be forgiven for indulging in a little fantasy payback now and again, especially when it is this inventively staged. So thank you, Mr. Lynch. And keep up the good work.

From RLJE Films and running a swift 86 minutes, Mayhem opens this Friday, November 10, in theaters, via VOD and digital high def. In Los Angeles you can view it at Laemmle's Monica Film Center, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and at the other eight cities/theaters listed below: Atlanta/AMC Conyers Crossing 16, Dallas/AMC Hickory Creek, Houston/AMC Yorktown, San Francisco/AMC Deer Valley, Phoenix/AMC Arizona Center, Chicago/AMC Woodridge, Detroit/ AMC Gratiot and Tampa/AMC Sundial. 

Virus-cum-zombies is back: Bo Mikkelsen's classy but derivative WHAT WE BECOME

Here we go again. Though it always seems, while watching a zombie movie, that no one on screen, or anywhere in the world for that matter, has ever before witnessed a movie or TV show about zombies. (Of course not, yet a new one debuts almost weekly.) So here we are getting yet another genre movie about a sudden out-of-nowhere virus wreaking havoc on a town and turning its citizens into -- wait: are you ready for this? -- flesh-eating zombies. Omigod, what an unusual premise! Still, there is something different about WHAT WE BECOME, the movie opening this week: It's in Danish, so you get subtitles with your gore.

TrustMovies is of two minds about What We Become -- written and directed by Bo Mikkelsen (shown at left). On one hand, Mr. Mikkelsen has delivered a rather classy treatment, with decent dialog and direction, plus a first-rate Danish cast, including Mille Dinesen (below, right), who starred in that terrific Danish TV series, Rita. The film offers a good deal of tension and suspense, occasional surprise, and something that approaches the requisite blood-and-gore quotient. (If it goes a bit light on the latter, this is fine by me, considering how many films in the overwrought and way overworked zombie genre we critics have by now been forced to sit through.)

On the other hand, however, this is about as utterly derivative a virus-produces-zombies movie that you could want (or reject). One scene after another echoes stuff we've seen too many times previous -- beginning with the original (and still un-topped) Night of The Living Dead.

The film begins, as so many of these now do, at very nearly its conclusion, which provides a grabber of an opening then flashes back a bit, so that, in passing, we hear the usual TV news story about people growing ill from some yet-to-be-diagnosed malady, which alerts us to just about everything to come. This would include the film's finale, which steals directly from one of the pivotal and best scenes of that famous and seminal George Romero movie.

The government of course gets immediately involved in things, while lying through its teeth, as governments are wont to do. And we get to know a couple of families in the little town of Sorgenfri, (which doubles as the Danish name of this movie) and come to like them just well enough to feel a little sad at their inevitable upcoming demise.

Unlike another, better and also-subtitled zombie movie -- Germany's Rammbock, which conflated the zombie genre with the confined-space movie to produce something more riveting than usual for the walking dead -- What We Become is content to roll out the tried-and-true in a slightly more well-made manner. (There's a scene here involving a baby's crib that is surprisingly restrained.)

The teenage son of one family gets involved with the girl next door (across the street, actually), as mom and dad argue about what might be the best approach to all the oddity going on around them. The film's best and most original scene involves that son, investigating things on his own and discovering more of what's going on, while unfortunately undoing most of the good that the authorities have so far put into place.

Finally the question arises, as it often does in this genre, Haven't the characters pictured here ever seen a zombie movie? If so, they're awfully slow to catch on. If not, this would imply a world in which zombie movies do not exist. Sweet Jesus -- if only!

From IFC Midnight and running a thankfully short 81 minutes, What We Become opens this Friday, May 13, in New York City at the IFC Center (midnight screenings only) and in Los Angeles at Hollywood's Arena Cinema. If you don't live in thee two cultural capitals, worry not: The movie arrives simultaneously across the country on VOD.

A good calling-card movie, Neil Mcenery-West and David Lemon's CONTAINMENT, hits DVD

As TrustMovies understands it, the term calling-card film implies that the goods at hand (often due to impressive work done on a minuscule budget), though not a movie that will set the box-office aflame nor even cause much hoo-hah amongst critics, remains good enough to serve as an entryway for the filmmaker toward further and usually bigger-budget efforts. Exactly such a work, to my mind anyway, is the new sci-fi-thriller-horror opus, CONTAINMENT, directed by Neil Mcenery-West (shown below), from a story by Mr. West and a screenplay from David Lemon.

The movie came to my attention via a Great Britain-based publicist who informs me that Containment is actually receiving a U.S. DVD and digital debut in advance of its theatrical opening in Britain on September 11. Interesting move, this, and probably a smart one, as the movie is yet another in a genre already growing pretty tired: the apocalyptic virus tale -- which we've seen in everything from big-budget movies like Outbreak and Contagion to the Spanish [REC] series and its American remake(s), Quarantine , including even some odd Brit independents such as Citadel. as well as the fine French film, The Horde. (Many of these films may also be zombie movies, but they all stem from that apocalyptic virus.)

So here we are again -- this time without zombies, thank god, but with the usual, enclosed space scenario in which a disparate group of people are entrapped by the powers-that-be for reasons that are always withheld as long as possible to provoke tension and suspense. We have our "hero," Mark (played by Lee Ross, above), suddenly unable to leave his apartment, along with, or so it looks, everyone else in the building and maybe vicinity.

Soon a few of these "victims" grudgingly join forces and the small group of survivors (whom you just know probably won't) try to learn what's going on, even as they must save themselves from it. In the group are of course a couple of females including helpmeet Sally (Louise Brealey, above) and Hazmat Hazel (Pippa Nixon, below).

Also on hand is the required alpha male, embodied by Andrew Leung (below), last seen as the gorgeous, gay love interest in Lilting. Mr. Leung is as nasty and ferocious here as he was sweet and appealing there, so chalk another one up for acting versatility.

Rounding out the main group are also the requisite child (Gabriel Senior, below, left) and requisite elder (Sheila Reid, below, right), the latter of whom steals the movie outright. Ms Reid has a face, each line of which speaks volumes about everything from a life fully lived to memories hugely cherished. She is an actress nowhere near as well known as, say, Mirren or Dench or Atkins, but on the basis of what she gives us here, she ought to be, for she provides the heart, soul and smarts of the movie.

So, yes, the acting is just fine all 'round, but audiences don't flock to this kind of film for the acting. The direction and script are OK, too -- the former showing what Mcenery-West can do on a small budget, the latter offering up a by-now generic situation, along with fast-paced, believable dialog. Trouble is, it's all too been-there/done-that to be particularly satisfying. Plus, the strength of this horrible virus just isn't believably communicated -- not from character to character nor from filmmaker to audience -- so that, after awhile, we're being asked to take way too much on faith.

All this turns what might have been a better movie into just a so-so one. Still, as I say, there is certainly enough here to make us want to see what all these folk can do later on -- with a bigger budget and in maybe a more interesting genre. Meanwhile, Containment, from Vision Films and Bright Cold Day Films, hits the street on DVD tomorrow, September, 1st, after being available via digital platforms since August 1st (the movie will continue on digital during the coming month, as well).