Alix Turner
It will probably come as no surprise to read that the Mayhem Film Festival has become a highlight of my year. So on Thursday, October 17, I came back for what is the event’s twentieth edition. It’s a similar format to previous years, though with slightly fewer feature films in favor of an additional short film segment. But today is all about the opening of the festival. Thursday’s program is, as ever, a short one, with two very contrasting films whose moods could be said to epitomize Mayhem 2024’s program as a whole:
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Ariane Louis-Seize, Canada, 2023)
This is the story of “teenage” vampire Sasha (Sara Montpetit), who—similar to Anne Rice’s Louis—is opposed to killing humans to survive. Of course, there are ways around this, living in a supportive family; and the story is found her family loses patience. On Sasha’s quest to address this problem, she meets Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a young man with suicidal tendencies…
I’m not going to describe the plot any more than that, as JP Nunez has covered the film previously, but in terms of opinions, there are naturally some areas where we agree and some we don’t. The writing (dialogue, characters, etc.) was spot on: the family dynamic worked beautifully, and the story flowed with ease. The comedy (situational, rather than jokey) was gentle, barely there at times; except for a very amusing situation with a stoner accidentally turned, which made me grin a lot. The growing friendship between the two leads was believable despite its inevitably contrived nature, and I agree with JP that one of the best scenes was the shared dance to Sasha’s favorite record.
Naturally, many people around Broadway Cinema afterward compared Humanist Vampire to Let the Right One In; though I also saw a similarity with We Saw the TV Glow, another film about a friendship between young people trying to figure out where they fit. Unfortunately, there was one aspect that I was not at all comfortable with: as in A Ghost Waits, the writer seems to be telling their audience that it’s OK to want to die, that one’s place, or one’s soulmate can be found that way. There may also have been an issue with my timing: I might have enjoyed Humanist Vampire more when it came to the small screen, but it seemed rather too nice to open a festival. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled since my introduction to Mayhem was in 2018, when they opened with Anna and the Apocalypse.
MadS (David Moreau, France, 2024)
Now this was more like what I came to Mayhem for, and definitely one to experience on the big screen if you can. I had high hopes when I read this came from the co-director of Ils/Them, and though the tone and content are both utterly different, I wasn’t let down at all. You might have read Sean’s review, or caught news that it’s just arrived on Shudder: essentially, a young man Romain (Milton Riche) collects and samples a new drug, ready to celebrate his graduation, and then finds himself picking up an injured and distressed woman on the road home.
At that point—having barely had an introduction to a protagonist, now looking after someone downright weird—I was reminded of Rob Savage’s Dashcam; and MadS is wild in a similar way: from one minute to the next, you cannot tell where it is going to go. Also, it takes place virtually in real-time… but that’s where the similarities end. This film’s approach to immersing its audience in the action is the long single take, rather than found footage; which allows us to see everything Romain is experiencing. It allows complete freedom to add sound effects and music, both diegetic and score, and to me it’s this combination of cinematography, sound design, and Nathaniel Méchaly’s intense score that make the film truly work.
Some people felt MadS was a little too long or too slow; I think that may have been because a good deal of the plot was happening around our main protagonists (yes, the focus changes from Romain, bringing Razorback to mind briefly!), rather than to them. To me, it was captivating; and that device showed just how unaware the central characters were of the world around them, only the way their own world is falling apart. Which brings me to the theme of the film: on the surface, it’s anti-drugs, but I saw more in the film about young people’s attitudes. Bad things are happening in the world all around them, but they only think about their own small circles and individual poor choices (sleeping with a friend’s boyfriend, messing up Dad’s car, etc.).
