Mayhem, one of the first Shudder Originals that I watched, and possibly one of the reasons I signed up for Shudder in the first place. Well, that and it’s $5 to support horror movies. All things considered, this movie is pretty sharp and self aware. We’ve got a world where the rage virus exist, and the legal precedent has been set regarding murders committed while under the influence of the virus.  Basically, you’ve got immunity to prosecution, if you’ve been infected.

Side note: It was phrased that a loophole got the case dismissed, which I think would actually mean that precedent wasn’t actually set, since a case has to be heard and decided to set precedent. At least that’s my understanding with regard to certain human rights cases I followed. They were dismissed on other merits, so the case law was never established.

The main character has just lost his job, a nice corner office gig. He’d been used as a scapegoat to cover up someone else’s error. Then the virus exposure hits, he tries to get back upstairs, gets taken to the basement for a beating instead. And then we have his long bloody climb from the basement to the penthouse, removing people along the way.

And of course, he’s accompanied by the person he couldn’t help earlier in the film, a woman whose mortgage had been bought up and foreclosed on by the company. He’d given her advice, but been unable to help her. And since she’d been a problem for security, she was also waiting in the basement for the cops when the virus quarantined the building. 

It’s a fun tale of revenge, corporate power structures and toxic people. Plenty of violence, plenty of gore. Horror, though, less direct horror, and more just horrible people doing horrible things, before and after the rage virus.