Our favorite part of being genre fans is watching excellent movies and wonderful filmmakers get some much-deserved love, and witnessing dreams come true. This Friday, Los Angeles will get to witness a dream coming true, live and in the flesh, for director and Fango friend Joe Lynch. Lynch’s 2017 feature Mayhem is screening at the NuArt to kick off the long Labor Day weekend, and as a long-time NuArt fan and audience member, Joe is understandably over the moon for his first very own NuArt screening.
Mayhem stars Academy Award nominee Steven Yeun and one of our favorite contemporary final girls, Samara Weaving. Before the Oscars and Ready Or Not, Yeun and Weaving faced total mayhem in a high-rise office building. With the building under quarantine for a mysterious and dangerous virus, chaos and extreme violence explode as victims of the disease begin acting out their wildest impulses. It’s a cheer at the screen wild ride, and I can only imagine how fun it would be to watch along with Joe and a proper NuArt audience. Labor Day weekend is a fitting time to watch disgruntled employees rise up and beat their bosses.
Suitable Flesh director Joe Lynch will be in attendance, along with special guests, editor Josh Ethier and DP Steve Gainer. Frequent Lynch collaborator Adam Green will moderate all of this wonderful madness. This all goes down Friday, September 1, at 10:30 pm at the NuArt theater in Los Angeles. Tickets are on sale now, so be sure to grab yours before they sell out. Joe popped in to share his excitement, long-time NuArt fandom, and behind-the-scenes shots from his personal archives. Take it away, Joe!
“As a movie lover, I started going to the famed NuArt Theater when I first arrived to Los Angeles over 20 years ago, especially because of their amazing lineup of Midnight movies, everything from A Clockwork Orange and Freaks to Phantasm and Overboard (yes, the Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn comedy which was deemed “the lowest attended screening in its history”…and I was there!) and of course The Rocky Horror Picture Show which has screened there for years. It was a wonderful collection of the weird and the wild in cinema, and seeing these films with a crowd always made movies I loved even better, knowing I was enjoying them with like-minded people, all reacting how I did, collectively. When I used to live down the street, I would go almost weekly, even getting to the point where when Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy started screening there, I would introduce every screening to a rabid crowd ready for something new, exciting, different, and transgressive. The NuArt is one of the most important theaters in the country for both independent and international Cinema as well as ‘SINema.’ We’re lucky it’s still firing up the projector, especially in those late hours on Santa Monica Blvd, giving the fans a taste of the offbeat and off-the-rails filmmaking.
“As a filmmaker, I always dreamed one day, one of my little films would grace that same marquee as cult classics like Eraserhead and Pink Flamingos and one night play for an audience of fellow genre enthusiasts like myself looking for films on the fringe. Well, that dream has come true, and I couldn’t be more proud that my 2017 film Mayhem will be playing there this Friday!! Now that the film has been out a few years and hopefully gained a few fans, many I’m sure haven’t seen it BIG and LOUD on the silver screen. I’m hoping to kick back with some friends, new and old, grab some popcorn and enjoy the film in the theater that made Midnight Movies cool. What an absolute honor this is! And what better weekend to watch a movie about being exploited at work and fighting back against ‘The Man’ than Labor Day weekend?! It’s almost too perfect a scenario that I feel like I’m dreaming, so if you see me, give me a pinch just to make sure it’s real, OK?
Thank you, Mark and everyone at Landmark, for making dark dreams come true, and Sebastian and the gang at my favorite Video Store, Cinefile, for presenting this wild night! Now come out and celebrate Movies At Midnight with us! Let’s cause some MAYH-well, you know.”
The good folks at Cinefile Video are presenting the screening along with Landmark’s NuArt Theater, and are responsible for kicking this whole thing off. So give them a visit and rent a copy of Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. And if you’re hungry for more Lynch, we’ve got an extended look at his upcoming Lovecraftian horror film (with Barbara Crampton!) Suitable Flesh in our upcoming issue. Oh, did we mention it’s also our issue #21 subscriber cover? Get in on this!
