MAYHEM FESTIVAL DAY 1. Astron-6 Total Mayhem!

Well I can't believe that it's been a whole week since the start of MAYHEM festival but what a festival it was! I started the day by having a lay in with a nice cuppa and a choccy biscuit whilst watching The House That Bled To Death from the classic Hammer House of Horror box set. During the course of the day with back and forth communications we arranged to meet In the café bar at around 5.30.All ready to go! There was slight trepidation around the 1st night being solely a night focused solely on Astron-6. On my arrival a Broadway cinema it was clear that all the pre festival fears of the opening night not being that busy were well and truly put to rest, it was extremely busy. We went and grabbed a beer and met up with the great folks I'd been speaking to online, We then picked up another beer to take into the cinema (how great is it that you can do that!) got our seats 7 in a row and not only were we set for the night but for the whole weekend.

The night was set up to be 2 parts the 1st part being a collection of Astron-6 shorts, The the 2nd part of the night being a showing of their feature length love letter to Giallo that was The Editor. It has to be said that the shorts were hilarious, Even before they started people were in stitches with an introduction from the guys themselves. The shorts consisted of loads of different genres and influences all made incredibly well. What was even more impressive was hearing them talk about how basically they had no budget and scraped everything together from friends and families. What impressed me the most was how professional they all looked.The humour and the attention to detail were so spot on. My favourite short on the night has to be Inferno of the Dead, Pure zombie fan boy stuff but also pure genius in kind of questioning the zombie genre. But also outstanding was Cool Guys and the various GoreBlade shorts, So that was the 1st part of the evening and it was a roll in the isles hilarious smash hit start to the night. Back to the bar for another beer then back for The Editor.

INFERNO OF THE DEAD- FULL SHORT!



So armed with more beer we headed back up to view The Editor. Now I thought after seeing the shorts that it would be good but it more than exceeded my expectations I must say! The great thing about it was that even if you have seen many a Giallo or not it worked extremely well on both levels, Telling the classic slasher type tale of the black gloved killer, Big moustaches and lots of nakedness and gore, it  hit every point spot on and it's a very high recommend from me.My particular favourite homage moments were from the Lucio Fulci classic The Beyond, I won't spoil what parts they were but keep your eyes out for them, brilliant.

 I Really do hope it gets a release soon as not only does this damn well deserve it but I really want to see it again! I'm not sure how the whole DVD distribution deals work but honestly folks some of the horror stuff being released at present is utter crap and this stands head and shoulders above those releases and believe me The Editor is destined to become a solid gold cult classic!Also showing after at 11:30 was Let Us Pray, Which sounded like it was going to be great but unfortunately I couldn't make it to this particular movie, A demonic stranger locked up in a police cell for the night with evil plans, From what I heard it was a bit of a slow burner but got a unanimous thumbs up from all the people I knew who had seen it.
So in summing up day one Mayhem lured people in with mostly the unknown of Astron-6 and sent them home with smiles on their faces and a nostalgic glow in their horror harts, A fantastic start to a fantastic festival,

Jonny T.

The Editor- Official Trailer.

ASTRON-6 OFFICIAL SITE ------  http://www.astron-6.com/