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Ten years after the sky fell and the undead walked the Earthed, a new generation of survivors live comfortably behind gated walls at the Nebraska University campus. Sisters Iris and Hope sometimes counteract each other’s position on campus hardly see eye-to-eye and, especially when dealing with the clandestine Civic Republic Military who has recruited their scientific father to do research in New York, but when secret messages about their father’s safety in potential jeopardy, Iris and Hope come together, along with campus outcasts Elton and Silas, to trek East on foot through the hordes of undead and the dangerous obstacles that separate them from their father. The first generation to grow up in the apocalypse must learn to survive in the ravaged world of today and battle not only the dead and evad the mighty Civic Republic Military but also confront their individual haunting pasts.

“The Walking Dead” executive showrunners Scott Gimple, Robert Kirkman, Brian Bockrath, Matthew Negrete and David Alpert envision a vast Walking Dead universe filled with endless storylines searing with undead mayhem on the precipice a human emotional depth charge explosion. In 2020, a new and limited two-season spinoff series of AMC’s “The Walked Dead” lumbered forward with “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” that aimed to explore the untapped emotive locomotive with teenagers having grown up naïve of usual adolescent behavior while also learning how to survive the outside world having been safe behind guarded walls most of their young lives living inside a smaller-scale social structure and guidelines like pre-apocalypse. While “The Walked Dead” focused on the mid-Atlantic, stretching from George to West Virginia, and “Fear of the Walking Dead” went to the West Coast in Cali, down the border to Mexico, and finally landing near the Gulf coast, “World Beyond” takes the Pacific Northwest beginning inside Nebraska then stretching our main character’s journey to New York state, through the upper areas of what’s left of the country, but filming is actually shot in yours truly home state of Virginia surrounding the capital Richmond area. Based not off the popular graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman, albeit with a few minor connections, “World Beyond” is a production of AMC, Idiot Box, Skybound Entertainment, Circle of Confusion, and Valhalla Entertainment.

A younger, fresher cast of faces grace “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” with an innocence facade and juvenile decision making that lifts the series into that rite of passage in adolescent-hood where the children of the apocalypse must explore their own needs and desires as if the evolutionary behavior of growing up has never changed. Only this time, someone’s trying to bite your face off or actually steal everything you possess off your back. Aliyah Royale and “Unfriended: Dark Web’s” Alexa Mansour play the contrasting adopted sisters Iris and Hope with an underlining bond that’ll blossom sluggishly forward to season one’s conclusion. Iris has always conformed to safe living behind the campus walls, but takes a page out of Hope’s book of radical ideas to venture out against policy to find their CRM recruited, and possibly distressed, father. Through the series, I found Royale to be slightly unauthentically preachy in her delivery that never fastens an emotional connection to her saintly-turned-intrepid persona. Hope has more complexity turmoil tinned up inside of her pulled and worked very delicately by Mansour in becoming the wild card amongst the group. “Nine Perfect Strangers’s” Hal Cumpston and voice actor Nicolas Cantu join Iris and Hope as the reserved Silas and the ever hopeful pessimistic Elton, searching for a fresh start and answers to their philosophical questions. Silas and Elton add more dramatic complications than friendly assistance on the journey with personal violent demons resurging out form Silas’s past to the death of Elton’s mother in which Hope hesitant disclosure of her involvement in the killing of his mother back during the first days of apocalypse sets the tension for a good portion of their travels. As supporting characters, Silas and Elton also provide sub-storylines “The Walking Dead” thrives on along with two more characters, a pair of campus security details in Nico Tortorella (“Scream 4”) and Annet Mahendru (“The Americans”) playing close friends and colleagues Felix and Huck venturing out to rescue the four inexperienced youngsters from a fate far worse than being a gnawed on scrap of undead jerky. Mahendru’s pulled up hair, facial scar, and widely inflated draw is quite a far cry from her dolled up and partial nudity espionage performance in “The Americans,” a performance that makes her nearly unrecognizable, while Tortorella shoulders a lot of personal baggage in self worth and difficult promises to his makeshift family built on friendship – a regular theme throughout not just with Felix but with the youth group searching for answers. “World Beyond” rounds out the cast with Ted Sutherland (“Fear Street: Part Two” and “Part Three”), Natalie Gold (“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance”)), Joe Holt, Jelani Alladin, and Julia Ormond (“Inland Empire”) as the CRM spearheading a covert operation.

The enormity of the “TWD” universe and with end in sight of the undead not working the Earth would inevitably bring up the question of how young children would grow up and face old world teenager issues. Their not-so-normal childhood forged when the sky fell, as phrase that use to describe the day the dead risen, has ultimately molded who they are when we meet the characters 10 years after that doomed day, but the series dives into backstories on the regular with flashes back, turning every episode of the 10 episode series into a non-linear segment, something that strays, but is not completely foreign, to the “TWD” universe. Another aspect that’s different, and is terribly detrimental, is the lack of graphic bloody violence, especially against the living. “World Beyond” tries very hard to shield the viewers from gruesome dispatching of the undead by offscreen kills to implied deaths and not until the latter half of the season does “World Beyond” begin to ooze out of it’s conservative shell as the story becomes more complicated and into more adult themes from lies and betrayals to violence and loss, a parallel of the passage from childhood to adulthood when reality of the real world hits you in the face. What does stay true to it’s origins us the same is the overgrown sets, the detailed decay, and same beautiful morbid imagery that really compliments to effort in production value and budget. My only gripe is that many of the actors look fresh out of the shower with perfect hair and loads of makeup in a scenario that would harried and haggard any individual. The story also connects to it’s more fierce bigger brothers with a broader introduction of the Civic Republic Military whose symbol shows up in “The Walking Dead” when whisking Rick Grimes away in one of their helicopters and also in “Fear of the Walking Dead” in the troops who were the bite impervious suits, sleek black helmets, and the assault rifles with dual piercing bayonets. “World Beyond” builds upon their mysterious nature by giving an wider, longer look into their enigmatic, cavillation building window.

With the series finale, aka season two, in full swing this fall at AMC, Acorn Media International concurrently delivers the first season onto an UK 2-disc Blu-ray. The region 2, PAL encoded, BD50s are presented in a televised widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio with a total runtime of 453 minutes. Not discernable issues with the digital image that renders virtually the same veracious tone as the other two “Walking Dead” series with “World Beyond” being a tinge bit more colorful as if the saturation provided more youthful characteristics. There really is some nice imagery happening in certain episodes, such as in episodes “Brave” and “The Blaze of Gory,” that work the dead into being connected with the surrounded elements as if the dead are now the more natural bond with Earth. The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound audio channels with clarity and equally amongst the five points. Dialogue is clean and unobstructed with a balanced breadth of depth and range amongst the various scenarios of death and deception they stumble into. English subtitles are also optional. Bonus features include A Look at the Series that dives into what “World Beyond” aims to accomplish with a fresh young cast, A Meet the Character segment that, obliviously, dives into the actors going over their character profiles, and the Making of Season 1, split into two parts with one on each disc, with the cast and creators provided a deeper understanding of character headspaces. “World Beyond” is rated 15 for the violence, some language, and some gore. Diluted decimation of the dead with a softer complexion in an overall comparison, “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” is the naïve little brother of two juggernauting series macheting a path of blood and guts for the less traumatic to have a spot in the world. Yet, the sluggish first few episodes clears out for a much more palatable and gripping series that we’ve come to expect from a universe built on rotting corpses and collective violence.

Catch Up on “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” season 1. Purchase the Blu-ray/DVD here!

In a world under sieged from a highly contagious virus, known as the ID-7 virus, that blocks the uninhibited and explosive impulses, workaholic Derek Choe attempts to make a footprint at his ruthless, white collar firm, but lands on the receiving end of a frame job that results in a pink slip and being escorted out of the building. Before being able to walk through the exit by security, an ID-7 invasion as quarantined the office and symptoms are seeping to the surface. All hell breaks loose amongst co-workers, exacerbating the already highly caffeinated, extremely strung out, intensely coked up, and amoral aggressive behaviors of a volatile workplace environment, and an infected Choe aims to reach the top floor to violently express to the firm’s board on why they should reconsider his termination, but a drug-fueled, and also infected, boss strives to make that endeavor challenging with the assistance of his lower tiered, corporate suits.

“Mayhem” is a HR nightmare! The Joy Lynch 2017 directed action-horror film is “The Firm” meets “The Raid: Redemption!” Luckily for the viewers, “Mayhem” is a hardcore insight into unlocking all of your deepest, darkest inhibitions to the tun of explicitly telling off your boss with every four letter expletive in the book, giving your rotten colleague a firm piece of your mind, or just knocking everyone’s teeth down their smug throat. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie. Lynch (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) runs with the first time feature film from screenwriter, Matias Caruso, who designs a virus, called the ID-7, that removes or ceases to function what defines us as human, from compassion to sympathy, in order to frankenstein a demented rendition of Donkey Kong and Caruso’s characters basically all have singular mode – asshole – but that subversive level stems from an infection induced state and the characters, deep down, maintain a slither of their original selves in an extremely dark comedic sense.

On the coattails of his character’s brutal demise on AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” Steven Yeun remains in an dimension plagued by a different kind of viral infection. Instead of blowing the brains out of walkers, Yeun brilliantly and entertainingly fills the ambitious workaholic shoes of account manager Derek Choe who literally battles his way to the top after being canned by his unscrupulous consulting firm and when the ID-7 overwhelms each and every employee. Choe is a far cry from Glenn on “The Walking Dead,” a pure hearted character with a good moral compass. Yeun’s character’s moral compass is skewed without doubt and double skewed with introduced by the virus. Choe forms an unlikely pact with a desperately disgruntled borrower Melanie Cross fighting against the firm, and the firm’s bank, looming foreclosure and the sassy, blond ass kicker, embraced by “The Babysitter’s” Samara Weaving, can chew gum and kick tail all at the same time. The pair are pitted against the some of the office’s most ruthless suits, such as a sociopathic HR enforcer known as The Reaper (played by “The Walking Dead” vet in Dallas Roberts), a manipulative snake charmer Cara Powell (Caroline Chikezie of “Æon Flux”) and at the top is none of than the big boss played by “Hellraiser: Revelations'” Steven Brand. Not only does “Mayhem” have colorful, well-scribed anchoring characters, but the supporting parts are just as well-quick-e-quipped too with Kerry Fox, Claire Dellamar, André Eriksen, and Mark Frost (“Faust”).

“Mayhem” relishes in the ferocity of that of a Mark Neveldine “Crank” franchise, but lacks a certain coherency untuned to seamlessly sustain the story to the end. Moments of purely poor editing don’t convey the full message intended, leaving much desired when considering the hero and heroine’s plight through the firm’s ruthless hierarchy to the top. These moments don’t make or break the story and are minuscule in portion size but are large enough to thwart going unnoticed. Another annoyance of how the story is told is the off screen violence. With a feature entitled “Mayhem,” by very definition states, “violent or damage disorder, chaos,” one would imagine that any and all violence would be in full display, showcased proudly and exhibited without ambivalence, and the beginning starts off energetic enough with an explosive scene of a conference room brawl involving the attendees in a all out melee, a half naked couple sexing right on the conference table, and ending the scene with a murderous gashing of one’s carotid artery. Narrating why these berserkers are killing and humping each other is Steven Yeun’s Derek Choe, setting up the ID-7 as the uninhibited virus. The violence that pursues goes into a hot or cold state where the latter involves off-screen violence, especially between Chikezie and Clarie Dellamar’s characters in a fight to the death between boss and assistant, but in a heated exchanges that had more girth in the dialogue, their actual bout screens over to Choe and Cross’ blank stare expressions and the determination of who bests who goes into a big question mark status.

RLJ Entertainment releases “Mayhem” onto various formats include a not rated DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming platforms. I am unable to comment or critique on the audio and video qualities of the film as I was provided a streaming link that didn’t include bonus material; instead, I’ll comment on how Lynch and the rest of filmmakers did a remarkable job constructing an ambiguous building structure along with the help of the two Stateside based production companies Royal Viking Entertainment and Circle of Confusion. Though the film was shot in Bulgaria, the location could have been right in downtown of your nearest city and that fairs in “Mayhem’s” success to establish anywhere as a victim to the virus or a workplace go array in the world. The next time you want to take a heavy duty Swingling stapler to you’re supervisor’s noggin for assigning to many TPS reports to you, check out “Mayhem” to instill that visceral courage and audacity to do so all the while being entertained by utter, unadulterated violence and violent thoughts and actions that usually spur underneath the breath of a common office environment.