Now Scream This: Celebrate The Month Of May With Some Streaming Mayhem

(Welcome to Now Scream This, a column where horror experts Chris Evangelista and Matt Donato tell you what scary, spooky, and spine-tingling movies are streaming and where you can watch them.)Matt: This week on "Now Scream This," Chris and I borrow from Dread Central's monthly theme to highlight some streaming titles rife with "MAYhem!" A perfect example? Joe Lynch's aptly titled "Worksploitation" bruiser Mayhem. We're honoring movies that inspire anarchy and hysteria and uncontrollable madness. Spring has fully sprung, and so has our desire to embrace the ferocity of daily life while the sun is shining. You'll want to get out there and raise some hell after watching this playlist of maximum-effort genre aggression.Chris: Spring has sprung, I guess, although where I am it seems to constantly be raining. But that's okay – it's the perfect weather to hunker-down with some horror. As Matt said above, our theme this week is MAYhem – get it, because it has May in the title? We're pretty clever, if you ask me. 

Matt: Doomsday is underappreciated as far as Neil Marshall's catalog gets discussed, if only because The Descent and Dog Soldiers would overshadow any director's "perfectly fine" output. Marshall takes Mad Max, 28 Days Later, and Escape From New York, throws 'em in a blender, and comes up with his medieval knights vs. futuristic soldiers apocalypse. None of this is overselling. A recon team is sent into infection-torn Scotland to seek an antidote since the same virus is now overrunning London, and what's encountered is a sci-fi dystopia of old-school primality meets new wave paranoia. It's a wild ride that leans heavily into junkyard motorcades, cannibalistic tortures, and barbaric brutality so very, uncompromisingly off the chain. Stop scrolling past this one – trust in the Marshall.Chris: I tried to get through this a few years ago, and turned it off after about 40 minutes. Should I give it another try? Should I trust Matt? Stranger things have happened!

Matt: You know how Dr. Ian Malcolm makes that quip about when "Pirates Of The Caribbean" breaks down, the pirates don't eat the guests? Well, The Rezort takes the same ill-advised cue by turning danger into a vacation destination. What's the attraction of choice for this exotic draw-in? Zombies! You're damn right this is a movie about people who visit a remote locale so they can have a zombie-huntin' luxury experience with produced safety measures that surely won't go awry. Not like Ian Malcolm has a quote about chaos theories that comes damn true when walkers attack attending visitors! Fun concept, due chaos, and a fresh zombie concept that's paid off with an easy-watchin' Friday night stream.Chris: I've never even heard of this. I think Matt is making it up.

Matt: Why Don't You Play In Hell? is an amazingly ambitious Yakuza tale birthed from midnighter exploitation, but what else would you expect from Japan's Sion Sono? The vibrant auteur's madcap style shines through a bloody mess of gangster limbs spewing bodily fluids, delivering EXACTLY what Sono fans crave. By slamming together a hardened revenge plot with satirical filmmaking commentary peppered between excessive violence and hilariously over-theatrical staging, Sono produces what might be the most essential "Hollywood" mocku-thriller...ever? (Fine, but at least give me "most unique.") Why Don't You Play In Hell? is too cool for school, confirming Sono's status as Japan's very own ambitiously driven, brilliantly eccentric, and obsessively focused Quentin Tarantino.Chris: For years people have been telling me to watch this, and I somehow keep forgetting. I vow to finally rectify that this weekend.

Matt: So, where do we all stand on George A. Romero's high-rise social takedown Land Of The Dead? I've never taken "Film Twitter's" temperature on this one. I love the class warfare elements of this STACKED flesh-eating commentary on rich, poor, and brain-hungry lesser beings. From Simon Baker to Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo to Robert Joy, that's a lot of star power behind roving bands of marauders who want to break down the door of a fortified paradise that topples when zombies (led by "Big Daddy") learn they can swim! But seriously, Land Of The Dead shares so many similarities to Doomsday, creating this scorched world where gladiatorial cage fights and zombie photo booths are ample time-wasters. This is Romero building out a universe instead of containing to smaller outbreaks, and personally, it's something I wish would have furthered more significant expansions.Chris: My favorite part of this movie is when Dennis Hopper says "Zombies, man!" while picking his nose.

Matt: Steven C. Miller's Silent Night is my favorite kind of mayhem – CHRISTMAS HORROR MAYHEM. As a loose remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, nods to "Garbage Day," crazy grandpa and a deer antler kill pay homage to the Santa slayers of yesteryear. As a despicably violent slasher that kills victims in a plethora of gruesome, red-and-green saturated ways? Plain and simple, they don't make slashers like this anymore. The head split, multicolored decorative light electrocution – SO MUCH HOLIDAY SPIRIT GETS TORCHED TO ASHES BY A FLAMETHROWER-WIELDING PSYCHO CLAUS. Nothing puts me in the Christmas mood more than slugging back eggnog and cueing a midnight watch of Miller's last-of-its-kind modern slasher that marked an end of similar films after 2012.Chris: Everything Matt says above is true. For this entry only.

Chris: Young Reese Witherspoon falls in love with young Mark Wahlberg, against her father's wishes. The moral of the story: listen to your father, especially if he's William Petersen. Because Wahlberg's character is craaaazy, and doesn't take rejection well. Sure, he's the type of boyfriend who will finger you on a roller coaster – and who doesn't want that? But he'll also show up at your door, screaming into the peephole, making his face look all weird and distorted. Creepy! Fear is a silly, campy '90s horror film, and fun to watch for all its goofiness.Matt: You can't spell "Mayhem" without "Marky Mark!" Or wait, no, you totally can – that doesn't work. Maybe...OH! You can't spell "Mayhem" without "Marky Mark Wahlberg" and that's a *damn* fact. All this to say, watch Fear. Thanks for accompanying me on this journey.

Chris: Punks head to the woods. Punks die. The Ranger is a slasher throwback that embraces cliche, with fun results. You've seen this type of story a million times if you're a horror fan, but the punk rock angle, mixed with some neon-drenched lighting and a fun villain performance from Jeremy Holm as the Ranger himself, make it work. Chloë Levine also makes for a great Final Girl targeted by the murderous Ranger. Like your favorite punk mixtape from back in the old days, The Ranger should be played loud.Matt: The Ranger has plenty of moxie and spunk for a woodland slasher and I agree with Chris on Levine's acting chops.

Chris: This slice of '80s cheese follows the survivors – namely, two sisters – of a comet that turns most of the humans of the world into zombies. The fashion is on point, the hair is big, the special effects are a blast. It's a hoot and a half, as I like to say. Night of the Comet is the type of delightful '80s horror film that someone will eventually get around to remaking some day, and strip all the fun out in the process. Avoid that! Watch the original.Matt: I've failed myself for not having gotten around to Night Of The Comet. Alright, Chris. If you watch Why Don't You Play In Hell? this weekend, I'll rectify Night Of The Comet.

Chris: Start spreadin' the news! Jason is going to take Manhattan! And by that, I mean that Jason will spend 90% of this movie on a boat that somehow sets sail from Camp Crystal Lake and then ends up in New York. Don't ask. Jason takes Manhattan is often considered one of the very worst Friday the 13th sequels, but I won't lie: I love it. The stuff on the boat is hit or miss, but the film really shines when Jason stalks around filthy, dirty, dangerous New York – a city where toxic waste literally runs through the sewers every night, and everyone is okay with it.Matt: RIP boxing champ, Julius. One of my favorite Friday The 13th deaths that I'll always lose my head over. Jason Takes Manhattan is fun and I don't care what you say.

Chris: There are several Invasion of the Body Snatchers films, but the 1978 take is still the best. This eerie, disturbing tale of pod people replacing humanity still holds up due to the strange, almost dreamy nature Philip Kaufman shoots things. And don't even get me started on that dog with the human face – yowza. Donald Sutherland, his mustache, and others try to deal with the eradication of the human race, only to learn it's already too late. Sounds familiar!Matt: Classic body swappin' mayhem. If you haven't seen yet, educate yourself.