19th Nov2025

Interview: Steven Sheil on 21 years of Mayhem Film Festival

by Stuart Wright

Join screenwriter Stuart Wright as he dives into movies that changed your life with filmmaker and film festival director Steven Sheil, in this engaging episode of 3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life. Explore Theatre Of Blood impact, Deep Red analysis, and Texas Chain Saw Massacre influence on his personal growth and cinema’s transformative power. Steven Sheil also discusses the origins and evolution of 21 years of Mayhem Film Festival.

  • Theatre Of Blood – Steven Sheil watched a lot of horror as a kid and Theatre Of Blood was one of the inappropriate films he saw back then that stuck with him. In particular the open scene where Michael Horden is stabbed to death by a bunch of homeless people.
  • Deep Red – Steven Sheil shares how he’d moved to Nottingham in the early 1990s, had fallen in with a local group of burgeoning filmmakers where he met Chris Cooke – co-founder of Mayhem Film Festiva. Chris lent Steven a DVD of Deep Red and that became his gateway to Dario Argento’s films. His favourite Argento is INFERNO, the sequel to SUSPIRIA.
  • Texas Chain Saw Massacre – Steven Sheil talks about how Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the greatest horror film ever made. It was a huge influence on his debut feature, MUM & DAD. He even pitched that film as the Heathrow Airport Chain Saw Massacre showing how much it’s in the DNA of the film.

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