Movie review: Deathgasm

Halloween is upon us, a time where kids goes out trick or treating, people dress up in ridiculous costumes, and the hottest horror movie franchises releases their bazillionth part. This made me realize that I have not done a movie review in ages, so I think I am gonna make it a yearly tradition, to do at least one movie review for Halloween, and luckily, I found just the perfect movie to start it all up.

*Screams SPOILER ALERT in the most black metal way possible*

"Deathgasm" is a Comedy horror movie made in New Zealand, about the teenager Brodie (Milo Cawthorne), a metal head that lost his mother to meth and is forced to live with his highly christian uncle and his family in the small town of Greypoint. After some time of being bullied by his cousin and some half assed games of role playing with his new friends Dion (Sam Berkley) and Giles (Daniel Cresswell), he meets Zakk (James Blake), another metal head that seem to only care about himself and his music. These guys certainly creates a cool brotherhood of steel, even if their personalities are about as different as it gets.

The story really gets going when the guys sneaks (or rather breaks) into the home of Rikki Daggers (Stephen Ure), singer of Haxan Sword. Finding out that he has been spotted, Rikki gives a copy of one of his band's LP's to the guys, and tells them to guard it with their lives, and the guys get away just before some mysterious bloke comes in and kills Rikki. You see, inside this LP are the note sheets of the Virtutem Rex Daemonia Virtutem Fortuna, also known as The Black Hymn, a sort of a ritual tune for The Blind One known as Aeolath, the king of demons. Unknowing of the consequences, Brodie, Zakk, Giles and Dion gets together to form DEATHGASM, and performs the entire song, turning all of the humans within hearing range into blind possessed zombies. Brutal!

So yeah, the story is kind of wacky, but it is all great since it is not the most serious of horror flicks. It is certainly interesting enough so you would want to continue watching, and adding all these metal elements into it just makes it that much sweeter. However, it is the comedy that makes this movie good. Sure, at several points it could be a little too childish with its foul language and sex jokes (like when Brodie and Zakk killed Brodie's uncle and aunt with sex toys and left them looking like they were in the middle of a blow job), but it is portioned out in just the right amount of sizes so it will not get too cheesy. And this is just a personal thought, but I think the dialect makes the jokes even funnier. I have always enjoyed British humour, and the New Zealand dialect is sort of British, so it is close enough.

The gore levels are not too big, but you will certainly see a lot of blood in this movie. Several of these possessed beings just vomits the blood in the same way as the character Maggie Blackamoor in "Little Britain". You will also see some decapitations, chicks cleaving skulls with axes, eyes popping out, and penis chopping. In other words, some good old hack n' slash.

While the actors might not be too well known, they do a pretty good job, presenting their characters loud and clear, and the overall script is good, except for one scene where Brodie and Medina (Kimberly Crossman) goes through a typical teen age movie love scene, sitting together with some awkward conversation and a good bye that clearly hints that the spark between them is lit. The only thing different between this and any other American teen age movies is the black metal makeup corpse paint. I also think the effects are pretty uneven, some being pretty cool and well made, while others you can actually tell that those really are fake.

Mmmmm, tastes a little cheesy

So this movie does have some flaws, but the movie crew did way more right things with this movie than bad things, one being the sound track, including tracks from Skull Fist, Ihsahn, Emperor, and many more. I also do like the ending (once again if you somehow missed it, SPOILERS), in which Aeolath is defeated, Medina gets her Brodie designed tattoo (and completes her transformation into a pure metal chick), and while Zakk is brutally murdered, his soul still soars through the power of metal, which leads to a interesting conversation with him and Brodie after the credits (weird, did not think Marvel made this movie).

Spoilers end here

"Deathgasm" is a must watch for those who enjoy metal and British humour (even if it is made in New Zealand). It is not at all scary, but it will give you tons of good chuckles through all of its 80 minutes of play time. I even dare to say that this is the best thing that has come out of New Zealand since the "Lord of The Rings" movie trilogy. So if you want to have some fun this Halloween, "Deathgasm" is a great choice.

Rating: 8,5/10 Metal Zombies