DVD Review: Deathgasm (2015)

  

  Teenage metalhead Brodie is a black-wearing outcast in a small New Zealand town and not enjoying the experience.   His Christian uncle hates metal and keeps trying to baptise him in his sleep, while cousin David is a bullying douchebag who has somehow managed to get Medina, the hottest girl in school as his girlfriend. 

  Things start to look up when Brodie meets fellow metalhead and all-round bad-boy Zakk. As well as forming their own band with fellow outcasts Dion and Giles, the two headbangers start doing all kinds of naughty stuff. But when they break into the house of infamous metalhead, occultist and crazy person Rikki Daggers, Brodie ends up in possession of some old sheet music with spooky shit drawn all over it. 

  Naturally they play it.  

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, turning the entire town into demon-possessed zombies and a definite chance of unleashing a Demon King on the earth, for starters. 

  Considering Heavy Metal's long-standing love of the occult, gore and all things family unfriendly, there's a surprising lack of Metal-themed horror films. Besides 80s classic "Trick Or Treat" I can think of only "Hard Rock Zombies" and "Rock n Roll Nightmare" and those two are terrible.  Music's not that great either. 

  

  Luckily Deathgasm was put together by somebody who knows their metal, which means a thrashy soundtrack, some understanding of why people like this stuff and some metal stereotypes getting an affectionate slap across the back of the head.  

 If you've ever seen the "Call Of the Wintermoon" vid or flipped through a rack of Death Metal CDs thinking "Brutal cover, dude" I think you'll get this movie. 

 It seems to be a trademark of Kiwi horror that they mix up gore by the gallon, graphic bodily harm and humour and I'm pleased to say that Deathgasm keeps up that proud tradition. 

 One particular scene manages to include spilled entrails and some unusual improvised weaponry and the end result is hilarious and wince-inducing at the same time.  

 The story isn't that innovative - it's actually not far off the same plot as "Trick or Treat" and "Hard Rock Zombies" -  but is done reasonably well, if a little simply. There's no real surprises but I didn't mind. 

  I definitely give high marks to the FX team. Between the bloody carnage, the creature makeup and some chilling visuals  Deathgasm delivers as a horror movie. 

  Brodie is a lot more likeable than he should be, Zakk is the kind of sociopathic dick every metalhead has run into at some point and class cutie Medina gets more and more Metal as the film goes on.   

 As a final note the soundtrack is great and features a good mix of metal styles from the likes of Emperor, Skull Fist, Midnight and Elm Street.

To sum up: Deathgasm is an entertaining horror film that you can watch even if you're not a headbanger. But if you are, I reckon you're really going to dig this.

That's all folks.