Deathgasm

Four teenage boys unwittingly summon an ancient evil entity known as The Blind One by delving into black magic while trying to escape their mundane lives.

One part "Dead Alive", one part "Evil Dead 2", and a heaping scoop of "Todd and the Book of Pure Evil"... you have "Deathgasm", a movie that is both dark and hilarious, with over-the-top gore and some questionable sexual references (but never offensive, just uproarious).

New Zealand has really taken off as far as their film industry goes. I don't know if Peter Jackson injected them somehow or just got more people to notice the great things happening there... but whichever, there are some films from the last few years that are among the best in the horror genre.

Deathgasm is a splatter comedy about a metal band that plays a riff that turns people into demons. Being a metalhead myself, I found that the people who made the film don't really understand the subculture and rely heavily on stereotypes. Considering this is just campy fun and not too be taken too seriously, it did'nt bother me much. Plus , most metal fans that I know are horror fans too and this film is very influenced by The Evil Dead series as well as Peter Jackson gore classics Dead Alive and Bad Taste. I would not put this in the same class as the aforementioned classics, but I did enjoy it and delivers huge on gore with extreme metal as a backdrop. Deathgasm is a fun little horror flick with its tongue firmly planted in cheek and is good entertainment.

I've waited for this movie since it was announced. Then I saw the trailer which looked like movie is gonna be gory flick that doesn't take itself too seriously, while metal music plays in background... and movie is exactly that.

"Deathgasm" while not taking itself too seriously, it still hits all the marks of what made other horror-comedies like Evil Dead 2 and Braindead great. It has style, it has life, and enough gore to satisfy even hardcore horror fans. Story follows group of metalhead losers who accidentally play some "devil's music" which in fact is a summoning tune to some Arch Demon, and as rest of the people in town are turning into demons, it's up to our "losers" to save the world.

The Demons resemble Deadites from Evil Dead 2, which this movie clearly pays homage to among other several horror movies (most notable, Braindead). There's also a lot of dark humor and while some scenes do go crazy with gore, it never really gets over-the-top. It's all in good fun.

Screenplay itself pokes fun at metalhead stereotypes, with characters reacting to certain events with lines like "Brutal!" or "Metal!" (little nod to Metalocalypse). Production is rather good, much better then you would expect from this type of movie, and overall it looks lot more expensive then it's budget.

Some minor problems here and there (climax could have been a bit better), but nothing too troubling.

One of the best horror-comedies in a while, and if you love your metal and your horror, check it out.

Even more than zombies or maniacal killers, it's DEMONS that provide crazy horror directors with the most opportunities to go tremendously over-the-top in the gore and splatter department! Lamberto Bava knew it when he made "Demons" in 1985, Sam Raimi knew it when he accomplished his legendary "The Evil Dead" movies and apparently some pleasantly deranged New Zealander by the name of Jason Lei Howden knows it too, judging by the humongous gore- factor in his flick "Deathgasm". This recommendable little flick offers nothing new or even remotely original to the genre, but it definitely qualifies as pure and undemanding horror entertainment containing all the essential ingredients such as fast pacing, tongue-in-cheek dialogs, cute references towards movie/music classics and literally gallons of blood & pus! The basic plot concept cleverly plays with the ancient cliché that metal heads are Satan-worshipers and that the lyrics of their songs are aimed at summoning demons and other nasty creatures. In the sleepy little town of Greypoint, the social outcast Brodie coincidentally gets his geeky metal hands on music and lyrics called "the black hymn". When he and his amateur band called Deathgasm rehearse it in his uncle's garage, the universe's most evil force descends to earth and turns all villagers into bloodthirsty demons. Among all victims, Satan is scouting for the most evil human soul to possess and this just might be Brodie's metal buddy Zakk. "Deathgasm" is a fun movie, but certainly nothing more than that, and I wouldn't go as far as some of my fellow reviewers around here that label it as one of the best genre outing of the last years. The gore and make-up effects are well-handled but often too absurd and especially too tasteless for my liking. The best example to illustrate this is an extended sequence in which a supposedly normal middle-class and religious couple are beaten to death by the the sex-toys (like a gigantic black dildo and anal beads…) that are hidden in their bedroom. The funniest thing about New Zealand movies is that pretty much all cast and crew members previously worked on most of the Lord of the Ring movies, either as extras or as visual effects people. There are also a couple of cute references and tributes towards Peter Jackson's earliest splatter movies "Bad Taste" and "Braindead". Ideal stuff to watch late at night with a bunch of friends or – like I did – at a festival in the company of 200 gore-crazed horror freaks.

After his meth-addict mum is sent to a mental asylum, teenage metal-head Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) moves to the suburban town of Greypoint to live with his bible-bashing Uncle Albert (Colin Moy), Aunt Mary (Jodie Rimmer), and obnoxious cousin David (Nick Hoskins-Smith). There he befriends role playing game-nerds Dion and Giles (Sam Berkley and Daniel Cresswell) and wild rocker Zakk (James Blake), with whom he forms a band, Deathgasm.

When the guys chance upon and perform a song written by Satanic metal star Ricky Daggers (Stephen Ure), they unwittingly unleash a plague of demons that possess the locals and kill the living in order to pave the way for the coming of an ancient evil known as Aeloth, The Blind One. With the help of axe-wielding blonde hottie Medina (Kimberley Crossman), the metal-heads try to find a way to prevent Hell on Earth.

Is there anything more sublime in this world than a heavy metal horror movie? The world's foremost form of music fused with the greatest genre of film known to man to create an exquisite elysian experience for connoisseurs of peerless audio visual entertainment. If I'm brutally honest, the script for Deathgasm is a bit of a mess, the action lurching awkwardly from one scene to the next, but its combination of metal mayhem and outrageous splatter is so irresistible that a completely coherent narrative is of little consequence. The riffs are heavy and the gore is very gory (with the graphic dismemberment achieved through the use of practical effects), which is what matters most with this type of flick.

Directed by Jason Lei Howden, who clearly knows his music and his horror, Deathgasm owes a lot to the splatter classics of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, his film possessing a similarly energetic and madcap style. When the demons attack, anything and everything becomes a weapon: an angle grinder, an engine block, a chainsaw, an axe, a weed whacker, a big, black, double-ended dildo, some love beads, and a pair of vibrators. That's right… Deathgasm features a fight scene in which the heroes are armed with sex toys, which should give you some idea of just how demented the film really is.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.